Devin Townsend Physicist 2000 Legacy Review

Devin Townsend
Physicist
2000


Frantic swoops of powerful drumming matched with a frenzy of manic guitars and keys force this work to open with a huge rip down the musical tick-list of metal. In the run up to this work, something extremely heavy was the main idea, and Physicist takes the crown with ease. Namaste opens the epic and insanely fast and noisy album with a fireworks display of sound, angrily projected but deep insightful words make a dualistic experience of listening to the songs as pieces of music.


Soon the progression of the ultra fast rhythms becomes more dramatic, and as the tempo starts making more sense, the merging of bars and fills make clever and shifting progressive metal. Melodic pulsing of heaviness sweep the music from left to right in a stereo experience of drama and energy. Soundtracks to high emotion and the pleasure of expression make rocketing songs that fly past as if forests in the window of moving train.


Melodic phrasing that hides behind riff after riff gives a magical element and by the time we get to Material at track three, we understand that the calm isn't coming but the pace can be matched and when it is, we discover a place within the music that isn't heavy. It turns on its head and despite all the rules being followed for a rocking mad musical assault, something pleasant is taking place. It is the combination of predictability, melody, and riff structure that melts into a busy but steady flow of mental intoxication and metalising.


As a tight and dramatic album, with hardcore metal foundations and a passion for reaching the higher end of the emotional scale, Physicist takes the elements of rock and creates a beautiful mandala of the raw ingredients that have so many times been thrown together in the name of making simple noise. This is noise plus art, and for the genre, it's extremely clever and enlightened. A heavy metal showdown that leaves you dazed, confused, and wanting to press repeat.  

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