By Carl Begai

During his latest interview for BraveWords (found here), Canadian vocalist / guitarist / producer and master puppeteer Devin Townsend discussed his new Z² album. It’s another Devin Townsend Project epic, this one divided into two very different parts. Sky Blue (Part 1) is a somewhat melancholy offshoot of the DTP Epicloud record from 2012, while Dark Matters (Part 2) is the highly anticipated and over-the-top continuation of his Ziltoid The Omniscient record from 2007. As a whole, Townsend sees Z² as a marker for another transition of his creative process, the previous one having been Ziltoid’s debut.

One thing is certain; Townsend will be looking very seriously into sharing vocal duties like he did with Anneke van Giersbergen on the Addicted record and Ché Aimee Dorval for Casualties Of Cool for whatever he does next in music.

“Fuck yeah (laughs). Specifically, every time I do a good vocal performance it sets a precedent that I can’t maintain. I went down to EMG TV and they took me out for a foot massage and three amazing meals, had some wood nymph rub my head, so I went into their studio and just wailed it. People are like ‘Oh, that’s what you sound like.’ Then I get up on stage and sound like Super Grover and everybody’s asking what the fuck happened (laughs). I can make my voice do what I need it to do, but I really just want to play bass or weird clean guitar.”

There’s no getting away from the fans wanting to hear Townsend up front in the mix, many of them hoping for some his trademark violent Strapping Young Lad screams.

“When I was working with that LA producer I mentioned, he was like, ‘Okay, give me some Strapping!’ because that’s heavy metal, right? I went to do it and got such a fucking headache. Oh my god; I was sweating and my head was fucking pounding. It sounded like my balls were stuck in a taffy puller. When I was 25 that stuff was propelled by an energy that made it easy. Now, to get up to that level of intensity… I couldn’t maintain it.”

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Following is a track from the Sky Blue side of the Devin Townsend Project's new Z² double-album. You can check out the lyric video for "Rejoice" below.

Devin had this to say about the track: "Hey guys, here's the first song from Sky Blue, it's called "Rejoice". The album in general is about fighting through the ugly moments, and I think this song kind of summarizes it. Z² was a very challenging record, but after intense personal scrutiny, I  feel very proud. It's the most accurate representation of a challenging time. rejoice! :) Thanks for the support guys."

Devin Townsend Project previously released a lyric video for the track "Deathray", taken from the Dark Matters half of Z². That video can be seen below: