At last, Devin Townsend released his second album this year.
It´s heavy, crushing and … poppy!
Also, it´s his most entertaining since Accelerated Evolution (2003).
Starts with two fairly brutal tracks and then dives into various flavors of heavy pop waters and stays there till the end.
Everything typical for Townsend is there - dense arrangements, crushing guitars, clean and harsh vocals, etc. Compared to the most of his others, songs are generally shorter, contain more melodic hooks, some incredible "operatic" vocal parts and, probably most importantly, prominent use of one and only Anneke van Giersbergen´s cute voice.
Album is very diverse within the above mentioned mantinels and as a whole has just about perfect flow.
I´m a big fan of the dude so I may be a bit, eh, biased, but … it´s album of the year! Highly recommended to all rock fans here.
Devin Townsend - Addicted (2009)
Supercrush! (features this year´s most epic chorus)
Hyperdrive! (very airy song with female vocals only)
Ih-Ah! (by far the album´s most cheesy song, works marvellously within the context)
Awake! (rather unusual album´s epic closer nicely summarizing album´s diverse nature)
As a bonus:
Devin Townsend Unleashed - a part of Townsend´s guitar tutorials, first three minutes are quite usual guitar playing but then the guy goes absolutely nuts and it´s very very funny.