I've gotten all of the Devin Townsend non-SYL albums. I bought AE and liked it quite a bit. Next, bought Ocean Machine. Liked it more. Bought Terria. Liked it more, too. Then, for Christmas, I got a giftcard and treated myself to SYL, City, Infinity and Physicist. I listened to all of the others first, then Physicist. Don't know why. The first spin I gave Physicist I was overwhelmed. It sounded just like SYL to me.

I was wrong.

I have since listened to it more often and carefully. And, I love this album. It is currently my favorite and the one getting the most play. I love the intense, fast beat, driving guitars, screams and then the underlayer of beauty. This album rules!

Favorite song is Kingdom. Least favorite is Death.

And, now a few things. Has anyone noticed Dev's references to being an alien of some kind? First, there's "Greetings" on OM. Then, "Fluke" on Terria. On Physicist, there's "Victim". On the cover, there's the "P" logo and underneath it is a reptilian face. Some people have described a race of aliens as reptilian (not that I'm saying it's true, just noting the coincidence). So, what's that all about? Why so many references to alien stuff?

On the cover, there's the "P" logo and underneath it is a reptilian face. Some people have described a race of aliens as reptilian (not that I'm saying it's true, just noting the coincidence). So, what's that all about? Why so many references to alien stuff?

This is a nice coincidence, because parts of the lyrics for "Depth Charge" go like this:

Who's behind the door... WHO'S BEHIND THE DOOR?
Reptile, the reptile in me
Animal, I'm an animal, and we're all the same,
ALL the same...

Don't know what this reptile-stuff should be all about.


But you are right, Physicist is underrated. I think it could have been way better than it finally turned out to be, if all songs had the quality of "Material" and "Kingdom" then it could really have been my favourite Dev album. (and also if the production would be better than it acutally is, which is something a lot of other people say as well)

Well, alienation seems to be a theme that turns up every now and then on his albums, but on the other hand it seems to be a pretty common feeling in us all nowadays...

..be it good or bad, I haven't decided yet...

On the cover, there's the "P" logo and underneath it is a reptilian face. Some people have described a race of aliens as reptilian (not that I'm saying it's true, just noting the coincidence). So, what's that all about? Why so many references to alien stuff?

This is a nice coincidence, because parts of the lyrics for "Depth Charge" go like this:

Who's behind the door... WHO'S BEHIND THE DOOR?
Reptile, the reptile in me
Animal, I'm an animal, and we're all the same,
ALL the same...

Don't know what this reptile-stuff should be all about.


But you are right, Physicist is underrated. I think it could have been way better than it finally turned out to be, if all songs had the quality of "Material" and "Kingdom" then it could really have been my favourite Dev album. (and also if the production would be better than it acutally is, which is something a lot of other people say as well)

Oh, see, and there's another, in SYL, he sings, "Quiet now, Quiet now, Quiet Human!" I mean, why would he say the line this way if he wasn't implying that he, Devin, is other than human? There just seems to be a lot of references like this in the albums.

I don't notice anything wrong with the production in Physicist. I like it. People are picky.

Physicist just came in the mail this morning and after 5 1/2 long ass hours of work I'm finally home listening to it! Woohoo!

I mean, why would he say the line this way if he wasn't implying that he, Devin, is other than human?

Because shouting "Quiet, human!" sounds fucking great?

I don't notice anything wrong with the production in Physicist. I like it. People are picky.

If you ask me, I think the drums sound too "dirty" and it would be cool, if they sounded cleaner, because it would fit the album better. But that is my main complaint, there's some other stuff that could be fixed, but that has more to do with the general mixing of all layers (and maybe even mastering) and is different for each song.

Besided that, when I compare the production of Physicist with that of City, for example, I notice that there's less 'information' in Physicist... there are not nearly as much layers and samples and stuff like that...so all in all Physicist sounds kinda basic and stripped down at times. But I still think that it contains two or three of his best songs so far.

my...god!

Your flippin' mad!

Physicist is my fave Dev album and i cant complain on things like mixing so much because eh, the smashing pumpkins 95 album "mellon Collie and the infinite sadness" was kinda not mixed as good as it could have been but it doesnt change the fact that a lot of the songs rocked.
we should be thankful for what we got

my...god!

Your flippin' mad!

Physicist is my fave Dev album and i cant complain on things like mixing so much because eh, the smashing pumpkins 95 album "mellon Collie and the infinite sadness" was kinda not mixed as good as it could have been but it doesnt change the fact that a lot of the songs rocked.
we should be thankful for what we got

I love that album (mellon collie), its an alternative epic, I like how it has super heavy shit to super mellow nice shit all back to back.

Its a very good alBUM

Holy Crap! I never noticed the reptile behind there! All I saw when I looked at it before was the P logo overtop a metropolis-ish cityscape.

I am blind as a bat. Thanks for pointing that out!

Physicist is awesome, BTW. Best tracks = Material, Kingdom, Jupiter, Planet Rain.

I'm NOT gonna look! NOT! EVER! *runs to the CD-rack*

I never noticed that either. That is really awesome. I'm going to go over all of Devin's album artwork and see if there's anything I never noticed now, because I can think of a couple other things like that which he has done.

Another thing I noticed recently is that underneath the track listings, both in the booklet and on the back of the CD case, is an alternative track listing. It shows the Physicist line up as...
1. Namaste
2. Irish Maiden
3. Victim
4. Material
5. Kingdom
6. Death
7. Devoid
8. The Complex
9. Jupiter
10. Planet Rain

What's up with that? Anyone know?

I mean, why would he say the line this way if he wasn't implying that he, Devin, is other than human?

Because shouting "Quiet, human!" sounds fucking great?

Okay, sure, I suppose you could look at it that way. I assume, personally, that Dev uses lyrics for two reasons. One, because they sound fucking great and two, because they have some symbolic meaning derived by the phonetic sounds being strung together. So, I still am left wondering why so many of his songs (and album covers) suggest an other-than-human identity for himself.

anybody read the interview with strapping young lad where one of the questions is "do you believe there are aliens? and if yes are they going to eat us?" or something along those lines. anyway, dev's answer is "we dont want to eat you."

So there's further prove for ya