Ryan posted an image of the same sort to his Facebook earlier this week.

57 here in Germany? I can't believe it :O.

[Octillus]

In a time when album sales are down across the board, it is amazing to see Devin doing well. Especially in the US, where he supposedly doesn't have an audience.

It goes to show that cultivating an audience that gives a shit will keep your sales up/growing.

Dev's been often-quoted as saying that each album sells about the same, so if overall sales are down, there has to be something to be said for consistency.

finally got around to listening to the original version of fallout. I really had no problem w/ the CD version (anneke nails the part beautifully) but goddamn is the original so much better. I am shocked he made the change, but both are good so I'm not complaining.

both discs have some of his best and some of his worst songs I've heard in awhile. it's hard to decide how I feel overall.

I'm also very glad I decided to get the version w/ the raw dark matters. I gotta say the dialogue is just too distracting at times. I don't mind it so much when they are talking over the music but at times it's just like, "get on with it for fucks sake!" again, glad I have both versions though depending on what I feel like listening to.

[Blazingmonga]

Ok so both discs have sunk in now...

I think DM is one of the best things Dev has done for a long time! Some of the melodies and harmonies remind me of his magical earlier albums. So much detail and paced just perfectly. Probably his best vocal performance of recent years, and balanced really well against the female vocals.

SB I also love but is very much a pop album. I feel it does this better than Epicloud or Addicted. Silent Militia is geniously hooky. Slightly disappointed that it is a seemingly unrelated album to DM as I had hoped for a ying/yang kind of deal.

Basically though I think we are spoiled and both are ace!

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Looks like they are playing a shit ton of new material on the tour that's going on right now. Glad to see that, though would love to see Universal Flame instead of War on the European tour. That song must be HUGE live. Also I hope Devin performs in that black suit he wears on the Ziltoid part of that one promo image shown above, looks so sick.

Just popped in to comment on the setlist myself. Bummed that Fallout is absent (I understand why at least) but everything else looks pretty good. Pleasantly surprised by the amount of new material he's playing, particularly Ziltoid Goes Home. Looking forward to having my face melted off in Cleveland on 11/29... I think that'll be three or four times I've seen him now?

Just read that Kingdom and A New Reign were added to the second show of the tour, killer setlist. Yeah Ziltoid Goes Home is gonna be sick.

Ziltoid Goes Home, fuck yessss. I'm not a Strapping advocate. I actually am glad Dev won't rehash it and be untrue to himself and the group as it was, blah blah.

That said, I'm gonna fucking relish the last moments of that song and savor the idea that I heard Detox live.

Wait, so according to interviews doing the vocals for Ziltoid Goes Home in the studio was a huge pain in the ass, and now he's performing it live? That's unexpected.

It's good to see so much of the new stuff getting onto the setlist. With the new album(s) doing so well, the more people who get to hear the songs the better!

First post on the new forums (I posted a bit back in the day) so I suppose I should throw in my two cents on Z2. From what I can gather my overall opinion so far - and to be fair, I'm still in the process of digesting these albums, so changes of mind may happen - is that I love DM, and SB is the grower for me.

There's some beautiful music on SB, especially the Terria-esque tones on Midnight Sun, but right now it all feels a little TOO poppy for my taste. Sky Blue, for example, is a very good song but there's something about the production and phrasing that feels a whisker away from Adult Contemporary (Hoo boy, am I gonna get flamed now). The second half of the album in particular seems to have less individual 'moments' than the first and all seems to blend together inoffensively... But then again, that could just be unfamiliarity talking. Ghost, COC and Epicloud took me a few listens to settle in too, so I could feel very differently on repeat listens.

DM I straight-up love. I can see why some might be disappointed in it. ZTO very much feels like a big riff on an idea, whereas DM feels much more focused, structured and for lack of a better word 'calculated'. But then again, DT has developed Ziltoid as a character much more since ZTO. He's kind of built a world around him, and TBH I like that the story is actually followable this time without needing the booklet. But then again, as a Zappa fan I'm used to 'musical' style albums with lots of dialogue.

But then again, DT has developed Ziltoid as a character much more since ZTO.

I find the opposite to be true actually. It feels like he's kinda one-dimensional now (although he claims to be fourth-dimensional!) and only serves as a comedy effect. In the first album, there seemed to be much more meaning behind the character and every song added different aspects.
That's also how I still perceive the new one in general. It's kinda like a Michael Bay movie while ZTO was 2001.

I still enjoy Dark Matters and am getting more into it every time, but I definitely miss that part of it to be honest. It kinda lacks the soul somehow.

Ziltoid Goes Home, fuck yessss. I'm not a Strapping advocate. I actually am glad Dev won't rehash it and be untrue to himself and the group as it was, blah blah.

That said, I'm gonna fucking relish the last moments of that song and savor the idea that I heard Detox live.

I'm a total tard. The Detox bit is at the end of Ziltoidian Empire, not Goes Home. *sigh*

New lyric video for March of the Poozers.

Also, a quote from the latest press release:

Devin checks in with this:
‘Hey all, Dev here...closing out the North American tour and a heck of a year.
I released 4 albums this year, if you count the bonus disc of Casualties, went through the crazy Pledge process (still going through it) and it was generally a hectic time.
I feel like I'm at the end of a creative cycle... The Z2 project beat me up in a way I wasn't expecting, but when all was said and done, I'm very proud of it. It's an accurate description of a really stressful period, but I didn't sell out, and I saw it through. Thanks to all of you who continue to support.

My mind is full of music again, as it always is, but I'm trying to absorb some of the lessons that came with the over scheduling and chaos of this last period, and I look forward to getting my process back on track. Again, I'm constantly shocked by the fact I get to do this for a living. Thank you.

Here's another track from Z2, called 'March of the Poozers'. To be honest, my main motivation to make this album was so I could make those crazy puppet shows that are now online, but musically, it's kind of typical random music that I've been interested in for the past few years. This song was directly influenced by the band 'Samael' whom I have great affection for as people, and I'm happy to present it with a lyric video that Stefan at Media Logistics went above and beyond for.

What's next for me I think will be a short break before the European tour and the Royal Albert Hall show, but then, I have ideas for a destructive bass driven apocalypse record, a meditative record, a symphony, more Casualties, more DTP and a kind of big band thing, none of these ideas are confirmed, but I'm finding myself getting fired up to create in ways I haven't been able to for a few years because of my schedule. I need to regroup and then I'll see you soon.

I love music. Thank you for the inspiration, lessons and support.
Devin’

[youtube]1NGQjRMXg28[/youtube]

Awesome video! Interesting to hear what possibilities and projects await in the future.

Time for some production-geeky stuff. One of my new favorite metal blogs, Metal-Fi (who focus on heavy metal production as well as the music itself) placed Z2 as one of the "worst sounding albums of 2014", in regards to how the album was remixed and remastered after the notorious promo release. In my opinion, the promo WAS more dynamic than the final master, but its mixing was worse than the final version. If only Dev could release a version that retained the mixing of the final CD, but was turned down a few notches so it matched the dynamics of the promo... sigh.

Link to the article:
https://www.metal-fi.com/best-worst-sou ... ords-2014/