I read it on the Mike Portnoy forum and someone copy-pasted a short statement claiming it was from Devin, where he just says the next record is all written, it just needs to be recorded and will be one huge track. He also says he may add tracks on the song to make navigation easier.

Any truth to this?

i think that was the meshuggah album...

I think that's nothing unusual...Several bands have done this.
And not only in the nowadays.

By the way:
My tribute project for Devin "Terraformer" will also be just one
60 minutes long continuous track. There WILL be track markers,
easing navigation while listening, but if you listen it through in
one piece you won't notice any track changes...it all just flows
into each other. One big event with multiple chapters...

i kinda hope its not one long track, i wouldn't really be mad or antyhing.. just yeah. you dont want to drag something on.
i didn't like the meshuggah one .. "i"

I agree. One long track would just be pretentious. On the other hand I really like how Devin (both solo and SYL) has a tendency to let the songs overlap each other to create a pretty intense "flow".

The difficulty is in maintaining continuity through a song that lasts for a long time. There are Dream Theatre songs that I just can't really get into because of that.

Other times though it doesn't bother me at all. Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Iron Maiden. It's not an hour long (more like a quarter of an hour) but its still pretty lengthy. Somehow it works perfectly and you barely even notice that the time has passed.

It's a dangerous thing the one-track epic if you ask me, but anyone's up to it, it's our Dev.

I would prefer it be broken up into tracks so that if I'm in the mood for a certain part I can just jump right to it, but there's a lot of great albums out there from different bands that are only one track. Dopesmoker by Sleep, Delirium Cordia by Fantomas, Lysol (or self-titled depending on your version) from the Melvins, Leng T'che from Naked City, among many others. Some of those albums are ones that you really have to hear all the way through to really be able to enjoy to the fullest, but in some cases there's just parts I wanna listen to.

Anyway, even if it is one track I'm sure that it'll be worth listening all the way through to get to that favorite part, since Dev never dissappoints.

I kinda think the quaoted statetement from Devin was about Devin's album, not Meshuggah's. I think it would work well; Devin is overflowing with ideas that he could incorporate with a one long track album.

I read the interview where Devin said this, and I'm really excited to hear it. I think of it along the lines of Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull. It'll have enough different sections that it will stay interesting throughout, but carry that common theme. I have a feeling it will be brilliant.

I don't understand how anyone can call an album that is one long track pretentious. Are you saying music has rules it MUST stick to? Every song should be three minutes long?

I don't care if a song is 2 minutes long or 50 minutes long. The only job of the artist is to make sure it's decent. Admittedly most don't care whether it's good or not but certainly I enjoy the longer tracks that pervade the metal world. Devin does it, Dream Theater does it, Immortal does it, Emperor does it, Bathory does it, Opeth does it etc etc. All are sensational bands

I don't care too... If music is good, it makes no difference to me if a track is 4 minutes or 40 minutes long...
I like "I" and I like also Fates Warning's "A Pleasant Shade Of Grey"... Both one-track-albums.

The only thing that count for me it's Dev's music and I can't wait for the new one!

I don't understand how anyone can call an album that is one long track pretentious. Are you saying music has rules it MUST stick to? Every song should be three minutes long?

No, you misunderstood me. To do it is perfectly OK. It's not the length of the song that matters.

But when someone actually takes the time to mention it... That's something else. I'll try to illustrate the difference in quality:

"There's a new album on the way. It will probably be about God."
"There's a new album on the way. It will probably be in the form of one 50 minute long track."

Now do you see what I mean?

I don't care if a song is 2 minutes long or 50 minutes long.

We agree. So why is it something that an artist would feel the urge of telling us about? That's when it becomes pretentious.

Oh, yeah, and I just realised - this is the eleventh post in this thread, so apparently we care quite a bit about how long a song is!

Oh, yeah, and I just realised - this is the eleventh post in this thread, so apparently we care quite a bit about how long a song is!

And this is the twelfth!

I myself would prefer if there were 'track markers', but whatever... it isn't my album!

if it was, it would be one thirty second song, and i'd charge full album price for it and not tell anyone until it's too late! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

On the subject of albums being one long track, I think everyone here should check out Twin Zero. Their album is basically 2 songs, one of them about 6 minutes long and the other about 30, but broken up into part 0, part 1 and so on.

they are fucking awesome as well, by the way, and anyone into devin townsend stands a good chance of digging it. check out 'earthbound' here:

http://www.myspace.com/twinzero

I dunno about you guys but I am so damn psyched! AE was great but it's perhaps my least favourite Devin solo album after Physicist (which I consider to be more SYL anyway) and I think the new one long track disc may rule supreme.

I'm sure Devin will do it differently than everyone else!