Devin Townsend Project
Devin Townsend Presents : Ziltoid Live At The Royal Albert Hall
Release Date: 13 November 2015
Hevy Devy Records/Inside Out Music
Review by Rod Whitfield
This is a feast for Devin fans, a live album covering the popular Ziltoid saga, and also a whole bunch of epic tunes from his solo back catalogue. 24 tracks, two and a half hours of amazing music that was recorded at London’s prestigious Royal Albert Hall.
His timeless songs are a real gimme, you cannot go wrong with awesome tracks like Earth Day, Kingdom, Christeen, Bastard, the stomping March of the Poozers and so many more. The production of live albums can often be an issue. The trick is to walk that very fine line between so slick that it’s obviously been enhanced later in the studio, and so raw and ‘live’ that it’s unlistenable. This live record walks that line very nicely indeed, possibly even tending slightly towards the raw and real side. The greatness of the material and the skill of the musicians on display here have ensured that not too much studio trickery was required.
This album doesn’t capture a ‘golden period’ for this artist or anything like that. Purely because virtually everything this man has touched since he first came to prominence in 1993 has been pure gold. What this is, is a pure celebration of a magnificent career so far.