DEVIN TOWNSEND IS A CASUALTY OF COOL, ANNOUNCES ANOTHER RECORD IN THE WORKS

That we adore Devin Townsend here at MetalSucks is no secret. But whether you think he’s worthy of all the praise or you think he’s an overrated hack, this much is not disputable: dude is incredibly prolific. One gets the impression that when Devin isn’t touring or spending time with his family he spends ALL of his free minutes holed up in his home studio writing and recording. And his well of inspiration never dries up: the four albums in three years that comprised the Devin Townsend Project suite were apparently just the beginning of his busiest artistic period yet, as THREE new albums are already in the works, each a completely different concept. Here’s the lowdown from the man himself via a post on the official Hevy Devy forum [via Heavy Blog]:

I found as a reaction to the complications of decon and the sheer bulk of work thats been going on (seriously, it’s insane) my writing ended up going in 3 ways recently:

1) A very commercial sounding (for the most part) but beautiful and melencholic album full of easy to digest dev songs…Epicloud. I don’t know why it came out, but it did, so I’m going to get it out of my system

2) Casualties of Cool: a duo with myself and Che (ki)… it sounds like haunted Johnny cash songs. late night music, completely isolated sounding and different than anything I’ve done. Che sings most of the leads, and it’s probably the truest reflection of who I am in life at this point. Trying to release it in tandem with Epicloud.

3) Z2 epic epic epic, complicated, musical, sci-fi, immense expense, the goal of it all I suppose.

We’ve known about Epicloud for some time and we’ve known that eventually there’d be a Z2 for even longer, but this is the first time there’s been any public mention of Casualties of Cool. As someone who really, really liked Ki — possibly my favorite of the four DTP albums??? — the idea of another full album with songs in that style is especially tantalizing to me. I enjoyed Ché Aimee Dorval’s guest vocals on that album, too, so I’m curious to hear more, although I love Devin’s voice so I hope it’s not entirely absent. “Probably the truest reflection of who I am in life at this point” is a telling quote; Devy’s spoken a lot in the past few years about shutting down Strapping Young Lad because it didn’t feel honest anymore, so I’m all for him making music that is as honest as he can possibly be. Maybe that’s why I liked Ki so much.

So: two new Devy albums this year, and possibly a third. Get ready!

In the same post on his forum Devin also talks a bit about the business side of his career, product endorsements, a management switch, and where his head currently is as a result of all that. Highly worth the full read and it’ll only take you a minute.

-VN