EMPATH

Amazing production values, some very nice work with choir and orchestra - but still feels like a solo artist trapped in his basement and having too much fun with crazy stuff. Townsend's a genius, but he needs someone to balance his bipolar temper. Some parts are divine, some parts just obnoxious. You can really enjoy his humor, his riffs and his unpredictable transitions - but this mess-of-sound doesn't completely gel into the majestic masterpiece Devin was probably aiming for. So you can clearly enjoy 40-60% percent of this product, but almost nobody can really come to grips with what Devin is throwing at us all the time. The biggest concern is the wacky atmosphere, drowning any attempt to get serious about "Empath". You never know if it's all just a big, fat joke with huge reverb. Devin jumps from Opera to his kitchen to a mainstream guitar riff to some other planet. And the final result is perplexing - fun but not pure fun. You want to get absorbed in every track, but Devin's not willing to play ball with stylistic conventions. In the end, this is a giant theme park of ideas - some of them monstrously original, some of them childish. So I'm not sorry for spending time on this generous CD, but I can't recommend it to everyone. It's just too quaint to be emotionally logical.