Ghost

The fourth and final volume in a series of releases industrial-metal guitarist/producer Devin Townsend has been working on since 2009, Ghost is the softest, quietest release he's ever been involved with. The dominant instruments are acoustic guitar, synth, and flute, and the vocals are gently crooned rather than screamed or howled. Drums are brushed as often as hit with sticks, and a female vocalist provides counterpoint to Townsend. Some of the songs still run to self-indulgent lengths ("Feather" drifts past the 11-minute mark, for no good reason), but a lot of these tracks are concise and pretty little numbers. "Blackberry" is like an industrial-tinged take on pop-country, with fingerpicked guitar and male-female duet vocals slathered in Townsend's usual oceans of reverb. Other tracks are entirely instrumental, sometimes recalling Tangerine Dream movie soundtracks. This is a left turn even by Townsend's somewhat wacky standards, and may be his most emotionally resonant album to date. ~ Phil Freeman