When we asked our contributors to tell us their albums of the year, we also offered them the opportunity to retrospectively review any of their Top 10 list that we hadn’t reviewed already. Ruth Booth took us up on that offer.

The Devin Townsend Project
Addicted
HevyDevy Records
20 June 2011
by Ruth Booth
If Addicted wasn’t heavy enough, then bloody hell, you can’t say you haven’t got what you’ve asked or here. Depth of sound has always been a trademark of Townsend’s work, but even by those standards, Deconstruction is a tremendously dense record, one that’s way too heavy to be just metal; stuffed with (deep breath) opera, death metal, lullabies, space olympics raves, Al Jolson on ice; Meshuggah, Melechesh and Stephen Sondheim; metal luminaries in double figures, the Prague Philharmonic and PA’DAM choir; sex, death, religion, evolution, giant fast food, aliens… I’m not sure about the kitchen sink, but I’m pretty sure I heard a cat on there at one point.
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