What can I say? Ziltoid The Omniscient is undoubtedly one of my favorite albums of the last who knows how long. It's 53 minutes of pure originality and production wizardry. Townsend has done something that he has been unable to do to me on any other releases of his I have heard; he's captured me from the first note of the album and held me for the entire duration. An album written and recorded entirely by Townsend, it really stands out as a credit to the man's skills as a composer and producer. And I'm a sucker for a good concept album.

Townsend has written a fantastic story of science fiction adventure that is very comical and easy to follow. The comedy however doesn't detract at all from the music which is intense, multi-layered and projects a massive wall of sound. It manages to hold onto its comedic concepts and moments without having to bust into the Benny Hill Show theme song or anything similar.

When Earth fails to present the Omniscient one with the universe's ultimate cup of coffee its fate is sealed and the Ziltoidian army mounts an atack. Escape is narrow for the remaining humans thanks to Captain Spectacular who leads them to safety, in hot persuit by Ziltoid.

With visits to the 6th Dimentional Planet Smasher and the Omnidimentional Creator, Ziltoid travels the universe looking for the humans who he believes are hiding their finest beans.

Musically Ziltoid The Omniscient is a very complex and diverse album that reeks of musical ability and creativity. When it is heavy, it's HEAVY and has a massive drum sound and multi-layered guitars and when the mood slows down and the intensity dips, the music does nothing to lessen in greatness and appeal. The atmosphere that Townsend creates in all of the tracks are fantastic and set a fantastic sci-fi mood through the flat out heavy battle scenes to the more quiet reflective moments in the story.

Stand out tracks that stray from the intense metal wall of sound which is found throughout the majority of the album are "Solar Winds" and "Hyperdrive" which follow the human survivors flight from Earth. These tracks have such a fantastic reflective feel and give a sense of hope of survival for the humans.

While the very "produced" sound may not be everyone's cup of tea (or coffee...sorry Omniscient One!), and has in the past put me off Townsend's work, I think that in the context of Ziltoid The Omniscient it fits perfectly.

An intergalactic adventure that takes us from Earth to Nebuloan 9 and back again (I won't talk about the end of the story to avoid spoilers), Ziltoid is a musical tour de force that is unrelenting and yet not overbearing or oppressive. An amazingly well balanced album with spectacular production and songwriting, it is already a classic in my book.

The cover art by Travis Smith is a departure in style from his usual efforts but is so refreshing in how camp and fun it is in a world of dark photo-montaged cover art that starts looking a bit over done sometimes.

Ziltoid tells the humans early on to "make it perfect!" and I think Devin has come close to delivering the same standards on Ziltoid The Omniscient.

http://www.ziltoid.com/
http://www.myspace.com/ziltoidtheomniscient