Devin Townsend video release from the InsideOut Record Release EMPATH
Canadian heavy music artist Devin Townsend’s latest album EMPATH is now available worldwide via InsideOut Records. To coincide with EMPATH being released today, the video for the song “Spirits Will Collide” was unveiled.
Devin comments: “Here is the video for my Enya influenced, ‘commercial’ song. I love this type of mid-tempo, big, romantic heavy music. I would love to do a full album in this style somewhere down the line, and it’s the only one of its kind on the Empath records.
‘Spirits Will Collide’ as a song is pretty standard fare for me if you’ve followed what I’ve done over the past few years. It’s ultimately an ‘anti-suicide’ statement and it’s meant to be melodic and straightforward. A video with a CGI Gorilla playing bass and Elephants playing drums in front of a billion people is so ridiculously dumb that I’m surprised it makes me feel as happy as it does, but the theme of the song is essentially about trying to convince kids or teens to ‘hang on’ when they feel depression or suicidal thoughts. The story of the video is about a kid that has a fantasy about playing at a massive concert with thousands of people as a choir, animals etc…just the biggest concert he can imagine, and the strength of the sound and the intention of a bunch of people singing together is such that the sound blows away the darkness.
It’s admittedly a bit ridiculous, but I guess in a way I feel that beauty is much harder to be expressed quietly in this day and age, so the video is about saying it louder than ANYTHING. Without a multi-million dollar budget, it was hard to do. However, Kudos to iCode Team and the hundreds of extras for really pulling this out on a shoestring budget, I think it gets the point across.
The only thing I would say that if I was a kid imagining playing the universes biggest concert, I would have added a full head of hair in there for good measure =)”
On this album Devin decided to see what would happen if all the styles that make up his current interests were finally represented in one place. To finally shake the fear of expectation and just do what it is he was meant to do creatively; EMPATH, true to the name, is about allowing the audience a feeling for a variety of musical emotions. The musical dynamics represented on this single album are broad, challenging, and immense. To approach this sort of work with a long history of what makes heavy music “heavy,” allows this to be done with a type of power rarely heard. This is a statement about not only pursuing creative freedom in a conservative scene, but also trying to show that heavy music is truly a valid musical tool. EMPATH is available on Limited 2 CD Digipak in O-Card (including an entire disc of bonus material), Standard CD Jewelcase, Gatefold 180G 2LP Vinyl + CD + LP-booklet & as digital album and can be ordered here: https://devin-townsend.lnk.to/Empath.
The full track-listing is as follows:
- Castaway
- Genesis
- Spirits Will Collide
- Evermore
- Sprite
- Hear Me
- Why
- Borderlands
- Requiem
- Singularity
Part 1 – Adrift
Part 2 – I Am I
Part 3 – There Be Monsters
Part 4 – Curious Gods
Part 5 – Silicon Scientists
Part 6 – Here Comes The Sun
The video for the previously released track “Genesis,” viewed over 670K times in 4 weeks, can be seen here: https://youtu.be/1n7uvokARQ4. The follow up video for ‘Evermore’ has a quarter of a million views in 2 weeks and that can be seen here: https://youtu.be/-zIxPUPWVq8.
Over the past few years, the success that Devin has slowly worked for has fortunately come with the power to control his own creative destiny. The recent successes with the DVD from a sold-out Royal Albert hall, or his 2012 ‘Retinal Circus’, or last year’s ‘Ocean Machine’ live DVD with the Orchestra and Choir of State Opera Plovdiv has put him in a position where with the new album EMPATH, he will once and for all define himself as a musical force outside of any particular genre classification.
DEVIN TOWNSEND online:
https://www.instagram.com/dvntownsend
https://www.youtube.com/user/poopynuggeteer/featured
Follow The Pit on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram!
Subscribe to The Pit Newsletter today!
