ZILTOID THE OMNISCIENT

A solo project in the truest sense from DEVIN TOWNSEND where he presents ZILTOID THE OMNISCIENT, an album so hilarious and creative that it could have even been worthy of being in Zappa's discography. This is a concept album about a pretentious alien named Ziltoid who hails from the planet Ziltoida 9 and for some reason he decides to travel all the way to Earth in order to find the universe's ultimate cup of coffee. Yeah, a little far-fetched but in a good way. This reminds me of those Looney Tunes with Bugs Bunny and that Martian dude when he was trying to blow up planets and always got foiled by that wiley wabbit.

Devin played every single instrument on this album including the drum programming from a software program called Drumkit From Hell which was graciously provided to him by Frederik Thordendal of Meshuggah. He also wrote all the music, mixed and produced it. Devin admits that he basically withdrew from the world for four months and worked incessantly on this album in the Ziltoid cave ironing out every detail and to great success I declare.

The album flows brilliantly. This is basically first and foremost a story to be told with the music accompanying it appropriately, so maybe this could be considered a heavy metal musical of sort. An accomplished mix of his aggressive Strapping Young Lads days mixed with his more ambient solo works. Lots of nods to different types of metal in here as well. All in all a well-executed delivery system of one of the most ridiculous album themes ever to be released. In addition to creating the perfect musical accompaniment, Devin nails all the vocalizations in their corresponding roles as well, but I have to admit that when the Planet Smasher's voice enters the cast I keep expecting him to say "ME WANT COOKIE!"