Devin Townsend: Empath (2LP & CD)

Empath is the upcoming eighteenth studio album by Canadian metal musician Devin Townsend, to be released on his own label HevyDevy Records on March 29, 2019. It is his first solo album since Dark Matters, which was a part of the 2014 double album Z², and his first release to act solely as a solo album since 2007’s Ziltoid the Omniscient.

On January 31, 2018, Townsend announced on his Facebook page that he was taking a break from the Devin Townsend Project, which had been his main project since 2008, although 2014 saw the release of both Z², a dual release acting as both a solo album and a Devin Townsend Project album, and Casualties of Cool, by Townsend’s eponymous country rock duo; this made Empath Townsend’s first release to act solely as a solo album since Ziltoid the Omniscient in 2007, and the first not to be a concept album since his 2006 ambient album The Hummer.

Townsend first mentioned Empath in a tweet from January 1, 2017. Two years later, on January 15, 2019, Townsend officially announced the album, on which work had already been completed, with a March 29, 2019 release date.

In the lead up to the album’s release, Devin will walk fans through how Empath came together with a series of documentary episodes recorded as phone conversations during the course of the albums recording.