DEVIN TOWNSEND Wins JUNO Award In 'Metal/Hard Music Album Of The Year' Category

Devin Townsend was honored in the “Metal/Hard Music Album Of The Year” category at this year’s Juno Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy Awards), which was held on Sunday, March 15 at FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

This category is an award to honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the Canadian recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position. Eligible albums include metal, metalcore, hardcore, heavy rock, thrash metal, death metal and their respective sub-genres including (but not limited to) nu-metal, power metal, grindcore, extreme metal, industrial metal, viking metal, folk metal, doom metal, gothic metal, speed metal, and sludge metal.

Artists who released albums between September 1, 2013 and November 13, 2014 were eligible for nominations.

“Metal/Hard Music Album Of The Year” nominees were as follows:

* DEVIN TOWNSEND – “Z2”
* KATAKLYSM – “Waiting For The End To Come”
* SHOOTING GUNS – “Brotherhood Of The Ram”
* SINGLE MOTHERS – “Negative Qualities”
* SKULL FIST – “Chasing The Dream”

Devin Townsend‘s “Z2” is a double album where the first CD is a DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT album called “Sky Blue”, and the second disc is a ZILTOID album called “Dark Matters”.

Townsend told Independent about “Z2”: “The first disc, ‘Sky Blue’, is the next step up from ‘Epicloud’, but the melodies aren’t as basic; it’s a lot more melancholy, it’s maybe a little more washed out color wise, it’s not as vibrant, but it really speaks for the fact that I couldn’t do a happy record right now, that’s not where I was at.

“My view on the second disc, ‘Dark Matters’, is different again. Seven years have gone by since the first ‘Ziltoid’. That was a really psychological record for me and he was a representation of me at that time. You know, I’d just had a kid, I was coming out of drugs and quitting my band, STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, stuff like that. I just don’t care about that stuff as much as I did. I’ve got other kids around me now, like my sister’s kids and my neighbor’s kids and they became really interested in Ziltoid and started giving me ideas for the story. So ‘Z2’ ended up being like a story for kids, just with really savage music, orchestras, choirs and all that stuff. I started thinking about ‘Who am I trying to reach with this record?'”

Fonte: Blabbermouth.net