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Transcendence is one of the records where Devin Townsend’s talent for making music sound impossibly enormous reaches its natural conclusion. Released in 2016, the seventh and ultimately final conventional studio album from the Devin Townsend Project combines progressive metal, huge melodic hooks, atmospheric passages and Townsend’s famously obsessive production into something simultaneously crushing and strangely uplifting.
There was an important change behind the scenes. Rather than constructing everything largely by himself, Townsend deliberately involved Dave Young, Brian Waddell, Mike St-Jean and Ryan Van Poederooyen more heavily in the writing process. The result still sounds unmistakably like Devin Townsend, but there’s a genuine band dynamic underneath the gigantic layers of guitars, keyboards and vocals. The album was recorded in Vancouver during March and April 2016.
The production is spectacularly dense without sacrificing the songs. Townsend moves effortlessly between aggression, atmosphere and huge choruses, while guest vocal appearances from Anneke van Giersbergen, Ché Aimee Dorval and Katrina Natale add further colour to an already enormous sonic palette. The closing interpretation of Ween’s “Transdermal Celebration” is particularly inspired: rather than treating it as a novelty cover, Townsend completely absorbs it into the DTP universe.
What makes this Limited Edition 2CD Digipak considerably more interesting than the standard CD, however, is Holding Patterns. The complete second disc contains 11 additional recordings, combining demos with finished bonus material. It’s effectively a companion album, offering another 43 minutes or so of music from the Transcendence sessions. Contemporary commentary noted that even many of Townsend’s demos have a remarkably finished quality, making Holding Patterns far more substantial than the usual collection of disposable deluxe-edition extras.
For collectors, this is therefore the version of Transcendence to have on CD. You get the complete ten-track album alongside an entire second disc that provides a fascinating alternative view of the sessions, all housed in the Special Edition digipak package. The German National Library’s catalogue also specifically identifies this edition as containing the 11-track Holding Patterns bonus CD.
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Tracklisting:
CD 1 – Transcendence
CD 2 – Holding Patterns
