Strapping Young Lad – Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing (1995)
It’s 1995. Devin Townsend was already an experienced musician who’d performed with big names like Steve Vai and Front Line Assembly. I’m not entirely sure how Strapping Young Lad came into existence, but I’m lead to believe it was some sort of youthful exuberance and rage thing. If there’s one thing I can say with absolute certainty about Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing, it’s that it sounds like youth and rage bundled into a loose, anarchic death/thrash/industrial blast. A primal scream, even, or perhaps an overextended metaphor? Whatever it is, it’s loud, fast, and it might just rule.
Strapping Young Lad’s debut, in short, is sophomoric at best. Take a listen to the first track (“SYL”), where Devin Townsend alternates between screaming at us about how his previous life at A&W fucking sucked and offering us a vague utopian vision rising from collective action towards… something? It’s easy to know the world’s got some structural problems, and a little harder to death-thrash, but solving these problems takes more planning. No matter – the future seeds of Devy’s musical planning are mostly present. Big dynamics, walls of sound, charismatic vocals. With everything here turned up to 11, though, there’s not a lot of room for Townsend’s other love – musicals. I think we can safely say this is the least theatrical SYL ever was, though even City is a reasonable contender for that austere throne.
After many years of listening, I’m thinking that Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing‘s pros and cons are entirely a result of its primal, yet somewhat disorganized and scatterbrained sound. The main problem is that a lot of the tracks here feel underdeveloped – they repeat themselves a lot and still sometimes manage to end before they’ve said all they need to. On the other hand, the wall of sound production plus the kitchen sink approach Wikipedia insisted this album has (and as you know, Wikipedia never lies), you get a lot of fun asides and otherwise unexpected ingredients in your songs. The occasional piece of industrial influence doesn’t hurt, like the Jazz Jackrabbit tier “Tubelectric” beat that girds whatever “Cod Metal King” is. Finally, this album just lets loose in that psychoacoustic noise in a way that even City didn’t, preoccupied as it was with SYL’s budding musicality. Sometimes, you just want that in your life.
I mean, the end result here is corny and cheesy at the best of times, but I don’t see metal fans dissing nachos, do I? Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing is a (musical) plate of loaded nachos. It tastes great, it feels great, it’s terribly unhealthy, and you’ll feel guilty once you finally relent, bloated and queasy from your gluttonous feast.
Highlights: “SYL”, “Cod Metal King”, “Happy Camper”, “Satan’s Ice Cream Truck”
