Devin Townsend opens the Groningen orchestra recording beyond the deluxe box

GRONINGEN, NETHERLANDS — Devin Townsend has opened the doors on one of the largest undertakings of his career, releasing “Lexin (Live in Groningen)” as the first publicly available track from the forthcoming standalone edition of The Moth (The War – Live). ** The performance comes from Townsend’s extraordinary March 2025 presentation of The Moth at De Oosterpoort in Groningen, where the Canadian musician brought the long-developing work to the stage with the Noord Nederlands Orkest, a full choir and a rock band. The performances took place March 27 and 28, with Jukka Iisakkila conducting. Devin Townsend “Lexin” now provides a striking entry point into that much larger production. Townsend has released the live performance publicly ahead of the November 6, 2026 arrival of The Moth (The War – Live) through InsideOutMusic. The complete performance runs 24 tracks and will be available digitally as well as in a standalone CD/Blu-ray Digipak, with the Blu-ray presenting the complete concert. HevyDevy The Groningen recording isn't simply a conventional live version of a studio album. The Moth had existed as an idea for Townsend for more than a decade, eventually developing into an enormous orchestral, choral and theatrical work. Townsend's collaboration with the North Netherlands orchestra grew out of an approach made to him following an acoustic performance in Amsterdam several years before the eventual premiere. Devin Townsend

For the live production, Townsend was joined by Darby Todd on drums, Mike Keneally on guitar, James Leach on bass, Lynn Wu on lead and backing vocals and Pete Rinaldi on guitar, alongside Townsend on vocals and guitar and the Noord Nederlands Orkest. Devin Townsend The scale is important to understanding why Townsend considers the filmed performance more than an archival companion to the record. In announcing the standalone release, he said that seeing the musicians actually perform the piece was central to what he wanted audiences to understand about The Moth. Rather than something assembled entirely inside a studio, the Groningen film documents a huge group of rehearsed musicians realizing the work together in real time. HevyDevy That makes “Lexin” particularly effective as the introduction. It sits seventh in the 24-part work, while “Lexin Returns” appears later as track 15, underscoring how The Moth was constructed as a continuous large-scale piece rather than simply a collection of unrelated songs.

Devin Townsend The project itself circles around transformation and self-acceptance, with the moth serving as Townsend's central metaphor: a creature undergoing radical transformation and then irresistibly drawn toward light. It's characteristically ambitious territory for an artist whose career has repeatedly moved between extreme metal, progressive rock, ambient music and increasingly elaborate orchestral composition. Sonic Abuse The live edition had previously been available as part of the deluxe The Moth artbook package. The November release changes that considerably, separating the Groningen performance into its own release and making the concert available to listeners who didn't purchase the limited deluxe edition. HevyDevy For Townsend, it also appears to close the circle on a project that spent years existing largely in his imagination. He describes the live version as, in many ways, the definitive version of The Moth and says that finally watching the completed Groningen performance changed his own relationship with the work.