Review Summary: Ignored at the time, Ocean Machine: Biomech is today lauded as one of Devin Townsend's greatest albums and a precursor to the Devin Townsend Project as a whole.
Hot off the heels of Strapping Young Lad’s
City – a landmark heavy metal album and an enormous success – all was not well with Devin Townsend. As someone who used music to channel his emotions, Townsend had used Strapping Young Lad as an outlet for his deeply repressed anger – an anger he now felt trapped by (Townsend’s time in SYL was mired with a host of psychological issues and emotional breakdowns). Desperate for an emotional release, Townsend retreated to a small oceanside studio with a few unpaid friends and a shoestring budget to independently record
Ocean Machine: Biomech – an album many consider to be the precursor to the Devin Townsend Project as a whole. Ignored at the time, it is today lauded as one of his greatest works.
After a short, distorted poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ocean Machine opens with the iconic
Seventh Wave. The production hits you immediately – the album feels like, well, an ocean. The guitar is enormously heavy and noisy, a tsunami rolling over the listener – and yet, somehow it is not overwhelming. This is an intensely atmospheric album, marked by a distinct production and instrumental style. Townsend’s vocal performance is – for his work at the time – very experimental, as he switches between a myriad of styles. At times, he sings in a low croon; at others he screams to be heard over the almighty torrent of instrumentation (note that his voice is never lost in this “wall of sound”). Following Seventh Wave is
Life – an upbeat, light-on-its-feet…pop song? In many ways Life comes off as the antithesis to SYL, featuring bubbly synths and a passionate, mostly-clean vocal delivery (you could argue that this song is a sort of prototype for 2009's
Addicted, if you wanted). Things take a darker turn with
Night, a fast-moving and darker song about Townsend’s experience in Japan. “Rain…/Falling down” he sings, furthering the Ocean theme – one way or another, water is all around him. Vocally and lyrically, this song comes off as somewhat mournful – it is a precursor of things to come. Closing up the first section of the album is
Hide Nowhere: a straightforward, pop-infused rock song featuring staccato guitar riffs and anthemic, clean vocals (do I detect a hint of Epicloud?).
Sister smoothly transitions the album into what I internally refer to as its “interlude.” Wistful, simplistic guitar plays over quiet, ambient noise as thunder rolls peacefully overhead. The rain is gone for now, but the thunder makes it clear that it will return – and it does.
3AM opens near-silently – Townsend sings quietly over a simple, barely present synth. This song is reflective and deeply nostalgic – it conveys perfectly the sense of being up at 3AM while everyone sleeps around you, taking stock of all that you have done, be it in the night preceding or your life in its entirety. Despite its minimalism, 3AM is a deeply powerful track, and one of my favorites. Near the end, a distorted riff plays, and this riff soon transforms itself into the rollicking
Voices in the Fan, another one of my favorites. Townsend yells over churning instrumentation and a distinct, instantly recognizable and extremely catchy riff. Although it comes across as relatively simplistic, part of what makes Voices in the Fan such an enjoyable song is the way that it shows off many of the best aspects of Ocean Machine while still managing to be catchy and enjoyable. Next up is
Greetings, which opens with an airy, high-pitched riff before kicking back into heaviness with a pounding chorus. Last in this section is
Regulator, a song that at times sounds borderline desert-rock-esque (although it’s far too well-produced to fit under such a moniker). Regulator features some of Townsend’s heaviest, stutter-iest riffs matched with pounding drums and hoarse, shouted vocals. In many ways, however, it feels simply like a warmup session for “The Trio” – the next three songs that make up the cornerstone of this album.
“The Trio” begins with
Funeral. Opening with a stripped down, repeating guitar, Funeral briefly fools you into believing this is another Sister or 3AM before segueing into churning riffs and surprisingly high-tuned guitar. The instrumentation on this track is wistful, sometimes even regretful – and Townsend’s vocals are only more so. “Jesus/Here lies my brother” Townsend cries out. “Tortured and bowed/Stretched for the heavens and go…/I watch him go”. Written about the death of one of Townsend’s close friends, Funeral deals with grief in an almost upbeat way as the chorus remarks, with an almost grimacing delivery, that “This one’s for the funeral in the rain”. But Townsend breaks almost immediately. “And the day’s gone/And the year’s gone/And I don’t know when I’m coming home” he screams, straining his voice to the limit. Immediately, we return to that winking chorus, but what we’ve heard cannot be unheard. “I don’t need your home!” Townsend cries out, but we know this to be a lie. Funeral slowly fades into quiet instrumentation and the sounds of seagulls and waves – the sound of the ocean, the thing that has haunted Townsend since the beginning of the album. It is here, in the thirty seconds between Funeral and the next song,
Bastard, that Townsend breaks.
Bastard opens with a dark, gloomy riff that lingers alongside the ambient noises of Funeral before kicking into an impossibly heavy, piano-backed riff. Before Townsend has even spoke the song is openly mournful, the guitar somehow managing to convey a deep sense of grief and loss. By the time Townsend finally speaks, we are on the edge of our seats. “Night time/Turn around/Lonely is the city tonight” he croons, the music going silent – as if to spotlight his sorrow - before kicking back into its relentless grief. “Bastard!” he screams. “Mother/Father/No!/Time passes quicker/Than you will ever know!” His delivery is pure tragedy, an instantly impassioned vocal performance. It is here, in Bastard, that Devin Townsend finally bares his soul – the insecurity, the sadness, the grief lurking in the heart of a deeply troubled man. An absolute monster of a track, Bastard sets impossibly high goals and perfectly accomplishes every one of them. It would be, in many ways, the perfect closer to an already excellent album – but this isn’t over yet. Like Funeral before it, Bastard ends in ambient noise, however, in
The Death of Music it stays that way. The longest cut on the album, Death of Music plays through ambient music underscored by a low, Nine-Inch-Nails-esque synth before gradually leading into quiet, strained vocals. Despite being the quietest, driest, longest track on the album, this is undoubtedly its centerpiece: Townsend quietly singing to himself after the cacophony and destruction of the previous two songs. After Bastard, Death of Music almost feels like a come-down, even as Townsend reaches impossible emotional highs with what might very well be his best performance on the entire album. In true Ocean Machine fashion, Death of Music slowly fades away, opening to the somber, simplistic
Things Beyond Things. The album ends on a deeply somber note…or does it? After a few seconds of silence, Townsend lets out a harrowing (and very loud) scream. Is this a practical joke from an artist with a well-established sense of humor, or a statement on the album as a whole? Ultimately, it’s up to the listener to decide. Ocean Machine ends not with a whimper, but a triumphant – and terrifying – bang.
