REVIEW/ 8/28/24 ZILTOID THE OMNISCIENT BY DEVIN TOWNSEND

The first album I'd like to review is Ziltoid by Devin Townsend. Many of you know this has been a long time coming, my constant use of it on my instagram stories, the fact I listen to ZILTOIDIA ATTAXX!!! on repeat at work, and the fact I've alluded to reviewing it like twice now. It's the quintessential "rock-opera" prog metal album, to me atleast. It may not be good as prog metal that it spawned, but it's truly a marvel, and one of the most important prog metal albums. Before Devin Townsend went into the music scene, Metal, and Prog metal didn't really have a foil, that-is-to-say rock has prog rock, and punk rock, but metal had... heavy metal..? There wasn't really any innovation to the general understanding of metal, each metal genre, aside from most "modern" ones are just metal but we play darker, or we play louder, or we play even riffier, but with prog metal it took the heaviness, and harshness of metal, but made it flow more with more technical play, and diverse and innovative instrument use. By the time Strapping Young Lad, Devin Townsends first group, prog metal was a thing, it was just, like, proto stoner metal, or music best listened to high, strapping yound lads thesis was to be a metal band that has the energy, and harshness as any other metal band, but with the high technical play of the niche prog metal bands did, and they succeeded, being on high profile shows with the likes of Megadeth and didn't get boo'd out! Later in Strapping Young Lads venture, Devin disbanded due to mental health reasons, and made his solo projects in the early 00s. This stuff ranges from your average prog metal reaching nirvana one crackpipe at a time type music, to literal samples, but everything changed... with Ziltoid... Similar to how Strapping Young Lad wanted to reinvent metal, Ziltoid The Omniscient (zto) wanted to take prog metal and make it, story driven, sure music, and especially metal are no stranger to stories, concept albums existed for decades, but none delved into character, or had music that adhered to the general understanding of music theory, and none really strived to any real technical play into the experience, other than... ZILTOID!!! Ziltoid easily made perfect scores in music sites, and magazines, everyone loved Ziltoid! It's fun, its energitic, its moody, its goofy, and it's influence shows. Haken has stated they've taken influence from Devin, and it's no question that most of the UK prog scene is atleast somewhat influenced by Haken... Even if not directly influenced the fact that you can find almost all modern concept albums taking some direction from zto shows the sheer influence it has on story driven albums. It's quintessential, its omniscient.