MetalProgressive Rock
Devin Townsend releases “The Moth (The War – Live From Groningen)” on Friday 6 November on CD and Blu-ray, and has premiered a video for “Lexin” from it. It is the recording of the 28 March 2025 show at De Oosterpoort in Groningen, the Netherlands, which was the live debut of “The Moth”.
The album came out on 29 May through InsideOut Music, more than a decade after Townsend first started turning it over, and the live set was already there: it was the third CD of the deluxe edition — a 3CD and Blu-ray artbook — alongside “The Moth – The Afterlife”, the version where the orchestra and choir take over. Now it stands on its own.
He recorded the project with the North Netherlands Orchestra & Choir, with orchestrations by Joseph Stevenson and Niels Bye Nielsen, and with Darby Todd, Mike Keneally and James Leach; the album’s guests include Steve Vai, Anneke van Giersbergen and Lynn Wu of Ou. “The most obvious metaphor for change within the concept of this project was a moth,” Townsend says: “from caterpillar to an entirely different creature—one so drawn to the light that it burns itself away.”
Townsend plays Salamandra in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat on Saturday 10 October on the Metamorphosis Solo Tour: alone and acoustic, with a Q&A, all-seated, tickets at €60.
Text by Roger Estivill