Vancouver's Strapping Young Lad were extreme proponents of industrial thrash metal, a heavier version of Cop Shoot Cop and Fear Factory. After the tentative Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing (1995), which was really a solo album by vocalist and guitarist Devin Townsend, they matured with the huge and super-heavy sound of City (1997), that included the frantic All Hail the New Flesh.

Their frontman Devin Townsend launched a new project with Biomech (1997), credited to Ocean Machine, that was really his solo debut, followed by Infinity (1998), Physicist (2000), Terria (2001), Accelerated Evolution (2003).

The comeback of Strapping Young Lad (after six years) was rather uninspired, first with the mediocre Syl (Century Media, 2003) and then with the passable Alien (Century Media, 2005) and The New Black (2006).

Devin Townsend resumed his solo career with Devlab (2004), Synchestra (2006), The Hummer (2006), Ziltoid the Omniscient (2007), Z2 - Dark Matters (2014), and, after the roots-rock concept album Casualties of Cool (2014) with Che Aimee Dorval, Empath (2019).