The sudden, loud chicken squawk that halts the staggering grandiosity of "Orion" is a sharp reminder that, despite the high-art framing of The Moth, Devin Townsend remains a beautifully eccentric disruptor. A decade in the making, this massive progressive rock opera represents a total role reversal for the artist with the help of the North Netherlands Orchestra and Choir. Rather than delivering a metal album dressed up with symphonic flair, Townsend writes as a "maniacal conductor," compositionally building a genuine classical narrative.
Critics praise how successfully the album balances raw intensity with theatrical wit. Kerrang! highlights how "Covered By Causes" sounds like "Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb amped up on Ziltoidian coffee," pointing to Townsend's unique gift for treading the line between "restrained sophistication and his most hammy instincts". It is a demanding, 24-track "behemoth that ebbs and flows through the stages of loss, grief, and the inner battle". Yet the overwhelming detail works; writers marvel at how "every strange electronic texture feels like another piece of some enormous, impossible, futuristic yet vintage contraption surging into life".
