How DEVIN TOWNSEND Found Fresh Inspiration For 'Transcendence' Album

DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT, the band led by Canadian musician/producer Devin Townsend, will release its new album, "Transcendence", on September 2. The cover artwork for the effort can be seen below.

The follow-up to 2014's "Z2" double album (half of which was made up of the DTP full-length "Sky Blue"),sees the award-winning Townsend exploring a relatively new way of working, collaborating with the entire DTP band during the writing stages of the record.

Speaking to PlanetMosh TV at last month's Ramblin' Man Fair at Mote Park, Maidstone, England, Devin stated about "Transcendence" (hear audio below): "I think the biggest thing with 'Transcendence' is… in a similar way to STRAPPING [YOUNG LAD], I kind of ran out of gas for DTP, I think, and I just was, like, 'What the fuck am I gonna write about now? How am I gonna care?' It's, like, you kind of have a tank of fuel and you burn it up doing… But once the fuel's gone, it's, like… So that's what happened with STRAPPING. The difference was, though, that STRAPPING was fundamentally unhealthy for me in some ways, and DTP isn't, so what I tried to do is sort of force myself out of my comfort zone with it, and try to experiment with different life changes and frames of mind that might inspire some different creative avenues that would still make me connect to that style, but also have something to be inspired by. And I did. I think that just by forcing myself into different scenarios, it really inspired me, and I think as a result, the record is really, really, really good. A nd it's still DTP, it's a familiar sound, I think, but it's also something that I think is… it's not full of shit. Where I think it [would have been] very easy to try and trick people into thinking that it's… And it isn't. I think the record is different in some ways than the past stuff. But it's really good."

The"Transcendence" artwork was once again created by Anthony Clarkson, whom Devin has been working with for several years now. Townsend commented on the cover: "[Anthony] presented me the main image of the girl as a painted version, and I was intrigued and asked him to redo it with a girl he knew with photos. I liked the idea that it seemed like a mashup of religious and spiritual imagery, in a sense, representing the idea (to me) that these types of connections to the infinite are often more like identities we can cling to rather than what lies behind. In a sense, the character on the front almost seems like the ideologies she's representing are more 'brand names' than anything else."

"Z2" was a double album where the first CD was a DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT album called "Sky Blue", and the second disc was a ZILTOID album called "Dark Matters".

DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT will team up with BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME for the "Transcending The Coma Tour" this fall. Support on the trek will come from FALLUJAH.