Devin Townsend Appreciation Thread

HemispheresOfXanadu wrote: Raccoon wrote: I do like Metal a lot, but I have never really liked grunting. And that's something that has annoyed me about bands like Epica, Tristania, Haggard, Opeth, because I like lot's of their music, but the grunting ruins it, so I have chosen only the songs that are clean of those bands to listen to. However, I kind of have the feeling that those extreme, or harsh vocals that Devin uses may not be so annoying for me. There's a song on The Human Equation from Ayreon in which Devin has a very harsh grunting moment, and I might say that's one of the very few, if not the only grunting I have been able to enjoy so far (there may be one or two songs with grunting that I enjoy, but that is despite the grunting). Still, I hope he uses enough clean singing in his albums, just in case. What about a mix of grunting and clean vocals? That's what Devin's all about. And it seems like Biomech has no growling, so that may be a good place to start. The whole album's amazing, though it might take a little time to realize its brilliance. I don't think Devin grunts, too. He yells, that's for sure. But every lyric is clear. Heavier songs like Vampira has yelling and screaming, but no grunts. I think he technically does 'growl' but for him it just sounds more like a really, really raw shout (as opposed to Mikael Akerfeldt etc.). For the most part his growls are in the background to augment screams, I think. You can kinda hear an instance of this at 3:00 of Vampira. He can sing lower than his growls, though, it seems:

Grunting, growling, shouting, cookie monster vocals, however it's called, all those kind of harsh vocals aren't particularly my taste, and most likely will put me off a song/album/artist. Even if it's mixed with clean vocals, the harsh ones will most likely ruin it. But as I said, Devin might just as well be the exception, I guess I'll see. I guess the problem for me is the over-use of those kind of vocals... if it were only one song I might actually love it, just as with "Careful with that axe, Eugene" from Pink Floyd, which is awsome... but if they released a whole instrumental album full of screaming, I'm sure I would hate it... and if a whole sub-genre of music was built around just screaming to otherwise instrumental ominous music, it would be the most dull genre I could imagine.