Most folks know I'm stupid for pretty much everything that the Canadian musical mastermind Devin Townsend puts out.  It all started with an innocent purchase of Strapping Young Lad's Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing back in 1994, then led to some emails betwixt myself and his future wife, Tracy, and pretty soon Ocean Machine came out, then the next SYL album, then Infinity...I was fucking HOOKED but good.  In case you haven't noticed, Devin has a LOT of side projects.  The Devin Townsend Band is the latest, and Accelerated Evolution is completely and totally unexpected.

    Probably the only Devy project that can be stuffed into a category is Strapping Young Lad, which is straight-up metal.  Most of his other stuff straddles the lines between genres, and DTB certainly falls into the classification of unclassifiable.  It's too heavy for mainstream rockers, too melodic for metalheads.  Not artsy enough for prog, but WAY too artsy for the "nu-metal" crowd.  Prior to its release, I seem to recall Devin saying that DTB is his attempt at mainstream rock, complete with lyrics about relationships, love and all that other stuff.  But Accelerated Evolution is just not nearly catchy enough for mainstream acceptance.

    That's not to say that this is a bad record because it's very good.  In my opinion, the only weak effort that Devin has put out was Physicist, but that's because it seemed far too one-dimensional to me.  DTB is in the veins of Terria or Ocean Machine, but...goddammit, it's just NOT!!  Heavy guitar hooks, metronomically precise drumming from the cumbersomely-named Ryan Van Poederooyen and Devin's best vocal effort to date make this a solid listen for anyone.  Far and away, it's the most controlled of all of Devin's works; even Terria rocked harder and faster than Accelerated Evolution does.  Er, mostly.  (Both "Depth Charge" and "Random Analysis" shred pretty good.)  I guess the best way to put this is that it's very deliberately paced (the eerily lonesome, but never boring "Away") and seems to know exactly where it's going and what it set out to do.

    Lyrically, this disc has some of the most mainstream content that Devin's ever done, focusing mostly on love and relationships, as would be expected for a "mainstream" rock album.  (As my Program Director at Z Rock once said, "Every great rock song should involve either love, drugs or violence."  He's right, by the way.)  Only "Random Analysis" shows Devin's wry wit, with classic lines like, "I'm not insane, I'm not insane...I'm just smarter than you" and "But I'm loving/...And insecure/...And just a little bit violent/But I know for sure/I'm here for your entertainment."  One of my favorite passages ever is from Terria's "Earth Day," where Devin yells, "So shut your face/And take a seat/'Cuz after all you're just talking meat/And music..." the music stops and he deadpans, "Well, it's just entertainment, folks."  Yes, you can expect stuff like this from Devin Townsend.

    Over the years, production has been hit and miss for Devin's stuff.  The first SYL album had a very muddy sound to it, and the guitars and vocals drowned out everything else.  Physicist had an incredible metallic sheen to the production, almost keyed in the mid-treble area; some days it's just hard to listen to.  Accelerated Evolution blends together the studio polish of Infinity, the shimmer of Physicist and the organic, earthy sound of Terria to form a nearly flawless rock'n'roll sounding record.  It's absolutely spot-on and fits the music perfectly.  I've found that listening to it on headphones actually lets you hear more of the electronics and samples than you would get on a larger stereo.

    The cover and liner art by Travis Smith of Seempieces borrows heavily from the Physicist layout, but, fittingly, evolves it into something wholly new.  It's very clean, bright and metallic, and looks to show what appears to be the Physicist logo undergoing metamorphosis.  I'm not sure if Smith also did the logo for the Devin Townsend Band, but it's hella sweet. (That's it on the left)

    The Limited Edition CD also comes with yet another Devy project, this one called Project EKO.  According to the liner notes, EKO is some demo material that Devin did in 2002.  Given my penchant for anime soundtracks, I'm sure I'm one of the few Devin Townsend fans who actually like EKO, let alone tolerate it.  It's very, very electronic, and to me it sounds like a soundtrack to a low-budget anime like New Dominion Tank Police or Demon City Shinjuku or something.  Being more harsh, one could say that it sounds like the generic filler music that beds some hentai anime *previews.*  Suffice it to say that you have to be a fan, one way or the other.  Project EKO (maybe related to Project A-Ko?) takes Accelerated Evolution's non-Devy-ness to heretofore unimagined realms.  It's not necessarily bad, just immediately forgettable; there's nothing here to distinguish it from middling electronic music.  If the Devin Townsend Band is laid-back and controlled, Project EKO is prone and catatonic.

    So what's the bottom line here?  If you're a fan of Devin Townsend's music, you will really, really enjoy Accelerated Evolution.  While it's not the pinnacle of his career, or even the culmination of it, it's without question the *result* of everything he's ever done, from the IR8 one-off with Jason Newstead (formerly of Metallica) to the fake punk hilarity of Punky Brüsster.  All the ups, all the downs...pretty much everything that Devin has learned in the music business is here in this CD, and I'll be damned if I can figure out where he's going to go with it next.

Rating: Simplistically Complex, Thoroughly Enjoyable out of 10