Townsend Boundaries

"I know where I'm headed, but I don't know what it is," says Devin Townsend in the initial episode of the seven-part documentary that prefaced the release of Empath, his first solo album since dissolving the Devin Townsend Project in 2017. For nearly 30 years, Townsend has erased artificial boundaries between genres. He has continually juxtaposed tracks ranging from extreme metal to progressive rock, classical, new age, ambient music, and even Americana on the same album. Here he goes much further: He grants listeners – and himself – witness to the jarring totality of his musical identity as he collides, explodes, and re-combines genres and sonic stratagems within songs.