DEVIN TOWNSEND Reveals His New Album Will Feature Singer From NICKELBACK

Devin Townsend

Devin Townsend has shared a major update regarding his upcoming studio album “Empath,” writing in a series of Tweets:

“No sleep tonight. I’ve got the final stages of this year-long process rolling through my mind. Almost done… another 3.5 weeks and this stage of it (the album) will be wrapped up.

“Listened to the roughs of ‘Empath’ on the flight and it had me teared up the whole way. I haven’t had this visceral a reaction to the work in many years. To think it all stemmed from taking a vacation! My god, what an intense period this has been. I’ll remember this past two years.

“Thanks to some further guests, Anneke Van Giersbergen, Che Dorval, Chad Kroeger, Mike Keneally, Steve Vai, Lords of the Sound orchestra… it’s been a total catharsis and tied intrinsically to the process of working through this transformation. It’s a lovely, complicated, weird one.

“Some people will totally love it, a fair amount will take a while to have it sink in, some won’t get it at all, some will definitely prefer the bonus disk or the previous work, but f*ck me, did I ever need to get this out of my system. It’s like 12 years of vomit at once…

“I had a choice to either go commercial or uncompromised on this. Thanks to Garth Richardson and Chad for convincing me to not compromise. It’s a hard choice as you get older because the temptation to play it safe is huge for the sake of family and security.

“Exhausting… pure catharsis. It was about middle age, realization, fear, death, moderation, meditation, and overcoming the internal dialogues. I guess it was ultimately about getting it right after all these years, then kind of realizing that you just have to let it all go…

“Music is just an expression of gratitude I think. Ultimately it’s just another album in a long line of albums, some will like it, some won’t. But it appears as if it will be accurate, and that’s a huge huge relief.

“Three drummers, two bassists, orchestras, choirs, ducks, cats, goats, birds, whales… and I didn’t sabotage this one, for once…

“Have to be at the studio in three hours after a sleepless night. Sweet. Luckily it’s not an immensely complicated mix.

“There’s a reoccurring theme on this project that seems to have appeared, and that seems to be one of ‘anti-suicide.'”

The three drummers in question are Mike Keneally (Dethklok), Morgan Ågren (Kaipa), and Sam “Samus” Paulicelli (Decrepit Birth). The record is tentatively due out in March 2019.