Metal Reviews

Which CD is the one to start with?

Wrong forum dude. You could start with any of them and be satisfied, but for their best go with City, Alien, and if you're a fan of Devin's solo work get The New Black.

I don't think Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing is the best album to start with. I'd say any of the others is fine.

City - best
Alien - most accesible

Alien is not the most accessible!

It's got their catchiest and most memorable songs...

I would disagree and say it has their most chaotic material. The New Black is easily the most accessible, with City following. Then SYL and Alien. HAARHT is probably the hardest to get into because it's a bit disjointed, and not all that great.

I haven't heard the debut, but here's my $0.02.

phew

City and Alien are the two most chaotic and inaccessible, but probably the best two.

The self-titled and The New Black are more accessible (SYL being a lot more straightforward and TNB being a lot more melodic) but not really that representative of what the "true" Strapping Young Lad is generally accepted to sound like.

Anyway, I'd also recommend Alien as a good place to start.

Heavy as a Really Heavy thing is pretty raw and amateurish sounding. In the re-issue Devin writes that he only gave a shit about the first two songs (In The Rainy Season and S.Y.L) and the rest were pretty much just demo tracks.

Yep. But there are some damn good moments on some of the not-so-great songs.

And per the comment above, I'd venture to say there is no "true" SYL sound. No album sounds alike. I understand that people view SYL as balls-out heaviness, but there is a lot of melody on a lot of songs on each album.

I'd go for City, it's got their 3 most famous songs on there

Well city IMO is the most chaotic and it's "rawer" than his other albums.

Alien is more accesible than City because it has a lot more melody, and it's overall just a lot less overwhelming in its crazyness. I wouldn't call TNB a good introduction to SYL because it sucks.

It sucks to YOU because you fail to understand the person who wrote it. You expect SYL to sound a certain way, and you did not get that with TNB. If it were a Devin Townsend album you'd be far less critical.

With that said, Alien is not more accessible than City. The most choatic part of City is parts of "Oh My Fucking God." "Home Nucleonics" is an insanely fast and heavy song, but very structured. The same goes for "Underneath The Waves." There are no other extremely heavy songs on City.

But none as crazy as those that are on Alien.

Actually yes! You've had me right the whole time, I obviously know nothing about the musician who I've considered my favourite for the last two years and listened to all of his albums (except the new black) at least 100 times each. The songs aren't shallow and rushed, I was just expecting them to be heavy and misjudged them because they aren't! How silly of me. Clearly the fact that Devin released it less than 6 months after his last album and right before Ozzfest (then expressed his frustration with the music industry) has nothing to do with the quality and emotional value of the music! I feel so dumb for reading between the lines like that and being totally wrong!

btw what exactly are the crazy songs on Alien? Imperial and Shitstorm are fairly overwhelming but I wouldn't say any more so than Oh My Fucking God or Home Nucleonics. It just has some more experimental stuff like Shine, Thalamus, Skeksis and Zen.

Do you have any idea how long it has taken Devin to write other albums? Of course you don't. The New Black may have only taken 6 months, but 6 months is a long fucking time, dude! Just because your favorite emo band spends 2 years in pre-production means nothing! A real musician can write a killer album in just a few weeks time! Devin Townsend did just that, as he always has.

You're reading between the lines trying to discredit something like its worthless simply so you can feel like your opinion is correct! The New Black is by far the most dynamic SYL yet, the depth of this album is the complete opposite of shallow, dude! And "rushed" means nothing at all! Devin wrote and recorded the entire Punky Bruster album in a week's time!

So inconclusion, yes, you are totally wrong—not in your opinion that you dislike the album, but in your attempts at "factually" discrediting the album to justify that opinion, and disprove any other opinion—and you have, indeed, misjudged.

Strapping Young Lad is avant-garde? Or another borderline genre? Whatever...I just put it in General Music Discussion because I really don't know what they are.

I'm thinking probably City, Alien, or The New Black...I don't own anything by Devin Townsend, so whatever The New Black sounds like in terms of his other stuff doesn't really matter to me. I dunno, it seems like everyone has a different opinion...

EDIT: And oh yeah, not that it really matters but Dream Theater recorded Train of Thought in three weeks...and it rules.

I just think of TNB as shallow because I really liked it for the first 5 listens, then after a week I just totally stopped listening to it. Then I bought it when it came out but whenever I put it on it just makes me wish I was listening to pretty much any other Devin album.

It's all opinion, dude.

And Nate, SYL belongs in here because it really just doesn't fit in any other forum.

Just what I was thinking...I couldn't figure out where to put them.

I'll just have to see what the record store has. I dunno, it might be awhile before I get something by them...I'm broke and I want to check out Nevermore's Dead Heart right now.