times Devin has taken the difficult route just to avoid making easy, low-effort, mainstream-appealing music. Certainly some of his iterations are more commercial in sound, but that's hardly a bad thing just in itself, and he is
the Devin Townsend Project was because he felt it was becoming too commercial, too safe, and therefore too artistically restricted, and he endured a lot of criticism to move on without DTP. Same thing for Strapping. Numerous
That's a very rudimentary and ultimately inaccurate reduction of somebody with a deep and varied catalogue. There are certainly some albums he's done that are more commercial and less interesting, but the whole reason he retired
