Am just finishing Ghost, on the last few notes of As You Were. Just beautiful. You know, this is the album I have been waiting for Dev to make ever since I bought Synchestra, my first foray into his solo work from SYL. On all Dev's solo stuff, and even some of Strapping, has had these quiet, peaceful, tranquil parts and moods that I've loved. I'm primarily a metal guy so it's weird that I'm saying this I guess (but maybe not so much as my metal tastes have changed in the last few years from harder metal stuff to more headier, and, in a way, softer stuff like Russian Circles, Baroness, Red Sparowes, Neurosis, etc) but I always wanted to hear what those parts would sound like on their own. Not to speak down about any of the other records Dev's made, because I most certainly am not, but I'd get a tranquil section and be really lulled in and then a heavy part or following song or what have you would come in and disrupt that peace. When I first heard Ki was coming out and what it was going to be I thought maybe I'd get that wish but, like I think it was for many others, Ki was radically different from anything I imagined it to be. It's this restrained chaos that is sort of kept down, if you will, by the peaceful parts. So, while I loved and continue to love Ki for what it was, I still hadn't got the album I was looking for. I guess the Hummer maybe has come the closest, and I love the Hummer, but for that one album I'm looking for it was too minimalistic, too "not Devin Townsend," I guess, in its lack of vocals and conventional instruments.
So that brings me to Ghost. Ghost is that album I've wanted. It's all the tranquility that has lived alongside the harder bits of Devin's catalouge and it makes me so beyond happy to finally see it given an album where it can shine on it's own. It's beautiful, it's heartfelt, it's honest, it's calming, it's soothing. This is most certainly going to become the record I put on when I go to sleep from now on (meant in an absolutely good way haha). Kawaii makes me want to cry. Looking forward to so many more listens to this, and to eventually hearing it's dark counterpart. A suburb ending to the DTP, and the perfect palate cleanser after Decon.
This album clearly has magical properties that prevent me from being impatient. Well done Dev, you top banana.
