Oh man, this is rich!

Not because I actually care, but because the very idea is sure to get MetalSucks (and other websites) a ton of clicks. So it’s rich… literally!

Devin Townsend had some nice things to say about his fellow Canadian countryman Chad Kroeger earlier this year, and now he’s taken the logical next step of inviting the Nickelback frontman to appear on his new album Empath.

That news is, naturally, a very small part of Devin’s latest brain-dump, levied last night on Twitter, but is the bit likely to garner the most headlines. Here’s what else happened: mixing for Empath has commenced, and Devin expects it to be finished in less than a month! Devin also name-checks Steve Vai and previous collaborator Anneke Van Giersbergen as having contributed this time around, among others. You can read more about Empath right here if you care about more than Chad Kroeger’s dumb face (as you should).

Here’s the whole thing:

“No sleep tonight. I’ve got the final stages of this year long process rolling through my mind. Almost done…another 3.5 weeks and this stage of it (the album) will be wrapped up. “Listened to the roughs of Empath on the flight and it had me teared up the whole way. I haven’t had this visceral a reaction to the work in many years. To think It all stemmed from taking a vacation! my god, what an intense period this has been. I’ll remember this past two years. “Thanks to some further guests, Anneke Van Giersbergen, Che Dorval, Chad Kroeger, Mike Keneally, Steve Vai, Lords Of The sound orchestra… it’s been total catharsis and tied intrinsically to the process of working through this transformation. It’s a lovely, complicated, weird one “Some people will totally love it, a fair amount will take awhile to have it sink in, some won’t get it at all, some will definitely prefer the bonus disk or the previous work, but fuck me, did I ever need to get this out of my system. It’s like 12 years of vomit at once… Related Post Nickelback’s Mike Kroeger Talks Further About His Love of Slayer He's a legit metalhead! He said last year he'd like to record a Slayer covers… “I had a choice to either go commercial or uncompromised on this. Thanks to Garth Richardson and Chad for convincing me to not compromise. It’s a hard choice as you get older because the temptation to play it safe is huge for the sake of family and security. “Exhausting… pure catharsis. It was about middle age, realization, fear, death, moderation, meditation, and overcoming the internal dialogues. I guess it was ultimately about getting it right after all these years, then kind of realizing that you just have to let it all go… “Music is just an expression of gratitude I think. Ultimately it’s just another album in a long line of albums, some will like it, some won’t. But it appears as if it will be accurate, and that’s a huge huge relief. “Three drummers, two bassists, orchestras, choirs, ducks, cats, goats, birds, whales… and I didn’t sabotage this one, for once… “Have to be at the studio in 3 hours after a sleepless night. Sweet. Luckily it’s not an immensely complicated mix “There’s a reoccurring theme on this project that seems to have appeared, and that seems to be one of ‘anti-suicide’”

I, for one, am very excited to hear Kroeger’s parts on the record and I can’t wait to see the internet completely lose its marbles over it! Relax, folks, it’s Devin Townsend music, it’s gonna be great.

You can see the original tweets over at The PRP.

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