DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT Transcendence CD (2016)

There's no one in heavy music quite like Devin Townsend, a man who has spent thirty years building his own universe and inviting you to live in it whether you're ready or not. Transcendence arrived in 2016 as one of the Devin Townsend Project's most expansive statements, a prog metal record that swings between crushing heaviness and genuinely transcendent atmosphere without ever losing the thread.

Townsend pulled back classic DTP vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen for this one, and her presence gives the album an emotional gravity that balances out the sheer sonic ambition on display. There are moments here that recall the orchestral enormity of Addicted and the dense prog architecture of Epicloud, but Transcendence has its own logic. If you're coming from progressive metal, ambient, or the heavier end of alternative, this is a record that rewards the time you put into it.

CD, standard packaging. Canadian origin. Genre: progressive metal, progressive rock, ambient.

Fans of: Strapping Young Lad, Gojira, Leprous, Oceans, Pain Of Salvation, Opeth, Soen.