Patchy but with a couple gems.
This is an uneven album for sure. There's heavy pounding and fretwork galore, as you'd expect from Steve, but here he's not so practiced at writing songs instead of instrumentals (the gorgeous centerpiece of \"Touching Tongues,\" the main instrumental, definitely being the disc's biggest success). However S&R is a chance to hear Devin Townsend give some fantastic early vocal performances, singing and wailing his head off like there's no tomorrow, so that's a plus if you're a fan. Plus the drumming is by Terry Bozzio. I say the slower songs are mostly dragged down by the lyrics, though the singing (and screaming) works much better in the faster, heavier numbers like \"Dirty Black Hole\" and \"Pig.\" I'll always be grateful that this album introduced me to the genius of Devin, but there are only those couple highlights I really come back to all these years later.
