Anneke Van Giersbergen, Chad Kroeger, Steve Vai & more among guests on Devin Townsend album ‘Empath’

by | Dec 4, 2018 | News | 0 comments

While Devin Townsend has disbanded his Devin Townsend Project, he did mention the possibility of it returning after completing three solo albums. Townsend’s current focus has been his new record Empath, which has an unconfirmed release date set for March, 2019. According to Townsend’s Twitter, the new LP will feature additional guests such as Anneke Van Giersbergen (ex-The Gathering, Vuur, The Gentle Storm, etc.) Che Dorval (Casualties of Cool), Chad Kroeger (Nickelback), Mike Keneally, and Steve Vai. Townsend expressed how this has been an intense period as he believes fans will either love the album or need additional time to let it sink in.

Read his statement below:

“No sleep tonight. I’ve got the final stages of this year long process rolling through my mind. Almost done…another 3.5 weeks and this stage of it (the album) will be wrapped up.

Listened to the roughs of Empath on the flight and it had me teared up the whole way. I haven’t had this visceral a reaction to the work in many years. To think It all stemmed from taking a vacation! my god, what an intense period this has been. I’ll remember this past two years.

Thanks to some further guests, Anneke Van Giersbergen, Che Dorval, Chad Kroeger, Mike Keneally, Steve Vai, Lords Of The sound orchestra… it’s been total catharsis and tied intrinsically to the process of working through this transformation. It’s a lovely, complicated, weird one

Some people will totally love it, a fair amount will take awhile to have it sink in, some won’t get it at all, some will definitely prefer the bonus disk or the previous work, but fuck me, did I ever need to get this out of my system. It’s like 12 years of vomit at once…

I had a choice to either go commercial or uncompromised on this. Thanks to Garth Richardson and Chad for convincing me to not compromise. It’s a hard choice as you get older because the temptation to play it safe is huge for the sake of family and security.

Exhausting… pure catharsis. It was about middle age, realization, fear, death, moderation, meditation, and overcoming the internal dialogues. I guess it was ultimately about getting it right after all these years, then kind of realizing that you just have to let it all go…

Music is just an expression of gratitude I think. Ultimately it’s just another album in a long line of albums, some will like it, some won’t. But it appears as if it will be accurate, and that’s a huge huge relief.

Three drummers, two bassists, orchestras, choirs, ducks, cats, goats, birds, whales… and I didn’t sabotage this one, for once…

Have to be at the studio in 3 hours after a sleepless night. Sweet. Luckily it’s not an immensely complicated mix

There’s a recurring theme on this project that seems to have appeared, and that seems to be one of ‘anti-suicide’”

 

[via ThePrp]