Let’s be clear: Devin Townsend is no mere solo artist; he’s a cult leader with a deep well of a discography as head-spinningly diverse and weird and brilliant and barking mad as that of Frank Zappa. And like Zappa, he’s incorruptible. Whatever is on this record, you can believe it’s exactly what Townsend wants. And what he wants, this time around at least, is a holy cathedral of guitars, a bombastic rapture of angelic choirs and up-cycling riffs so ecstatic that this album should come with an embroidered robe and a goblet of Pope blood.
While Townsend built his legend on extreme metal, Transcendence has something more ethereal on its mind. Opener Truth is a churning calliope of majestic keys and bone-crunching riffs, but Offer Your Light, probably the heaviest track on deck, laps suggestively towards the dark drone of metaphysical black metal.
Elsewhere, we’re wading neck deep in twisty-twirly devotional prog-rock, and while it may or may not get you closer to whatever your vision of Heaven is, it will most definitely take you higher.
"Marillion and Yes? Nah, I liked Motörhead": Inside the world of Devin Townsend
‘I took mushrooms and thought I was God’: inside the brain of Devin Townsend
