Devin Townsend
Empath

Release Date: 2019 | Tracklist

Empath could be metaphorically described as a big dinner table chock full of appetizers. There’s meat, fish, soup, hot and cold dishes, deserts, you name it. It’s all there, and you can taste all of it, but only in small mouthfuls. Devin Townsend is a great cook, and has cooked almost all of the dishes on display before, in actual meal sized portions. Today though, you get a big tasting of everything he has in his pantry. Why？Not necessarily because he wants YOU to taste it, but because he loves cooking, and this is what he wanted to cook. What he needed to cook.

Chef plays host today, and you will be pampered! But before we start off, Mister Townsend bids you to sit down, relax and let it all wash over you with a nice coconut milk (little parasol and all).

The soothing sounds of “Castaway” are not what you would expect as a starter, but they give a very smooth opening that finds you on the wonderful beaches of Hawaii. For some reason, a choir of angels starts singing a hymn to guide you on your journey to come.

Before you had a couple of sips, the host is back, takes the glass from you and sits you on the big dinner table. ”The aperitif is something bold. An explosion of flavor that leaves hints of every dish you will taste today” says Mister Townsend as he hands you a big spoon full of what looks like a bit of barbeque ribs with cheese on a bed of spinach topped off with a strawberry sauce. The taste is all over the place, and there are hints of even more ingredients that you cannot quite make out until you pay attention to the subtleties of the dish. You enjoy it a lot for what it is, but you can immediately name ten people who would spit it out and just angrily leave the room.

“Genesis” has everything. Anything and everything, except for, maybe, cohesion. It tries by having an actual chorus, but all the different parts in between are all over the place. It goes from blast beats to disco to groove to kittens meowing. It’s bipolar in a six-minute cocktail, a wonderful mess of a song that gets all your taste buds prickling with excitement.

Three small dishes follow. The first is a good little dish that is a little forgettable because you ate something similar yesterday. You are here for something new, not more of the same. The second is a spinach dish. It has the flavors of the aperitif, but with less ingredients, which give the dish more of its own personality and makes it easier on the tongue. After this your host starts to tell you a little children’s story while handing you the third dish, which is a weird combination of ingredients that do not really seem to mix well together or to go anywhere. The story is a little silly and it is unclear why this dish was included for our tasting to begin with.

I enjoy “Spirits Will Collide” but it's a little too similar to what he did on Transcendence and Epicloud (grand, big sounding and poppy). Because of this, I find it hard to fully enjoy it for what it is yet. I have had a little too much of this sound recently. “Evermore” does sound like “Genesis” with more direction and structure. It’s a diverse song, built around a strong rhythm part that keeps coming back with slight variations and that build up to a fantastic ending. “Sprite” is the only song on Empath that I cannot get into, for it lacks direction. The other chaotic songs on Empath have some sort of climax or clever use of themes to tie it all together. “Sprite” lacks this completely. The entire affair meanders on and becomes formless, rather than progressive.

With a stupid grin on his face, Mister Townsend hands you a plate with a lid on top. Then, he just stands there chuckling to himself with a mad glint in his eyes, his arms behind his back while you remove the lid to see that the plate is empty. Out of the blue, the guy reveals a big juicy steak from behind his back and starts slapping you in the face with it. After you recover from the initial shock and absurdity of it, you manage to grab the steak out from his hands. You remove the sauce from your eyes and take a bite out of the juicy meat, only to feel your head grow red as a tomato. “Holy ***” you manage to shout as you take another bite. This is the spiciest thing he’s cooked in years.

Afterwards you crave for some refreshment, and your kind host is happy to oblige. He hands you a glass of liquid that turns out to be a sickly sweet but fine wine. It’s subtle, pompous and delicious. Even though you know it would ruin your appetite, you crave to drink this for the remainder of the evening.

Wow. “Hear Me” is the heaviest thing Devin Townsend has done since his SYL days. It’s an insane power trip that leaves you dizzy with its aggression and pure, unrelenting fury. This honestly puts “Poltergeist” to shame. The following “Why？” is the first truly new thing he’s done on Empath, namely the usage of a classical orchestra. It’s basically a full orchestral piece that gives a lot of room for Devin to display his best vocal work to date. If his next album would be more like this, I would devour it without thinking twice, because I absolutely adore it! It’s cinematic, catchy and has a musical quality to it that I really enjoy.

You are slowly getting satisfied by this point, but you are not there just yet. Luckily, the next tasting is refreshing and exactly what you need. At first it looks like a big plate of pasta, but you quickly notice that half of it is a delicious light salad that combines perfectly with it. You finish your pasta and notice that the angelic choir is back to bring you your small, but tasty dessert.

“Borderlands” feels like a turning point for the album lyric-wise. Where before he was singing that the entire world was bleeding and his faith was all wrong, now he has found a positive attitude and maybe even enlightenment. “There’s a sign on the Borderlands. It says: Shine like the galaxy, and woe to all who fear this”. The song is a journey in and off itself. The book-ending parts are very groovy, but the middle consists of purely meditational music.

You almost grab your jacket and intend to leave, and then remember that the menu said that there was still a big epic plate full of food to come. Even though you already feel full to the brim, you decide it would be rude to leave now and sit yourself back down while your host presents you with his final dishes.

The plate contains no less than six different, bite sized creations that feel like a culmination of all the things you have tasted before, only more so and combined into one big plate full of amazing bites. It starts off very light and goes through salty, sour and bitter, to end in a sweet explosion of epic proportions. It leaves you lightheaded and a little overwhelmed.

The big epic of the album: “Singularity” is as diverse as “Genesis” but takes more time to put all the different genres on display. It builds on the different styles and generally only gives us one style per part, which makes the parts themselves much more cohesive. Some clever use of different themes glue the parts together and prevent it from becoming random. The final part “Here comes the Sun” needs a special shout-out. It is a brilliant, cathartic explosion that combines heavy chugging with smooth uplifting vocals. It's a soaring climax that is breathtaking and glorious.

Empath is a little too much to digest at once. It is so layered and so overflowing with ideas, that it takes time and patience to give it all its right place. Yet when it does, it's the perfect sample of what Devin Townsend is capable off when he has no restrictions. In that regard, it is the perfect starting point for new listeners. They probably won’t like all of it, but you can certainly point them in the direction of albums they would like based on their taste.

Your host closes the doors behind you with the words “If you can shine for you, friend, please shine for me”. You see that he himself has undergone a transformation. He seems more at peace with himself and his craft than when you both started, which brings a smile to your face as you walk away, sick from eating too much, but deeply satisfied.

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