Empath  by Devin Townsend

The Canadian guitar virtuoso Devin Townsend presents in 2019 a highly progressive and avant-garde metal album, Empath. Here, the guitarist and composer unfolds his talent over the 74 minutes of the album and shows us how he perceives experimentation in music having metal as his base. One only needs to listen to the fourth single Why? or the fluctuations of Bordelands. It is an album that includes everything from death metal vocals to opera.

In order to bring this complex work to life, Devin Townsend collaborates in the studio with numerous other artists. Among them, the names of Swedish drummer Morgan Ågren, Dutch singer Anneke van Giersbergen, and American guitarist Steve Vai stand out. The first single of the album was Genesis, followed by three more. Empath as an album closes with the 23-minute suite Singularity, which consists of six parts. Shortly after, the album was released in a limited edition that included a second CD titled Tests Of Manhood with ten more compositions – mostly demos – lasting 50 minutes (!)

Empath reached No. 2 in Finland, No. 9 in Switzerland, No. 10 in Australia, No. 12 in Germany, and No. 23 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it only managed to reach No. 169 on the Billboard.