B Side | Lightwork

dl: we should do this after I clear my throat let me clear my throat That's my name. I like we should do this. Ready, that looks fine, that looks fine. That looks fine. Alright. Alright bro, I see you, I see you, I see you. My son is two years old and he has a favorite album. Not a favorite song, not a favorite artist, a favorite album, a specific record that when it comes on, he stops what he's doing and he actually listens. I mean, runs around and stuff, but he does listen. He calls it the Octopus album. I'm gonna tell you why it's a little known secret is because it has an octopus on it, which fair enough, he's too, he's nailing it. But the Octopus album is Lightwork by Devin Motherfucking Townsend. This was released in 2022. It's my son's favorite record. It's one of my favorite records. It's an album I sent to my uncle, same uncle who had Roll the Bones on his shelf when I was a kid because I needed someone else to hear what I was hearing. That's the thing about certain albums. They make you want to share them immediately. Not because you want to show off. Not because you want credit for finding them, but because something in them feels too big to hold by yourself. Yeah, that's good. Welcome to the B-Side. I'm DL, and today we are talking about the Octopus album. Fiddler Atlanta, Georgia, bourbon whiskey. very strong, barrel 11, not quite yet. Seven years, just a little baby. 60 % alcohol by volume. OMV. All right. Let's talk about how I got here. Let's talk about Devin Townsend and, I'm going to give credit where credit is due. I did not, I absolutely did not find Devin Townsend on my own. No shocker there. My co-host Evil, is a massive Devin Townsend fan, genuinely one of the most devoted fans probably, put me onto an album of his about a decade ago. I don't even remember the name, I just remember there are crayons on the front and it was fucking badass. That's not nothing. You know, when someone whose musical taste you respect tells you that you need to hear something, you do. You listen differently. You go in with a different level of trust that you don't have when you stumble onto it. And evil we have that kind of trust we have for years now which is why the pod kind of works a little bit so when he told me to listen to Devon I Was ready to be convinced and I honestly was immediately Immediately for song one. I think the first ten seconds from I remember Is it guilty the song was? If you don't know Devin Townsend, we should explain something before we talk about Lightwork because Lightwork without context is beautiful, it's warm, it's ambitious, it's progressive, it's a rock record. Lightwork with context is one of the more surprising statements a musician has made in the last decade, I would say. And context is kind of everything, right? We can talk about who Devon is very strong bourbon. It's not Canadian whiskey and Devin Townsend is a Canadian musician who's been making records since the early 90s. Other stuff in his history I won't go into now but the easiest way I can describe his catalog is that it contains fucking everything. Workhorse. Always recording, always playing. always everything. He made Strapping Young Lad, which is ferociously heavy, chaotic, overwhelming. It's industrial metal. It's unhinged. It's the kind of record that makes you wonder like how somebody would assemble it. He did, what is it? Ziltoid the Omni-escent? Omniscient? There we go. It's a concept album about alien coffee. I think it's like an alien coffee critic to be exact who threatens to destroy the earth because the coffee isn't good enough. Which is complete. It's like played fucking completely straight, which is great. He made Ocean Machine. He made Physicist Addicted. Addicted is the name of the album that got me into it. It's. Pop music filtered through the brain of someone who spent too much time in fucking heavy places. And then he made Empath, his most recent album before Lightwork, which was super ambitious, super sprawling. It's orchestral, it's metal, it's jazz, it's children's choir. It's all very, very coherent. And I'm telling you all of this not to overwhelm you, but to... to explain what makes light work so striking because after all of that, after 30 years of going bigger, more complex, more ambitious, everything, Devin made something more gentle. I don't mean gentle as a criticism. mean it as the highest possible compliment because gentle for someone who spent 30 years being enormous takes courage. It takes a lot more courage than anything that I feel like he's done in a long time. courage in multiple, multiple aspects, you know, in the face of his fans. in the face of the metal community, not that Devin has ever seen, like he'd give two fucks about pissing anybody off or irritating anybody in his style. But it's just, it's a lot different than anything else he's done. Lightwork was released in November of 22. It was written during the pandemic. Spoiler alerts, pretty serious content. It matters. It matters more for this record than it does for most records that claim the pandemic as their origin story. I know why I drink every time that I fuck up because I drink. well. It's DL is verse chorus verse. You know what you're getting. My last one I did actually got a ton of listens. My last B site was on roll the bones and I got a couple of comments asking why there was a drink in the shot, which Boy, do those people not listen to the podcast. Devin Townsend has been publicly open about his mental health journey for years. Anxiety, the pressure of being endlessly, relentlessly creative, sobriety, and what it costs to be the kind of artist that he is, which is just a never-ending fucking cycle of brilliance. That's his story. He's told it. He's told it far better than I ever could. But what I will say is that you can hear it in Lightwork. You hear it everywhere in this record. The pandemic gave him it gave him, I don't know, stillness that he it didn't seem like he really had in decades. You know, more complexity, more ambition. It's it's it's funny. he let the stillness be the album and to me to someone that probably doesn't really understand him as much as most of his real fans, this feels like, this feels to me like the peak into the real artist. Not that any of his stuff is faker than anything else, but this just feels like it's, this is when to me it's, we're now peeking into, who he really is. Light work is what happens when someone who has spent a career building enormous things finally sits down and asks, like, what do I need right now? And it seems like the answer was warmth and melody and space and connection. This album sounds like someone who's come through something really difficult and genuinely, carefully, gratefully on the other side of it. That's a big thing to put on a record. And I don't think most artists nowadays can do it. even though they, they try desperately, I don't, it's, it's, it's, it's rare in a rock record. I don't, let's talk about how Lightworks sounds because the production is, it's a story in itself. He co-produced this with, G-G-G-Garth, you know, Go look it up, man, go look it up. It's a producer he's worked with before who understands how to handle the particular challenge of a Devon Townsend record, which is that the ideas are always way bigger than the space available for them. I think light... What's different on light work is how restrained the... the production choices are. You know, on an album like M-Path, everything was turned up, every idea, it got room, you have to try to keep up with it almost. On Lightwork, it's quieter, it's deliberate. There's space between the notes that on a previous Devon record would have been filled with another layer and another texture, another instrument. And here, The space is really doing the real work. It's where the emotion is. It's where you feel the record rather than just admire it, which is really easy to fucking do, by the way. maybe more on that later. The choir is a perfect example. The Electro Woman's Choir, which appears through this record and what they're doing is not what choirs in rock music usually do. In most rock records, a choir brings you texture. It's atmosphere. It fills space. On light work, the choir is a voice. It responds. It carries melodies that the guitars and like purposely don't don't they they deliberately leave open. There's also, there's great guest appearance. Annika, I can't pronounce Annika Van Geersbergen, who's like just gorgeous voice. What she does alongside Devon's vocals creates this harmonic thing that's, that's genuine. I mean, we all know how I am with harmonies, but it's hard to describe guys. It sounds like two people who understand each other. Completely and and you'd almost like it, know, you walk in you do the head nod and you do it You don't explain anything you just play it and it's amazing There I like this album guys Let's start at track one. Moon People. That's track one. Octopus album. My favorite song on my son's favorite album, which is the Octopus album. This is a really good bourbon, by the way. Fiddler, Georgia Heartwood. Moon People opens with the synth figure that is immediately unmistakably warm. There's no aggression. There's no... There's no, you know, there's not the like, guttural screams. There's not the typical metal from from Devin Townsend. There's no signal that something heavy is coming. It just it's just like opens like a door into somewhere that you you you can walk into and you can be comfortable and then the chorus hits and Devin's vocals lift as they always do. I was evil and I will randomly start texting drunkenly on a Saturday or a Friday or Wednesday or Tuesday or a Monday with hitting with you know. high fidelity type questions of who's the greatest current rock singer. And you your mind's gonna go to rival sons and your mind's gonna go to Greta Van Fleet, God forbid, but shit, man, that kid has pipes. My mind went to Devin, which is a... You don't think it at first because Devon's a guitar god. But holy shit that guy's voice. You know? But that chorus hits, that choir comes in, Devon's vocals lift, there's this swell that the first time I heard it I loved. When this album came out, whatever it was, 2022, this is... Not one of the things that made me think of it lately. We did do the look back on 2022 more on that later on in the year. But Moon People was one of my songs of the year. It's a brilliant fucking song. It's super brilliant. And there's a very technical thing happening in that chorus. He's doing something with the vocal layers that most producers like would have overloaded. multiple vocal tracks happening his lead his harmonies with himself the the choir underneath they they should crowd each other but they don't the arrangement is so carefully constructed that that that each voice has its own lane you can hear all of them separately and you hear all of them together neither experience cancels each other out at all that's craft, you know, that's somebody that's been making records for 30 years all the time, which if you don't, if you aren't familiar with Devin Townsend, go look at what he's produced, what he's come out with in his career. You talk about somebody that puts in the hours. You know, what is the saying for Devin Townsend? It's probably like you put in your million hours to be good because I'm sure that he has. I hear the chorus. I go still. I feel like my son should too. And it's just it's just gorgeous and gorgeous like. Clockwork Orange trademark. Track two is Lightworker. I feel like I'm making a gross face. It's just really strong. It's very good. I feel like I should have drank Canadian whiskey, but I'm not complaining. This is great. Lightworker, track two. It's important. This is dedicated to the memory of Ram Das, the spiritual teacher and author whose work on consciousness and compassion influenced a shit ton of people, including Devin. There's actually a sample on the track, which tells you immediately what kind of record this is and what kind of headspace Devin was in when he wrote it. The song itself. is built around this idea of doing work, of showing up, of being of service. Not because it's glamorous, but because it's necessary. And my God, does that speak to me? I think it speaks to a lot of us musically. It's one of the more complex songs on the album. The chord structure underneath the verse is doing really interesting shit. keeps resolving in ways that feel unexpected, but they don't feel wrong at all, ever. You Kinda like the song keeps arriving somewhere and then finding out that there's further to go. It's, you know, I've talked a lot this year about Radiohead and they're kind of cock tease of not wanting to resolve just to fuck with you, even though there are some albums where their resolutions are better than fucking anybody. All hail Radiohead. But Devon's music is... Devin's music is gonna give you what you crave. I'm not calling it pop, but it is definitely pleasing in that way. It will definitely resolve for you. And that's exactly what the lyrics are about, not the resolve part, the first part. That's kind of alignment between music and meaning that you can't manufacture. It's either there or it isn't. It's very there in Lightworker. He's an underrated fucking lyricist and singer. My God, is he underrated as far as a singer. And then Equinox, which is where the guitar really shows up. I think people who come to Lightwork expect, know, once you're into it, you're not expecting too much heavy. And then you get to Equinox and it's not a metal track, but it's heavy. has... It has real fucking weight. It's the kind that you feel in your fucking chest, Not in your ears. In your diaphragm. Not the... Mike Knieley, who's a guitarist who worked with Zappa and who's one of the most technically gifted players you may have ever heard of, played the solo on this record. And more on that later. Not necessarily the Zappa connection, but just the overall guitar connection. I'll talk about that later. Equinox the soul was doing something that a less skilled player would have fucked up It's it's so emotionally open that a showy solo would have fucking destroyed it. You can't go in there and try to impress people a Song like this an album like this. It just doesn't have room for that and what Keneally plays instead is this melodic? Question like searching rather than showing you sort of shit, it just fits. It fits in a way that very few guest contributors are gonna be able to fit. Like he's always been part of the band. he's always been with Devin is what it feels like. And that's not even talking about Devin's own guitar work on this record, which is worth. I mean, we should probably talk about it. I don't know if you guys knew this, but Devin's pretty good at the guitar. He is capable of absolute fucking ferocity on that instrument. He has made records that prove that he is. currently one of the best of the best and on Lightwork he's just fucking like clean and patient and melody over muscle on every single track and that restraint from someone capable of that is is deliberate and it's a decision and it's over and over and over again for the entire record and can you tell how much I fucking love this record? Heartbreaker though is the song that I keep going back to and I'm gonna turn it on right now so I can listen to it while I talk about it. A little bit surprising because it is one of the more cheesy ones and Devon is very capable of cheese but when here's my question what I'm realizing over the last couple years going through Dixie Drags stuff and Alice Cooper and Some of this other stuff when did cheese get bad when the cheese like didn't did the grunge Nirvana? Allison chains were all on heroin shit, which hey don't I'm not knocking it Okay, I'm not Look, we all know my love for Lane Staley who's up here that you can't see and some of these others but I think we're back around to cheese not being bad, right? I think we're okay with it. Heartbreaker, it opens differently from everything else on the album. There's a kind of an urgency to it because there is a lot going on, but it's not an aggression. It is more like an urgency, like something that needs to be said and that the song can't wait to say it. is... It's all over the place and yet it is chill. And then the middle arrives, you know, this it's like a seven minute song and you get to the middle and this is the moment I mentioned at the top when I said the choir is a voice rather than a texture. That choir takes that melody completely away from him. He steps back, they carry it. And then you realize that this was the point of the whole fucking song, which is just songwriting brilliance. I don't want to over describe this because some things you just have to hear. just go fucking listen to it. But I'll say this. There are very few moments in recent music where I felt the way that the section of heartbreaker makes me feel the realization of of this was going to this point purposefully to make me feel this. That's such a fucking rare thing nowadays. It sounds like being forgiven for something that you've been carrying for a long time. I'm going to drink. I don't know what Devin was writing about specifically. I know what it means to me. And I think that's the measure of a great piece of music. It holds your meaning as carefully as whatever the fuck they're talking about. You don't care because you know what it means to you. And I'm sure what it means to me is totally wrong. And if I ever got to talk to him, which I was supposed to interview him, spoilers. Actually, one of the reasons I stopped doing interviews is like season three, we were supposed to interview him and it didn't end up working out and it fucking crushed me. It totally crushed me. And it was like one of those take your ball and go home. Like I'm never doing interviews again, sort of things. There were certain reasons that, you know, I was really, really mad at him and his. people for a while got over that because it's not such a dumb thing to be mad about it is you won't come on verse chorus first but i just turned into a bitch section i don't i don't know what else should we talk about a couple more tracks before i get into the personal stuff It's a long B side. Heavy burden is one of the quietest things on this record. It's kind of stripped back to nothing like vocal thin arrangement. It's fucking devastating, man. It's really devastating in a way that Devin you don't really hear. The title tells you what it's about. Devin doesn't dress it up. He doesn't hide it. There's no metaphors. There's no fucking, you know, he just says the thing. which is pretty fucking refreshing, right? That kind of nakedness in a song is it's hard to pull off and without it feeling self-indulgent, which it doesn't, it's just honest, which is really rare. And I don't know if that's just because people are used to Devin's kind of 80s production. style which is always kind of an honest like I hate using the word cheesy I really do but people of my generation probably think of it as that even though it's not it's it's it's just good Children of the God do that over Children of God closes the album it's 10 minutes long you know well kind of it does you know like the boat corn at the end of foghorn at the end. But it works and the record has been so focused up to that point that that at the end it opens up and it gets to be big not in like a Devin Devin's here sort of way almost in like more like a this is what we've been building to sort of way. And then the choir comes back in and and Eki comes back. I'm sorry if I'm butching her name and the whole record lands somewhere that feels fucking earned. It's a remarkable piece of sequencing. The whole album in retrospect knows exactly where it's going from the very first note of Moon People to the very fucking end. And that's why I'm talking about it tonight. This is where we'll get a little personal. I told you at the top, I sent this to my uncle. The same uncle, look, I have two uncles that really, really did a lot for me musically. Older and younger. So you have the Nirvana Nine Inch Nails uncle, and then you have the Rush Clatue uncle. Right? But the same uncle that had Roll the Bone sitting on a shelf when I was a kid, the one I did my last B-side episode about, without even really explaining how much he meant to my musical education. So there you go. I bought him and sent him light work. All. because of this whole thing because The sections and the choir and the stillness and the feeling of being forgiven Made me think of him immediately. It made me want him to have it. It's look That's what albums like this do it makes you want to give it to people not to share a recommendation But to share something else That that fucking feels important Enter my son, two years old, calling this the octopus album. Stops what he's doing. Tonight was listening to it every two seconds while he's running around like a fucking madman all across the living room. Stops, comes to me. Is this still the octopus album? Yeah, son, it's still the octopus album. I've thought about why and I think it's because the album sounds safe genuinely, like completely like kind of a don't worry, nothing bad's gonna happen. A two year old can't articulate that, but he can feel it. And I do think he does feel it. You know, mean, shit, I listen to some things, other Devin albums included that do not feel like that. And there's something about knowing that the same record means something to like people like my uncle, who's at a completely different stage of life as to my son, who's at the very beginning of his life. That's everything that you should know about what this album is. Devin spent 30 years making records that challenge, that overwhelm, that demand that you fucking keep up with his insanity. And then he made this that just kind of rocks you. I don't know if he knew that that's what he was doing. I would suspect he did. I would expect that that's exactly the point, but that's just me reading into what I want from this album, which I think is kind of the point. Evil showed me this artist a long time ago. My son named the album. It's the Octopus album now. It's not Lightwork. I'm sorry, Devin. And my uncle has it on his shelf now. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, it became one of my favorite records. I mean that not because I was looking for it, but because it was exactly what I wanted and needed without knowing I needed it. Frequently over the last. You know. Four years and that's the B side and that's the point of. Why I do these. If you've never heard Devon Townsend and you aren't a metal guy, start here. Start with Moon People. If it doesn't get you, I don't know what to tell you. If you're already a Devon fan and if Evil is listening, which I don't know if he listens to these or not, he knows who he is, I'm glad that you finally caught up. And I'd be interested to know. if for those guys, if they feel the same way about it or potentially saying, look, you, I love you. I like your take. But what you don't understand is Devin was doing shit like this way back when with X and Y and Z, which is completely possible because I don't know Devin as much as a lot of people know Devin. I know I've listened to a lot of Devin, but For as much as I've listened, there is a lot of Devon Townsend out there, motherfuckers. These B-sides are... This is the point of it. I don't know where I was going to fit this, but this shit needed to be said. And I'm going to keep doing them without schedule, without morning. It's just me. It's just a record that that won't leave me alone. And when the next one shows up, it shows up. I don't know when that'll be. I will end it with this. You know that I'm a record guy. I I own a lot of records. a lot more than are in this room and I try to listen to all of them. I would say that this album has become a top five record for me. There is not a night when I will not be able to turn this on and feel better and that's the point of records. That's the point of the B side. I'm DL. verse course first calm adverse course first pod go check out our newsletter link of the bio good night and good luck Go fucking listen to this album. Go buy, just if you ever trusted me, go buy this record. Sight unseen. Don't even, don't even listen to it on Spotify first. Just buy it, take it home your next Friday, grab a drink, sit on your chair, your favorite chair, turn it on. You, you. You message me after that and tell me thank you. Good night for real and good luck.