EPTDescribing his music in just a few sentences would be very hard to do, for a multitude of reasons. First of all he's a very prolific musicians and has recorded sixteen albums in the past fifteen years. Five of those albums were with his band, which is now indefinitely on hiatus. Strapping Young Lad's music is generally much heavier than his solo albums, and he's shown through his whole career that he can be incredibly diverse and innovative within his genre, which also makes it hard to describe.
In lieu of full descriptions I'm going to go through each of his albums (both his solo stuff and SYL's), link a song from it on youtube if available, and let you listen for yourself. I won't be writing about two albums as they are fairly ambient and extremely experimental and the average fan of metal just won't like them.
Lots of the songs will probably be live performances, take them for what they are but obviously the sound quality is better if you get the album Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing
Strapping Young Lad
His first album with SYL, released in 1995 is just really good, fresh metal. All of the songs are remarkably different from one another, but my favorite songs from it are In the Rainy Season and Goat.
City
Strapping Young Lad
Released in February 1997, City was possibly the greatest follow up to the first album imaginable. The sound is more refined, the direction the music was heading was just "violent", in his own words, while retaining this aura of just beautiful, melodic music. My favorite song from it is All Hail the New Flesh.
Ocean Machine
Devin Townsend
Devin obviously had other things in mind when it came to writing music, and although Strapping Young Lad was a great outlet for his aggressive, brutal style, he probably wanted to experiment more rather than be confined to more extreme metal that is Strapping Young Lad. Only five months after City, in July 1997, he released his first solo album. The songs are very experimental in nature although there are some amazing songs, such as Seventh Wave.
Infinity
Devin Townsend
Infinity, released in October 1998, was what I consider to be probably the most experimental album in the whole discography. The single off the album was Christeen, which, although clearly an evolution of his older music, I don't particularly like. If I had to pick a favorite from the album, it would undoubtedly be Bad Devil. This song reflects on the rest of the album spectacularly. Obviously still metal, but including weird and out-of-genre effects like the horn section heard in this song.
Physicist
Devin Townsend
Physicist, released in June 2000, is probably the album I'm least familiar with, having only listened to it all the way through about 3 or 4 times. It's great in it's own right, but I don't feel comfortable saying too much about it. One interesting aside is that Gene Hoglan, Strapping Young Lad's drummer, helped write two of the songs. This was the first time Devin ever co-wrote a song in his solo project. This album ended up being the heaviest album overall so far, closest to the sound of SYL. This song is Death, one of the songs co-wrote by Hoglan.
Terria
Devin Townsend
Terria was the first album I ever heard by Devin's solo project. It remains to this day one of my favorite albums of all time. It's by far worth a listen all the way through. It's been called "melodic and atmospheric", while retaining the awe-inspiring heavieness of the previous work. It feels close to Ocean Machine than any of the other work so far. The solo in Deep Peace is breathtaking, possibly some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard.
Track's 2 through 5 are listed below. Mountain, Earth Day, Deep Peace, and Canada. Listen to them in order.
Strapping Young Lad
Strapping Young Lad
On the exact same day in February in 2003, a full six years after the release of City, and following the shockingly beautiful work of Terria, Devin returned to SYL and released the next in their 5-record deal with Century Media. I can only imagine what the oldschool fans of SYL must have thought this record might be like after Devin's solo stuff was released. The result was possibly the most violently brutal music they had ever released. The song titles themselves best reflected the music, "Relentless", "Rape Song" and "Force Fed" come to mind. This album was great, to say the least.
Accelerated Evolution
Devin Townsend
A month after SYL's self-titled album was released, Devin followed up "Terria" in a truly great way and there was now a very clear distinction between his solo material and SYL. Accelerated Evoultion has some amazingly beautiful terria-like songs - "Depth Charge" and "Random Analysis" come to mind, while also having more heavily oriented SYL-esque songs like "Deadhead". Below are Depth Charge and Random Analysis.
Alien
Strapping Young Lad
Alien was the first Strapping Young Lad album I listened to. I came accross it in the 10th grade, right after it was released in 2005, and instantly loved it. Looking at it in the context of all the previous albums it seems now like the perfect blend of both of his projects. It's heavy - possibly not as much as their self-titled album, but it's still definitely sounds like SYL and the overall theme of the album is just ridiculously badass (in my opinion). Below are "Skeksis", "Love", and "Zen".
Synchestra
Devin Townsend
Synchestra, released in 2006, is a very unique album. I could put it this way: I showed this album to my mom and she actually liked it. It's daring music, to say the least, for a metal artist. There are a lot of moments when listening to it the first time through you'll say "What? I can't believe that just happened." But it works, and it's as fresh as ever . Below are "Hypergeek", "Pixillate" and "Vampira", the latter being my favorite music video of all time because of it's humor. It's like he knows how pop-y it sounds and the video for it is meant to parody the whole pop genre of music.
The New Black
Strapping Young Lad
This installment was the fifth and final album by Strapping Young Lad. Also released in 2006, The New Black is recognized for it's humor and more melodic sound when compared with all of SYL's previous albums. Oderus Urungus from Gwar makes an appearance on the album. Below are "Wrong Side", "Anti Product", and "Almost Again".
Ziltoid the Omnicient
Devin Townsend
Ziltoid, released in 2007, is an album that truly is greater than the sum of it's parts. The songs are excellent, by all means, but within the context of the album they are somehow magnified. This album tells the story of a great and powerful alien who comes to earth in search of "the ultimate cup of coffee" and proceeds to invade and destroy earth while the humans desperately launch a counter attack on his home planet. If you can get ahold of it I highly recommend listening to the whole album. Below are "Solar Winds" and "Hyperdrive".
The two most recent albums, Ki and Addicted, released last year, are part of a planned 4-album cycle. In my opinion, they are only OK, and I don't have time to mention them since I have to go to bed. Ki frankly isn't metal, and Addicted has too much pop-metal sound for me. There are decent songs on both albums but there are also some pretty boring ones.
The title track for Ki is definitely my favorite song off either album, with a cover of hyperdrive from Addicted being my second favorite.
I hope this has been a good introduction for people who've never heard this guy's music before.
