Canadian metal maverick Devin Townsend has released The Moth (The War – Live In Groningen) today via InsideOutMusic, and shared a live video for Covered By Causes from the performance.
The stand-alone live album documents The Moth in full with the North Netherlands Orchestra and Choir, conducted by Jukka Isakilla, principal conductor of the Metropole Orchestra and a long-time collaborator with mutual friend Steve Vai.
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The premiere took place across 27 and 28 March 2025 in Groningen. Originally bundled with the deluxe artbook edition of the studio album, the live set is now available as a limited CD and Blu-ray Digipak plus a digital album.
Townsend calls the live cut, in many ways, the definitive version. “Although the template for the sonic composition itself was refined on the actual album, the sort of desperate energy of this live performance, with its lack of adequate time to prepare, the emotional turmoil that surrounded my life at the time, and the resolve from myself and the others involved to shoot for the moon, knowing full well that if it failed, it would fail completely, galvanized the intent of the concept to the point that I was very moved to see it. I’m exceptionally proud of it, and of everyone involved.”
The Moth sat in the back of Townsend’s mind for more than a decade as his life’s work. About six years ago, after an acoustic show in Amsterdam, he was approached by the head of the North Netherlands Orchestra and Choir with an offer that pulled the project out of theory and into rehearsal rooms.
What followed was a long build toward the Groningen premiere – and now a dedicated live release that lets that night stand on its own.
If The Moth has a central theme, Townsend names it as true self-acceptance: a practiced willingness to face what is uncomfortable without turning away.
“The most obvious metaphor for change within the concept of this project was a moth: from caterpillar to an entirely different creature – one so drawn to the light that it burns itself away. What remains is immutable – only the spirit.”
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At the hardest moments, when abandoning the project might have seemed rational, Townsend points to the team. Orchestrators Joseph Stevenson and Niels Bye Nielsen, long-time band members Darby Todd (drums), Mike Keneally (guitars/keys) and James Leach (bass), plus vocal guests Anneke van Giersbergen and Lynn Wu (Ou), all played major parts.
Steve Vai is credited with co-writing the delicate Intermission. Townsend freely pays tribute to everyone who helped land what he calls a behemoth of a plane at this special – and so far singular – Groningen performance.
Covered By Causes arrives as the live video celebration for the out-now campaign, giving a direct look at the orchestral-metal scale of the show. Listeners who already have the studio Moth can treat the Groningen document as the companion piece Townsend always intended; newcomers get a way into the concept through the energy of the room rather than the studio polish alone.
InsideOutMusic’s decision to issue the Groningen performance as a stand-alone CD, Blu-ray Digipak and digital album gives The Moth a second life beyond the deluxe artbook.
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For collectors who already chased the studio set, the live document is the missing half of the concept. For everyone else it is a self-contained way into Townsend’s most ambitious recent project without needing the earlier bundle.
The Covered By Causes clip is the campaign’s immediate hook – a chance to see orchestra, choir and band locked into the same room energy Townsend describes as desperate and definitive.
Alongside the order link at dvn.lnk.to/TheMothLive, it marks the day the live Moth stops being a deluxe extra and becomes a release in its own right.
Taken together with the studio album earlier this year, The Moth (The War – Live In Groningen) closes a long loop: an idea held for more than a decade, a chance meeting in Amsterdam, a two-night premiere in March 2025, and now a proper commercial home for the night that made the concept real.
The Moth (The War – Live In Groningen) is out now via InsideOutMusic. Order and stream here. More at hevydevy.com.
