DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT: ADDICTED

Addicted as a full-length studio album release by Canadian artist Devin Townsend. The album is released under the Devin Townsend Project monicker. Addicted was released through HevyDevy Records/Inside Out in November 2009. In addition to Devin Townsend on vocals, guitar and electronics, the album is graced by the female vocals by former The Gathering vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen. The drums are handled by Ryan Van Poederooyen, the bass is played by Brian Waddell and Mark Cimino plays guitar.

The music is melodic heavy rock/ metal with the signature Devin Townsend wall of sound production and instrumentation. The songs are mostly pretty simple, so don´t expect this to be one of his more demanding releases. What you get here are good melodies and above all a great mostly positive atmosphere. It´s the kind of album that makes me happy when I listen to it. Devin Townsend and Anneke van Giersbergen compliment each other very well and it´s nice to hear a female voice singing some of Devin´s songs. The songs are all of good quality but seldom reach real excellence in my book. The reworking of Hyperdrive! from Ziltoid the Omniscient (2007) works very well though and is a semi-highlight here for me. Ih-ah! is probably as close to commercial pop that Devin Townsend will ever get, but he proves that it´s a genre he masters too.

Addicted is another well produced, well played and well composed album by Devin Townsend and I´ve raised my rating from 3 to 3.5 stars after having listened to the album a bit more. Initially I felt the songs didn´t stand out from each other but repeated listens have proven me wrong and a 3.5 star rating is deserved.