ALBUM REVIEW: Acoustically Inclined, Live in Leeds – Devin Townsend

Given that 2019 saw Canadian metal maestro DEVIN TOWNSEND release and tour the most complex and bombastic work of his entire career to date with the stunning Empath, it’s perhaps no surprise that the next we’d hear from him would be a touch more restrained. Having spent much of the time since that record’s pre-emptively-curtailed-by-COVID cycle both putting on a series of online charity concerts and working on a complex soon-to-be-released multimedia album project known as The Puzzle apparently set to encompass both music described in recent interviews as “abstract, stream-of-conscious, super-complicated, complex, ambient nonsense”, an hour-long film and a graphic novel, we now find Townsend in the meantime set to begin the Devolution Series – a collection the man himself describes as a “grouping of oddities and interesting material that I would like people to hear, but don’t necessarily want to present as a ‘major release’”. Recorded in April 2019 at City Varieties in Leeds, England during the UK leg of the An Evening With Devin Townsend acoustic tour that would precede Empath’s own proper tour cycle, the first of these releases is a remixed version of the Live in Leeds record previously released as part of the Empath Ultimate Edition.

Rather fittingly for such an intimately-staged show, before we get to the meat of the record, there’s a six and a half minute Intro track during which Devin introduces the concept of the tour, forgets both the date and day to much audience amusement, and finally proceeds to soundcheck his gear live with a beautiful ethereal piece of improv that leads into opener proper Let It Roll from 2006’s Synchestra. Stripped almost as far back as it’s possible to be, Townsend’s alternately booming and tender vocals are left all the room in to world with which to make their impact here amid an echoing texture of tenderly-picked acoustic guitar, but of course Devin being Devin, the original track’s abrasive vocal-frying screams still make themselves known, cutting right through the mix and as venomous-sounding as ever.

Devin himself is of course no stranger to acoustic tours, having played the UK in such capacity back in 2015 and more recently in the US as a support act for Swedish melodic death-metallers AVATAR mere months after the recording of this album, so obviously there’s an existing expectation for the songs he might pull from his colossal back catalogue for the rest of the evening, and the man more than delivers. Whereas there’s plenty of cuts you’d expect to translate rather well to the acoustic format such as Ocean Machine: Biomech closer Things Beyond Things, Terminal and Coast from Ki, and Addicted’s ever-stunning Ih-Ah!, there remain curveballs thrown in to keep listeners guessing – most notably when Townsend breaks out the normally face-meltingly heavy Love? by former band STRAPPING YOUNG LAD and transforms it into a slow-burn and genuinely menacing crawl of a song, much to the audible nervous amusement of his audience. Again sacrificing precisely no opportunity for showing off his ridiculous vocal prowess by throwing in both the requisite feral roars of the track’s verses as well as its’ falsetto chorus in between cracking jokes, it’s a massive highlight of an already greatly impressive set and greatly serves to highlight Townsend’s skill as a performer.

Naturally, being such a sonically-barebones release (a sharp contrast to Empath’s layers-upon-layers wall of sound production), the focus being placed more or less entirely on Devin’s vocal performance yields perhaps the most raw and exposed version of Townsend we’ve heard in years, and it’s this that is perhaps Acoustically Inclined…’s greatest strength. By taking things completely back to basics, fans are able to get a glimpse at DEVIN TOWNSEND’s song writing at its’ absolute purest and discover how remarkably well some of these previously beefed-up songs work in a more intimate format.

What else that remains in the Devolution Series vault is yet to be revealed, but if this first part is any indicator of overall quality, then fans of ‘Hevy Devy’ are undoubtedly set for one hell of a great stopgap as they wait for Townsend to unleash The Puzzle and projects beyond.

Rating: 8/10

Acoustically Inclined, Live In Leeds is out now via InsideOut Music. 

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