Event Details
Date
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Time
Doors: 2:30 PM - Show: 3:30 PM
Age Restriction
19+
Venue
Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Address
190 Princes' Blvd, Toronto, ON
Artist
Devin Townsend
About the Event
With Support: Tesseract
Devin Townsend’s career is one of many distinct eras. He’s been the leader of Strapping Young
Lad, the lynchpin of the Devin Townsend Project and the co-architect of country duo Casualties
of Cool, all while maintaining his prolific and lauded solo project. Now, the polymath’s newest
era starts with Powernerd: a succinct but still progressive record that pulls from its mastermind’s
childhood love of vintage rock.
“It was a conscious thing,” Devin says of his brand-new album, the music on which he wrote in
just 11 days. “I thought, ‘I’ve spent so much time overthinking every aspect of my work – what
would happen if I didn’t?’ Maybe I would have the opportunity to be a bit more direct with what it
is that I’m trying to do. I really wanted to see if I could cut through some of the meandering.”
From the moment the title track ignites the record with a roar of “Powernerd!” and scrambles of
Motörhead-like urgency, Devin’s 28th studio project is a gallop of melody, noise and emotion.
The opener and “Knuckledragger” are all-out, high-speed rampages, their impact intensified by
their central figure’s signature ‘wall of sound’ production style.
However, that aggression is far from the only thing to come from Powernerd’s 11 episodic
tracks. “Dreams of Light”, by comparison, is an evocative and dynamic four-minute ballad.
“Younger Lover” calms down from an explosive opening to lush verses of synths and singing,
whereas “Falling Apart” and “Jainism” add texture after texture on top of dulcet, acoustic
introductions. With each song also having an irresistible hook at its heart, Devin has undeniably
crafted a soulful instant classic of a rock record.
Where Powernerd’s music is clear, though, its theme is far more complex. For all its displays of
Devin’s beloved humour, the album finds the mastermind wrestling with emotion too.
“I guess the lesson that I needed to learn from this experience was, if you’re going through
something emotionally – loss, specifically – whatever aesthetic you use artistically is just going
to adhere itself to that,” Devin explains. “So – as much as I tried to make a simple, fun, party
record – it ended up being such an emotionally heavy experience for me. It’s going to come out
and you can’t really suppress it. From what was originally a quick, simple record, the process of
loss and acceptance was just something I didn’t expect.”
As a result, where Powernerd’s music was written in less than a fortnight, its lyrics were refined
over a far longer period of time into a narrative about strength and healing. On “Falling Apart”,
Devin commands himself to “keep the tension under control”. “You’ve got to believe that things
will only get better,” subsequent song “Gratitude” powerfully declares. These uplifting messages
even play into the record’s title.
Devin offers as a definition: “I would say that a powernerd would be somebody that has a
tendency that society has deemed weak or not valuable, whether that’s empathy or being an
insular person or an introvert, and turns that into a type of personal power. It’s like, ‘OK, yeah,
I’m sensitive to this, that and the other thing, but man, I am going to pull through! I am going to
do things with that sensitivity that are rooted in strength.’”
As well as express strength through adversity, Powernerd will open the door to Devin’s
immediate future. Its positivity and succinctness will soon be contrasted by follow-up The Moth –
self-described as “orchestral, over-the-top, dark and uncomfortable” – and the “alien weirdness”
of finale Axolotl. Both efforts have already been written, and together the trilogy will express the
mind-boggling range of this man’s musical talent.
For now, though, Devin has faced the throes of grief then conveyed them in a therapeutic,
focussed and ultimately inspiring release. The next chapter of the prog star’s work is off to an
unmissable start. And, when this era comes to a close, who knows what will come next?
Important Information
Devin Townsend
After a few exceptionally long years full of personal change and near manic levels of creative activity, Canadian musician Devin Townsend releases his follow-up to 2019’s well-received ‘Empath’ in the form of his new release: ‘LIGHTWORK’
Assembled from a barrage of material written during the pandemic, ‘LIGHTWORK’ (and its companion album of B-sides and demos; ’Nightwork’) represents Devin at this stage of his life, post-pandemic, and his reflections on what he (and many of us) all gone through.
Throughout the 30 years or so Devin has been working professionally as a musician, he has had a sort of 'internal checklist’ of projects he has wanted to attempt
From the film project for ‘The Puzzle’, the heavy metal puppet show of ‘Ziltoid The Omniscient,’ or the upcoming Broadway-style musical ‘The Moth’, his process is often the same;
Take the current selection of material written during any given period and run them through a ‘filter’ that ticks boxes off on this internal checklist.
For Lightwork, Devin decided to see what would happen if he included a producer (an experiment he has been excited to attempt for some time) to help guide this selection of material. He chose long-time friend GGGarth (Richardson) to help bring this idea to fruition, and through a difficult (but wonderful) process, the next Devin albums have been delivered.
Conceptually, it seems that much of the material from artists in a post-pandemic world deals with society, control, and topics on a community level, and although Lightwork certainly has aspects of that, it’s much more based around personal revelations on Devin’s side.
Like most of us, Devin went through a series of unique life experiences over the past few years, hit 50 years old, and recognized the need to address things on a personal level in order to try and pick up the pieces and make progress moving forward.
The name ‘Lightwork’ represents the music, as well as the act of creating music, as a kind of ‘light in the dark’ while trying to navigate the seemingly endless challenges that life can often present. When things seem like there’s no way out’ or that a situation becomes seemingly insurmountable, the connection to music, family, and creativity became a light in the dark that ended up in a wonderful little album.
This recording, like all his work, is simply a snapshot of time. And while every time is different, this period had a certain unique collision of song focussed melodic music, combined with abstract sound design. This energy, melancholy, and an oddly relaxed nature was captured with the guidance of GGGarth as he pushed Devin to explore certain aspects of his music and sound design that pushed him out of his comfort zone.
In the long run, Lightwork became an emotionally healthy representation of self-exploration and sound which became creatively available to Devin during this extraordinary period.
The success of this record (for Devin on a personal level) is that through such chaotic experiences, the music remained calm at its centre.
The hope is that others can benefit from the work that went into keeping it as such.
What Devin hoped to Achieve with Lightwork was not as much a ‘chart-topping album’, but more an album that describes the process of stepping out of one’s comfort zone, facing various long-held fears, and ultimately becoming confident enough as a person and an artist to find and impose boundaries. …To know who you are and to be ok with that.
As difficult of a process as Lightwork was, it may end up being one of the most important creative moments of his life and set the stage for what comes next.
Maybe Lightwork is best described as a ‘bridge between two continents'
Lightwork was consciously written about taking a hard look at where we are as people after a profound time in history and then taking real care to focus our future energies on what is truly important to us in light of that. Friends, health, family, creativity, time off, not running from the fear, not allowing other people’s expectations to define us, creative freedom and self-care.
‘Doing the difficult work to begin to know who we truly are, makes it so that during periods of unrest, we can maintain a certain degree of peace’.
Music is a Lighthouse.
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