What does ocean machine fall under? Solo work? If so, then that.
Also, why did he create a whole new band name and not just use Devin Townsend?
after doing the Vai album (Sex & Religion) he didn't really want to put his name out there, so he shielded himself behind "personas": Strapping Young Lad came first and their debut album is actually mostly Dev w/ a couple of guys helping out in certain tracks IIRC. Ocean Machine was supposed to be the other persona/band, but it didn't really pan out (at least not with that lineup) after
Biomech, so it was all scrapped. Then SYL got a permanent lineup for
City onwards and Dev had a mental breakdown of sorts between that and
Infinity, which caused him to reevaluate his outlook on the musical output he was producing:
Infinity was meant to be the symbolic union of his both sides, SYL and OM, and thus it sounded all over the place in terms of tone and feeling.
As for the question of the OP... I can't really pick one. If I'm really precise, I'd say his period from late 90s to early 00s (essentially from SYL's
City to his solo album
Terria) is probably his best IMHO - I consider both
Ocean Machine and
Terria two of his best albums, period, and
City is my favorite SYL album by far. After that he still maintained a high quality but I don't think he reached the heights of those three albums I mentioned (though DTB's
Synchestra and SYL's
Alien come really close but... no cigar, at least in my view).
After he took a break and rethought his process, went completely sober and formed the DTP... I think the tetralogy (
Ki/Addicted/Deconstruction/Ghost) is incredibly strong and varied: at least
Ki and big parts of
Ghost include some of my favorite material Dev has ever composed. Sadly I think he decreased the quality a bit after the planned 4-album cycle: neither
Epicloud, Z2 nor
Transcendence are better than the ones that came before though they're still great albums with some amazing moments (I mean... it's Dev, there's usually a couple of "those" moments in probably every one of his albums bar Devlab) and worth listening to unless you intensely dislike "wall of sound" production and/or catchy metal.
But then,
Empath... man, this one feels like
Infinity to me, but supercharged: a mixture of every side of Dev in musical form. I'm still trying to "digest it" but I love the second half of that album,
especially Hear Me and
Singularity. It's complex, brutal, funny, emotional, sincere and absurd at the same time. I hope it kickstarts Dev into another renaissance after feeling a bit "trapped" in the DTP sound that was becoming standard - another reinvention a la
Ki.
And another thing: I fucking love
Casualties of Cool and I hope CoC2 delivers. Ché Aimee Dorval has a beautiful voice and I'm grateful Dev decided to work with her.