52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #38

Strapping Young Lad – The New Black

(Century Media, 2007)

Buy the album here

Canada is pretty normal, eh.  A reputation for being friendly and even overly polite, a government that seems to keep itself out of international controversy, a love for maple syrup, and the home of Nickelback and Celine Dion… these are all pretty normal, low key things.  But look closely for even a moment and you begin to see the cracks in this facade.  It’s a country where tens of thousands have chosen to migrate north to live in near arctic conditions just to escape other Canadians.  A country where “politicians” like Rob Ford made that seem like the best option.  A country with some of the grisliest murders in recent history.  A country where some Vancouver Canucks’ fans rioted simply because their team did not win.  Christ, a country where ice hockey is the most popular sport.  Canada is mental.  And to be honest, if we’d looked at the music it has produced we would have seen this all along.  Cryptopsy and Nomeansno don’t exactly scream “NORMAL”. 

Perhaps the zenith of this musical lunacy is the frankly schizophrenic output of Vancouver lad, Devin Townsend.  Having provided the startling vocals for Steve Vai’s Sex and Religion, Devin formed death-metal-of-sorts outfit Strapping Young Lad (SYL) and went about developing his “wall of sound” approach to music.  This didn’t stop him exploring his folk and pop influences through his solo-ish side projects, but on albums like City and Alien, SYL crushed listeners with overwhelming production, breath-taking vocals, and layered instrumentation.  The New Black took these elements and threw genre constraints completely out of the window.  It’s a bewildering and bruising album I sometimes feel bad about liking because of how honest Devin has been concerning the darkness and negativity that was gnawing at him while he was making it, a self-consuming anger that you can feel throughout, but the creativity that seems to have sprung forth from these dissociative feelings makes The New Black a brutal and surprising journey.

The anger comes out in lots of wrong ways.  But it’s pretty damn infectious.  Songs like “Fucker” and “You Suck” are predicated on judging others, and seem to come from the mind of someone struggling to reconcile his own place in the world, but they’re done with such complete gleeful and angry abandon that they propel all conscious resistance in every direction like the expanding cloud of a nuclear explosion.  Even the self-aggrandising opener “Decimator”, with its chants of “S Y L”, is delivered with such vehemence that your mind will be swept away by the chaotic yet pinpoint drumming of Gene Hoglan, loopy riffing, and Devin’s mesmerising operatic vocals.

The New Black further drifts in to self-reflexivity on “Far Beyond Metal” where the joys of youthful discovery are channelled to create a maniacal tribute to the entire genre of heavy metal and the experience of being one of its dedicated fans.  It’s a song that would be nothing more than gimmick in lesser hands, but SYL’s commitment, the genuine emotion that feeds in to the lyrics, and Devin’s stellar singing make this a song that will get caught in a perpetual state of “repeat” for many metal fans.  It also brings the isolationist anger of much of the album in to focus with its touching personal admissions of need and passion, and opens the door for the listener to hear the other side of Devin’s personality in “Almost Again” and “Polyphony” (even after getting punched in the neck by “Fucker”).  Here we experience the Devin that seemed to be exiled to side project albums, at least until the creation of The Devin Townsend Project following SYL’s demise, and the perspective of this insane album changes.  In “Almost Again” melodic passages are blended with the full barrage of wall-of-sound SYL that dominates their albums, and the nearly wistful verses balance the scything screams of the chorus.  “Polyphony” is an atmospheric prologue to the closing title track, and, with its sonorous and clean vocal, it perfectly sets up the album’s most patient song.

“The New Black” starts with everything you want at the end of this journey.  After all of the thrashings you’ve endured you now have groove.  SYL have made you work for it, but the release is incredible.  The guitars and drums beat in to your head a rhythm so infectious that you will bang your head no matter where you are, and it has the best use of a “gang” backing vocal I’ve ever heard.  But just in case you thought Devin liked you, he leaves you on a weird, dissonant note.  After a bridge section with a nasty riff, blast beats, and angelic vocals it simply fades away.  No return of the groove you worked so hard to earn, or the beautifully sung chorus you enjoyed so much…. You don’t deserve it.  It doesn’t matter though, as you’ll find yourself going straight back in for more.  It’s here that you might realise that the best songs on this album are “Anti-Product”, “Monument”, and “Wrong Side”.  While “Wrong Side” might feel like normal service on this album, it is an utterly devastating song that condenses all of the self-loathing that has inspired this final SYL album.  “Anti-Product” is more challenging, seamlessly interweaving horns, woodwind, voice-over samples, and big, metal riffs in to its powerful message of self-determination.  “Monument” works off that with its irresistible marching rhythm and its satirical take on belonging and the need for collective identity.  It is, if you have the pipes, a sing-along for a generation of young people who may feel trapped in a system that creates needs in individuals that it can never satisfy.

It’s that clash between expectations, imagined needs, individualism, and alienation that informs the struggle at the heart of The New Black and much of SYL’s work.  Anyone that follows Devin Townsend as an artist will feel grateful for the peace and happiness that he seems to have found, but on this album, he, while trying to shun much of what surrounded him, unwittingly expressed the internal struggle of many young people and made more humans relate to him than he would have ever wished for.  Many of them stayed with him to hear what else he had to say, but at that moment he proved that even in Canada things aren’t quite right.