The Hall of Judgement: Devin Townsend - Ocean Machine - Biomech

Rexorcist has requested that this release be submitted into the Hall of Judgement. If you agree with the below change request, vote YES. If you don't, vote NO.

Request: Devin Townsend's "Ocean Machine - Biomech" album should be added to The Gateway while maintaining its position in The Infinite.

This change would add the Alternative Metal genre to the release.

Member Comment: "I'm currently getting through the list challenge albums I've already heard to review them, and right now I'm finishing Devin Townsend's / Ocean Machine's 'Biomech'. It's a cool album and all, and I love how unique the atmos is.

But what, exactly, is so prog about this? Recently, RYM has included an alternative tag to the primaries, and I fully agree with that. But each song is monotonous and drawn out with no sense of art, variety or complexity that modern prog is known for. Marillion and Dream Theater may have similar emotional tones, but the layout and structure of these songs are far from prog. They're monotone, repetitive, mechanical and noisy: industrial metal. Even ten minute songs like Bastard show how much Townsend blatantly refused to make it quirky and wild. The only thing surreal about this is the unique noisy atmosphere, which is basically aquatic shoegaze.

Anyway, I'm sorry about adding ANOTHER hall of judgement here, but I think this is a more fair one than the ones I added a few days ago. On top of that, I don't want to post a review of this album for the list challenge and then turn around and say, "It shouldn't even be there." I mean, yes I'll post the review just because I'm reviewing it, but in all honestly I really don't think it should be there. There are more deserving prog albums of that era that deserve that spot, like Terria. So I'm listening to Terria next and I'm gonna review that as well, so consider Terria my nomination for a replacement."

NOTE: Only members of The Infinite and/or The Gateway can vote on this judgement. Once 15 votes of Yes or No have been entered, the Hall will make its judgement.