I always find their stuff hard to assimilate at first, but after four or five listens I’m in. This album is much more detailed than previous stuff. Lots of little scratches and buzzes buried in there, and my oh my Gil Sharone on drums is just insane. I thought Pennie leaving was a disaster, and Pennie is an amazing drummer, but Sharone has more of a groove rather than being completely robotic.

"When acting as a wave" is just stunningly spastic - check out the drum’n'bass sinewave bombs (you’ll need it loud with decent sized speakers) in that track, they had me laughing out loud in the car when I noticed them. "Horse Hunter" is just completely mayhem for the first 20s or so, how they do it I do not know. The final track is the biggest surprise… latin rhythms in metal? You bet. It shouldn’t work at all but oh my god it does. Possibly the best track on the album.

Get it. Listen to it loud. At least FIVE times before you make any judgement.

Thank you Ben Weinman and co.

It is seriously rocking B-movie prog metal that once again showcases Devin’s distinctive sound and production. The guy is a genius and knows exactly how to press all the right "metal" buttons.

All the drums on the album are apparently programmed using some sample setup from Meshuggah. The drum patterns are insane in places, I shudder to think about the hours that must have been spent slaving over "grid edit" in his sequencer.

I was sad to read that he no longer plans to tour or record with Strapping Young Lad or the Devin Townsend Band… but family life always seemed to me rather incompatible with ROCK (that’s rock in captials man).

The highlight track for me is "Ziltoidia Attaxx!" which has to be the most bouncy and pounding not-taking-itself-seriously metal track ever. Other tracks are on the Ziltoid myspace.

Also for a few minutes of fun you can check out the Ziltoid transmissions on YouTube.

Most stupid rock lyric from a puppet in a metal song ever? "Aha! Surprise!"

I’ve not spent much time in the past trying to work out why I have such eclectic music tastes. I love a few grind bands, a few metal bands, some hardcore, some classical, some contemporary, some progressive rock - but I seem to be very selective. Nu-metal or whatever they call the stop-start "let’s just make a grinding chugging tuneless riff" bands that are so prevalent these days in the metal scene are fine - but they don’t appeal to me. For 30 seconds I might think "ooh I like the sound of this" - but it is exactly that. The sound "feels" good. Interest is not sustained because the songwriting is not "out there" enough.

This is why I really like bands like Strapping Young Lad, Mastodon, Cephalic Carnage, Dillinger Escape Plan. Tons of energy, musicianship and … tunes. Remember those elusive things? That’s exactly why I just can’t sustain interest in the Meshuggah tracks that I’ve heard to date. I love their rhythmic complexity and the heavy sound, but I get so bored because there’s never a decent melody (that I’ve found) to occupy the melodic part of your brain. DEP for example have plenty of bluster and noise, but absolutely killer songwriting within. Heaviness and complexity with great melodic hooks is what separates the men from the boys, in my tastes at least. Pretty much anyone can sit down and write an aggressive and heavy-sounding song with a few chugging chromatic riffs.

Personally I do struggle with the sound at these "grind" gigs. Maybe its just my ears, but I am inevitably a bit disappointed as the mid-range of the guitars is typically lost out to bass rumble and the drum assault. On record its a lot better, but seeing a bunch of guys play such insane music while leaping around and generally having a great time is always invigorating.

Tim Smith of Cardiacs produced some of their early material, and its great to see that Oceansize themselves are fans of Cardiacs… I did notice the lead vocalist doing Cardiacs “tiptoe bouncing” (when will Silvery be recorded?!) at one point.

Next day I immediately bought the album “Everyone Into Position” on iTunes and frankly it is brilliant. Really refreshing sound and with such truly epic songs. Ornament / The Last Wrongs has to qualify as an epic pop prog classic, if there were such an award. Annoyingly all online sources of it I can find, to attempt to back up this claim, are only 30s long and of just the intro which is very quite as it is merely the foothills of the mountainous 9 minute epic.