Strapping Young Lad - "City" (Century Media)

Devin Townsend- Vocals/Guitar
Byron Stroud- Bass
Jed Simons- Guitar
Gene Hoglan- Drums

The first sound you hear on this album is a 'clunk-clunk' metal-on-metal sound, which is indicative of the cold mechanical nightmare you're about to put yourself through. Welcome to 'City'. Strapping Young Lads second album is nothing but twisting super-distorted guitars, machine-like drumming and above all one sick vocalist that can shriek high enough to pierce the sun and roar loud enough to shake the earth beneath you. This album is one of my all time favourites, and after a listen hopefully you'll understand why.

Devin Townsend, metal virtuoso and downright god, delivers an album of horrid industrial anthems, each song redefining the term noisy whilst maintaining ball-crushing riffs underneath the chaos. Fear Factory lit the path with Demanufacture on how industrial metal should be played; SYL lay down the law. Guitars are pure speed and frenzied chunkiness. Bass is not definable, but SYL are not a band built around bottom-end rumblings. Highlights are the drumming and vocals. Drumming is done by veteran of the metal scene Gene Hoglan, who's played in legendary bands such as Death and Dark Angel. On this album his drumming is cold, mechanical and delivered with razor-sharp precision. They're fast enough to support the whirlwind guitars but what's speed without complexity? Also in an industrial band, the drumming is the backbone of the atmosphere and sound, and Gene fills his role in a way only he can. The final chapter of the dementia is vocalist Devin Townsend, whose voice carries aggression, fury, angst and total uncompromising domination. Lyrics are built around his own personal thoughts (which kinda explains why he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital once) and they're delivered in anything from a skull-rattling rumble to a skin-piercing scream.

Track one is 'Velvet Kevorkian'. Not so much a song but a warning of what you're about to step into. A cranking little recording, it acts as ample introduction. Just listen to it and you'll see why. After that, for a short disorientating 40 minutes, you're dragged down into a world of destruction. Walls of distorted guitars flatten themselves on top of you. Pummeling punishing drumbeats rattle your rib cage. Turbulent frantic vocals blur your vision. God it's good.

Best tracks are 'All Hail the New Flesh', 'Detox' and 'Spirituality'. 'All Hail' is a hurricane of chaos coming at ya. Guitars coil and gyrate around your head as the drumming tortures you from below. Above it all is your first taste of Devin's vocal power, it's like having harpoons shot into your brain. 'Detox' is much the same feeling especially in the second half, where guitars rise and then crash down in waves. It is the aural representation of drowning; the music is overwhelming and claustrophobic, and Devin's screams try to penetrate through it all, but you don't make it out in one piece. Finally is the closer 'Spirituality'. Instead of battering your eardrums for one last time, the boys opt to toy with your emotions, presenting a composition of sweeping guitars and oozing angst. The album hardens your emotions- this song shatters them.

Like all of his albums Devin produced 'City' himself. There's not much I can say about production here, except that it's perfect. Drums are short and punchy. Guitars are super-distorted and kill everything in its midst. Vocals are clear and distinct. All in all, perfect. This is THE album to own. Desolate, unrelenting, dehumanising, it will freeze and destroy you. Chaos incarnate in the 21st century.

Reviewed by: Kev Truong