Voivod - Morgöth Tales (2023)

I've made it no secret through the years that Voivod is my favorite band, so the prospect of an album of re-recordings is dubious. Why mess with what has largely been perfection, or close to it? The thing is, I've been proven wrong on these specific sorts of compilations often enough that I've no question that, when done patiently, or done 'right', they can have some value in the modernization of limited recording technology or production values that in some way might have crippled the original sessions. Or maybe the band just wants to give the current roster a chance to lay down their spin on the band's legacy, or gloss up some golden oldies for the younger audience used to the sound on the more contemporary output in the discography. The idea behind Morgöth Tales is all of the above, but it's also a 40th year anniversary offering with the idea to take one track from each of previous albums, or at least eight of them, and 'update' them with Rocky and Chewy; plus a few added bonuses.

For me, those three bonuses were initially the biggest draw, since they tackled their Metal Massacre track "Condemned to the Gallows" and made a neat sweep of it, tightly controlled with a tone that wouldn't be out of place on their recent records, but structurally just as fun and punk-driven as the original. Daniel's lead is great and the thing is just infused with youthful vitality, although I can imagine a swath of the purists might rue the lack of real rawness and underground vitriol to the recording. The title track, which closes off the album, is a very cool new track, but with a style that more closely resembles Dimension Hatross, with a spacious atmosphere due to some of the reverb on the vocals, but some real amazing, cycling grooves and a nice psychedelic break which lapses into Nothingface territory. This is ultimately my favorite part of the collection, although their slightly metalized cover of Public Image Limited's "Home" is also quite good, and fitting with Snake's vocals and the overall odd vibe of the band. I like some of their sillier covers of stuff like "Batman" or the "Ultraman" theme plenty enough, but they do their best tributes with more serious fare like this or "Astronomy Domine".

I'm not sure I'm entirely in love with the idea of picking one track from each of the albums, since I think some really wouldn't have needed to be touched, like "Fix My Heart", "Nuage Fractal" or "Rebel Robot"; the differences are minor, and I don't know that these versions truly embellish on the originals, even with the tonal evolution and alternate studio. It's more fun to hear early stuff like "Thrashing Rage", and I wonder if just re-recording War and Pain or its successor would have been better. The versions of "Killing Technology" and "Macrosolutions to Megaproblems" here are damn tight, and they will certainly give a better idea of how the band would sound performing them today with this lineup, but the originals come from works I praise so highly that any small detail will feel more abrupt to me. Perhaps I'm just too biased, but I'm certainly not trying to bash this, I think overall it's a worthwhile pickup for the longtime fan or initiate, I bought it day one, and I'd buy six more volumes if they were intent on release them. But at the same time...I'm looking forward to the band's energy being focused back on the infinite universes they still might explore, the past they've lest us is already so awesome, expansive and unforgettable that I'd never get sick of playing around in it.

Verdict: Win [8/10] 

https://www.voivod.com/

Voivod - Ultraman EP (2022)

Two of my favorite things, together at last? I've made no secret of my love for Canadian sci-fi thrashers Voivod, they are my favorite band by an order of magnitude, but I'm also a huge fan of tokusatsu shows like the legendary Ultraman. In fact, the genre has been having a bit of a renaissance lately, with Stateside Blu Rays and DVDs for series from Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, Gridman, and especially the dozens of Mill Creek releases of Ultraman shows spanning the last 50-60 years. Young autothrall would have killed to get some of this growing up, there were a few shows available to watch on TV, but usually it was fansubs only when the internet arrived, and I was never big into the Power Rangers adaptations, the original Japanese shows they were culled from were just far whackier and more entertaining.

But yeah, it doesn't surprise me that the coolest band ever shares this passion, and they mete out a split medley of 9 versions of the Ultraman theme, shifting between instrumental and vocal versions, with a few different languages in there too. It's fun, but obviously this is a novelty, much like their old cover of "Batman" which was weirdly relevant to their 80s evolution. The themes are really short, and play it fairly close to the originals, but there's a slight edge of innovation in the guitars, and Snake's punk-wrought vocal style is a smooth fit, turning them into this almost space-surf-punk feel.  For the B-side, they've included a pair of 2018 live recordings of "Voivod" and "Overreaction" that sound phenomenal, with great angry vocals, booming bass and shuffling percussion to support Chewy's energized renditions, you even get a Piggy chant from the band and audience if I'm not mistaken. All told, the Ultraman EP will have a limited appeal, the A-side is a little repetitive and it's obviously not as powerful as their original material, but it's a cute collector's item to hang on your wall, and one wonders what might happen if they put out a whole album covering obscure sci-fi/superhero themes, maybe some prog and such. Earns a big smile, but not really mandatory beyond its collectible nature, there's just so little to it.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

https://www.voivod.com/

Voivod - Synchro Anarchy (2022)

The Wake was, at least to me, another of Voivod's myriad masterworks which celebrated everything that had come before it, everything that this anomalous Canadian band had built into its DNA through the decades, and then pushed those parameters even further, fattening the envelope with some fresh ideas like a touch of orchestration or some riffs and arrangements which have naturally bled into the band's process with the integration of Chewy's great talents. That's a daunting act to follow, but to its credit, Synchro Anarchy strives really damn hard to do just that, and while it might not succeed 100% of the time in its task, it's an absolute scorcher that belongs on the shelves of anyone into inspired, original metal music, or maybe even music in general?!

Granted, this is my favorite band ever, and I'm biased, but until there are as many copies of Voivod as Michael Jackson out there in the world, I will not rest. This is the hill I want to die on! After hearing the first couple singles off of Synchro Anarchy, I was definitely feeling a heavy Dimension Hatröss vibe, as if the weirdness and grooving thrash of that particular record had been energized and updated for yet another decade. To an extent, that's true, as displayed through the weird dissonance of the chord sequences, thick cement-like bass grooves and almost drugged, introspective vocals, but once you've listened through this one a bunch and discovered its bigger picture, the album has a lot more going on, and like its predecessor, offers a few new spins on the considerable lexicon of the Canadians' progressive sci-fi metal tropes. At points I was hearing a little more of Chewy's death metal heritage splash into the writing, like a few of the brief tremolo picked runs in the opener "Paranormailum" before lurching into those warped jilted, extraterrestrial guitars.

A track like the titular "Synchro Anarchy" teases you with some of the old Piggy trademark chords, but splays them out in new rhythmic patterns beneath Snake's mesmerizing, punk-inflected hymns to retro and post-futurism. There are loads of details which are obvious from the get-go, but after increased listens through I started to enjoy them...increasingly, especially some of the warmer and more proggy flights of notation from Chewy. The other new-ish member, Rocky, also floods this album with what might be the fattest and most impactful bass-tone they've ever had, once again honoring his predecessor Blacky in full with lines that are odd, alien, funky and fresh when you run them up against about 99% of what other low-enders are performing in metal bands. He literally drives tracks like "Planet Eaters" out of the stratosphere, and the rest of the band has to find something tasty to distract us away from how amazing he is. To be fair, they do, and it all gels together so smoothly despite the obvious level of aggression, for Synchro Anarchy feels slightly more tense and hungry than Target Earth or The Wake.

It also doesn't hurt that the veterans, Snake and Away are at the top of their game with their own respective instruments and writing, and the production on this is totally killer. While I'm not always the biggest sucker for levels of polish like this, for what a band like Voivod is pulling off, it's so critical to get those volumes clear and potent and right in your face, because this is not a band that requires an atmospheric sheen to enhance it...the wondrous, frightening musical spaces they create are AUTOMATICALLY transports to otherworldly metal music parallels. And yet there are plenty of atmospheric effects added here anyways! There is not a note on the album that sounds mixed out of place, and Francis Perron absolutely nailed it. Away's artwork is as always a delight of that freaky pulp futurism we've seen before from the, as with the Post Society EP, and I really enjoyed letting each concept sink in while I stared at the accompanying imagery. The band's visual concepts ignite my nerdy imagination just as they did when I was a kid and first encountered the band.

What's more, there is not a single dud on the entire album. As strong as the first three tunes are, the album gets even BETTER as it goes along, and while highlights are not easy to pick out, tracks like the weird, pumping "Sleeves Off", churning "Holographic Thinking", and catchy-as-hell "Memory Failure" were initial standouts. Of course I was being hasty, because with each successive spin I've continued to appreciate the entire album even more, and it's one of those efforts where you could pull out single tracks for a quick, effective thrill, or just bask in the 48 minutes of genius. There are certainly moments that feel like visitations to the past, but plenty enough here to confirm that this Machine Is Far From Lost, the band's constant creativity is well-intact, they can honor their own history while forging ever further into the sparkling black depths of space metal. I hope I've got enough oxygen to follow along for as many light years as I can.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.75/10]

https://www.voivod.com/

Voivod - Lost Machine: Live (2020)

Lost Machine was recorded on the same tour that I last caught Voivod on, so the set looks mighty familiar, and that's a good thing, because I had a blast at that gig, and thanked several of them afterwards. Not the same DATE, of course, as I live in New England, but with this Quebec City recording, I feel like I can relive it all over again, and what's more, they sound excellent. The Canadians have put out a number of lives in the past, with the low point being Voivod Lives in 2000, and high water mark to Warriors of Ice in 2011, but it's safe to say this sounds almost the measure of the latter, with a great track list spanning a lot of their albums...not ALL of them, because you're not going to begin to cover 15 albums with 13 tracks, but let's just say there's a variety here that made the set an entertaining aural roller coaster.

"Post Society" starts out strong, setting the benchmark for how clean this is going to sound. They've always been a band that excelled with the single guitarist, because the rhythm section is so interesting that there's always plenty to captivate you, and Chewy's tone here is fucking phenomenal. His rhythms might sound a little thin, but they're so clean and perfectly played, and his leads are wild. The bass also sounds awesome, and Away's drumming is as proggy and energetically balanced as in the studio. Snake is also on point, an entertaining frontman to experience, and that wastoid punkish quality to his voice sounds like he hasn't aged a day since the 80s. They rifle through new excellence like "Obsolete Beings", "The End of Dormancy", "Iconspiracy" and "Fall" as they were classics, rubbing up against fan favorites like "Psychic Vacuum" and their "Astronomy Domine" cover, but also took me by surprise with "The Prow" from Angel Rat, which I remember being stoked to see in person.  They also do the titular "The Lost Machine" off The Outer Limits, duh, which is also had an unusually potent presence on stage with their odd sci-fi projections playing out on the screen behind them.

Lost Machine: Live is an awesome presentation of the band, and no matter what track selection they had come up with, provided it wasn't all from Negatron, the quality would have probably been the same. Yes, I am biased, this is my favorite group in the universe and they can do no wrong (not even Negatron was that wrong), but it's another cool live album that maintains peak professionalism while never lacking the vibrancy and creativity that has always driven them. Mandatory for fans and collectors, and still well worth a listen for everyone else too.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

https://www.voivod.com/en/news

Voivod - The End of Dormancy EP (2020)

Even as a Voivod devotee, the contents of The End of Dormancy EP are a hard sell, because there's just not a lot to it, but the idea is at least fun. Take the title track and then spice it up with a horn section. It works, it works really damn well, the saxes and so forth honking and squealing along to the already-weird, progressive taxonomy of the composition. At the same time, it does seem like you could just cut and paste them in there, they don't really feel like naturally parts of the tune, and so I'm relieved they stick to one track. The Wake certainly had its experimental side, the band playing with new ideas like some brief orchestration, and so this one isn't at all a stretch, but it definitely can come across like some guys just playing along to a previous recording...however, I will say that when the song goes into that weird, lurching segue near the end, where it feels like a ship lurching back and forth, the brass does give a Circus-like that was quite cool and even felt like a Mr. Bungle tune.

The 'B' sides are two live tracks, from the Montreal Jazz Fest of 2019, and the song actually shines more in that capacity, with a little variation from the studio incarnation. A great live mix doesn't hurt, but in this context it feels like a more naturally a pairing, along with the passionate vocals and performance of the core metal instruments. They also include a live of "The Unknown Knows" from that same date, but it doesn't seem to include the same instruments...sort of a misstep, though it's cool to think a crowd of jazz lovers would want to hear one of Voivod's more funky, weird tunes in the buff. So this is a quirky little collectors' item, which at least sounds good, but I almost wish the experiment would go a little further, maybe an album's length, with an EP of songs having the brazen jazzy sounds mixed more organically into the recording, and then more live tunes also integrating them. Having said that, if this is all we get, I'm fine with that. Failure is not within the Voivod lexicon, and they're not have bad sounding with the saxes and such. Just don't do a hip hop remix record, please.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

https://www.voivod.com/en/news

Voivod - The Wake (2018)

That a band could experience a career Renaissance almost four decades into their career is a rare enough phenomena, but I'm not sure I've experienced one quite to the extent that Voivod has been taking it. Even further, this newfound era of excellence came at the emotional nadir for the band, having lost long-time guitar anomaly Piggy. As it turned out, Mr. D'Amour had chosen the absolute best individual on earth to replace him in Daniel 'Chewy' Mongrain. The subsequent release of Target Earth in 2013 proved that there would be no stopping the Canadians, implementing a style very loyal to the band's legacy, but unafraid to throw a few new ingredients into the mix. After that, 2016's Post Society EP improved upon the writing even further, and now we have arrived at 2018, the proper sophomore for this full new lineup (Rocky taking over for Blacky on bass)...

...and the first perfect score I'm giving to a metal album since 2010. The first perfect score I'm giving to a Voivod album since the 1987-89 trifecta that I consider a hallmark of music, period. The Wake is such a polished, seasoned, inspired record that it seems as if these four have been playing together since that early 80s period in which the group formed. Now, when I said 'Renaissance' earlier, I did not mean to imply that the band had been experiencing much of a slump. In fact, I wouldn't say they ever had...Negatron might have been the low point for me, when they were transitioning to a three piece with Eric on vocals, but that was far from a 'bad' album, and even then they rebounded quite nicely with the interesting followup Phobos. Some fans despised the 'Rock-vod' years which started with Jason Newsted's tenure in the band, and ended with Piggy's failing health, but I happen to enjoy all three of the records of that era as fun, catchy driving tunes. No, when I say 'Renaissance', I mean these last five years have been an escalation from that phase back to their late 80s greatness and perhaps even beyond if they stay this course.

Stylistically, The Wake hearkens back to the 1988-1993 stretch, fusing the high science fictional concepts of Hatröss and Nothingface with the accessible, cleaner, prog-friendly presentations of Angel Rat and The Outer Limits. That's not to claim that these eight tunes are radio-ready singles, in fact they each possess quite a lot of depth, but that is achieved directly through the writing and musicianship, not through some obscure, raw approach to the production like the unnerving cover artwork might imply. The guitars are as clear, punchy and potent as ever, whether jamming along speedier little thrash licks, somber, bluesier moments or crystalline lead harmonies. The bass lines are entirely flush with Blacky's style, groovy and thick with just the right level of distortion on them so as not to give the listener a headache. If anything, Rocky handles the instrument with even more agility and progression than his able predecessor. Snake's vocals are among the best I've ever heard, with a lot of variation between his drugged out, psychedelic cleans and then an array of grainier growls or snarls that help diversify the stories being conveyed through the lyrics. Away's drums range from a patient, tribal bliss to the more hectic techniques the band launches into once they get heavier.

Even the occasional synthesized bits here sound fantastic, lending ambiance and mood to the busier instrumentation. Reverb and other effects are tactfully applied to vocal lines or guitars so that the listener feels as if he's floating through some derelict asteroid field or abandoned spacecraft, and the 'alien' aesthetics that Voivod first introduced through earlier efforts like Rrröööaaarrr, Killing Tech and Hatröss feel as fresh and innovative to me now as they did when I was a teenager. What's more, the band is clearly trying new ideas here...such as the soaring, memorable leads in the belly of "Sonic Mycelium", to which the backing rhythm guitars are splayed out in staccato patterns that almost feel like the band was using them as orchestration. Or the cybernetic psychedelics of the vocal patterns in "Always Moving" before they switch off to those guitars. Creating an album which is 100% loyal to their own history and yet still surging forward, somewhere, is no mean feat in this day and age, and the genius here is that The Wake is an album I think might thrill stubborn hold-outs who adhere only to the group's 80s discography, while still reaping in newer, younger admirers from many other realms of the progosphere.

The lyrics are quite good, nothing too impenetrable perhaps, like the story of Nothingface, but possessive of a similar scope of a personal perspective set against some cataclysmic singularity which forces humanity to awaken itself to the greater universal society around them. I'd also like to add that the double disc Digipak I'm covering also includes the entire Post Society EP, which I've covered elsewhere but is almost equally stunning as the newest material. So that's a pretty good bonus if you missed that release, although this obviously lacks the great packaging that had. The artwork in this version is good and freaky, although there isn't a lot of it, instead the lyrics and photos are presented simply and clearly, almost as if they wanted a minimal aesthetic to defy the spiraling chaos and creepiness of the front cover. There are a half dozen live cuts also added after the EP, but these all sound pretty grainy. Hardly a critical component of the release, but since they're just dressing on the bonus CD, their presence doesn't detract.

The Wake is an album with no real, discernable highlights, because EVERY SECOND is a highlight. There is not a single note or syllable I would want differently. I would not sift through this for any one individual song, as they are all equally compelling. A 56 minute trip I'm willing to take at almost any moment. I feel a profound joy that I get to be a living, breathing organism in a time of human history when I get to hear something like this. The first few times I was listening, as I was sorting through Magic the Gathering cards at one of my day jobs, hypnosis was immediately induced. Certainly the frenetic, fragmented picking and clever, swerving bass grooves of "Orb Confusion", or the roiling anger and aggression of "Iconspiracy" might 'pop' from the framework of The Wake more than some of their neighbors, but really this is a Court of the Crimson King or Tales from Topograhic Oceans for me. I didn't come here for a quick burst of exhilaration, but for a profound experience, an escape to a place I can't touch with my fingers, only my brain.

This is the best album I've heard this year in any genre.
Voivod is the best band on Earth.
Fuck off nowadays jock metal.
The nerds win.
We were always going to.

Verdict: Epic Win [10/10] (recycle yourself)

http://www.voivod.com/

Voivod - Post Society EP (2016)

I hadn't needed any further reminders that Voivod was one of the greatest bands of all time, but they were going to give me one anyway, 35 years into a career that is virtually spotless. The Post Society EP provides more evidence that in some scant cases, when the passion is there, and the willingness, that one can survive even the most traumatic of losses and come out swinging from the stars. That's not to say that post-Piggy Voivod is ever going to rival the band's flawless 1987-1989 evolutionary triptych, but the tunes here are very likely the best time I've had with the band since that era, even though almost every other studio effort they've released since then has been a great source of enjoyment (barring Negatron).

To be clear, Post Society is not an entirely 'fresh' or innovative landmark in their legacy, it's more or less a love letter to the Dimension Hatröss sound, elevated in its own way by Chewy's penchant for elegant, precision licks that honor his predecessor with almost every note selection. At its fastest and most frenzied, as in the title track or "We Are Connected", it might seem a fraction more technical than some of their 80s material, but clearly there are several dissonant patterns here that definitely 'check the boxes' and seem to have an almost direct lineage to that warped, groovy, alien history. But it's also cleaner cut, much like Target Earth, with a punchy but smooth mix to the guitars that seems nonthreatening but still very much otherworldly...I often struggle to believe that these gentlemen were musically developed on my own planet, and I can think of no greater compliment. Post Society might be an attractive package, but even if it can't hope to be as abrasive, raw or furious as Killing Technology, it still reflects that you've just stepped into that same unique space in the metalsphere.

I can sing praises to Mongrain's performance all day long, but the MVP here might have to go to new bassist Rocky, aka Dominique Laroche, who's distorted grooves and tone also recall his own forebear (Blacky) with pride. Having that supremely entertaining post-punk undercurrent to the music really fattens up its efficacy, drawing out the band's atavism for their its earlier years, and boundless with its extraterrestrial energies. Snake's vocals also sound just as effective as ever, not in the raw, repulsive sense of the first two albums, but he's still got the melody and punkiness of their 90s era, and the guy has always been a little underrated at how well he makes use of a fairly limited range. Away is as tight as you might expect behind his kit, but where the guy really earns his merit badge here is in how he's created the greatest, most evocative artwork they've used since Dimension Hatröss and the older albums. It might seem simple with its black and silver finish, but I could stare at that image all day, wowed and terrified in equal measures, and the newish logo looks great with it.

If I'm docking Post Society a few points for anything at all, it's that a few seconds worth of licks are dangerously close to others they've used in the past, but also because the band's cover of Hawkwind's "Silver Machine", which rounds out the EP, just cannot hope to live up to the band's own material. It's a fitting piece for Voivod, and the timing couldn't be better with the passing of one of its creators, who also happened to be God. But even though I love the original, it's simply too to 'basic' to sit behind the 25 minutes of varied, imaginative songwriting that precedes it. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a stain on the disc, since it's a solid cover, but they'd have had to take a lot more liberties with how they presented it to keep it consistent with the rest. Still, I think a lot of folks will find it adequate and respectable, certainly suited to the Canadians' lyrical themes and sci-fi aural aesthetics, and it's easily forgiven considering just how goddamn great everything else turned out.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.5/10] (stay in your lane)

http://www.voivod.com/

At the Gates/Voivod - Split 7" (2015)

At the Gates and Voivod are not really two bands I'd associate with one another whatsoever beyond the fact that they are both successful, both longstanding (more so in the case of the latter, who never took the near decade hiatus), and both able to tour much of the waking world and inspire much fan obsession. Speaking of which, when it comes to the Canadian half of this equation, I am guilty as fucking charged. At the Gates is a band I enjoyed through much of the 90s, but not to the rabid level that a lot of local New England metalcore aspirants and devotees ended up making entire careers out of thanks to a single groove and an exclamation of "Go!". Their reunion record, At War With Reality, was one I found to deserve neither the heavy accolades it got amongst some of the slavish press, nor the incessant negativity it inspired among those who seem to hate just about any band that ever made a name for itself among that terrifying crowd of Others beyond their Inner Circles. Like clockwork, people, I can't even make this shit up. At any rate, that disc just sounded to me like a band who wanted to play it relatively close to the hip, while exploring a fraction of the polish and maturity that might have transpired had they gone major label after Slaughter of the Soul; and to that extent, it was fine, I listened to it a few times and shelved it right next to Surgical Steel.

Their contribution to this split is unfortunately not exclusive. "Language of the Dead" is available on the bonus disc to At War With Reality, and it serves as a fairly loyal representation of their classic melodic Swedeath sound, hints of Dark Tranquility's morose melodic sensibility embodied in some pure Slaughter of the Soul pickings, the harmonies strong enough in listening but not very resonant once the smoke clears. Lindberg's vocals still have some bite to them, but they seem a little more phoned in, too 'level', lacking the uncouth emotional punch he once possessed in the band's heyday and thus occasionally smothered in the guitars. Though this is a solid tune, I can see why it was not part of the final selection for the full-length. The drums sound fine, the acoustic segue seems almost inevitable and doesn't really add much to the song except to reinforce the contrast such parts always created on their older recordings. The main issue for me is that it is ENTIRELY OUTCLASSED by its companion here...

I can assume "We Are Connected" will not remain a staple of this 7" either, likely to be released as a part of Voivod's forthcoming new full-length, but it is a fucking fantastic, upbeat track, with intricate Piggy-esque licks proving once again that Daniel Mongrain was the 'right guy for this job', adjoined to pumping bass-lines. Seriously, I was shocked to shit when I realized this wasn't actually Blacky playing the bass, but the Canadians' latest acquisition, countryman Dominique 'Rocky' Laroche, who is as much a mirror for his predecessor as Mongrain. This guy was hiding in a blues band? Welcome, my friend, come and drink the nano-water and stay a part of this well-oiled machinery forever, or at least until Blacky's next nostalgia trip. Say what you will about the album's title being a callback to the robotic voice in "Killing Technology", but this tune truly captures the essence of classics like Dimension Hatross and Nothingface in the contemporary flesh of Target Earth, and if it's a true indicator for the coming material then I am beyond stoked...fell in love with it the first time I heard it, and the courtship is still thriving.

Now, as for the 'value' of this Century Media split on the whole...I can't really say. Once "We Are Connected" appears on a proper full-length, then this is almost entirely worthless spare the cool black & white artwork, which was done for both bands in the Voivod style. In fact, I almost wish At the Gates had written a new tune for this with a slightly more dissonant, outlandish Voivod influence, now that would have been something to make this special, especially if the Canadians had an exclusive original too. "Language of the Dead" just seems like a lazy choice, probably a label choice, and it just has nothing in common with apart from, you know, it being metal on the same label. So ultimately, I'm feeling really neutral on this, apart from the artwork, and can't really recommend that anyone do anything more than sample the songs online and acquire the respective full-length albums at your convenience if you enjoyed what you hear. But Side B > Side A, all night, and all day.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

http://www.voivod.com/

Voivod - Target Earth (2013)

You'd have to have engaged on a long-distance space mission, beyond communications range, over this past year or so to have avoided the veritable shit-storm of hype Voivod has gotten since announcing their new guitarist Daniel Mongrain (who had previously been filling in for them at live gigs), announcing their new album, and then releasing a number of live video clips and inevitably samples, met by many eager fans with a swath of enthusiasm. I doubt the Canadians had experienced such a wave of good vibrations (in terms of their musical output, at least) since the mid 90s, and all indicators were stacking up to their 13th full length Target Earth as a rousing success before the album dropped. As usual, when a band hints of returning to a beloved era of productivity to reinvigorate itself, there's this incredibly vocal (online) minority which suddenly comes to life, praising the latest opus as the greatest work of their career, denouncing everything the band has done since the 80s (even if, ironically, many of the people doing so were not even alive or listening to the band then), bada bing bada boom, queue the gross hyperbole and exaggerations for six weeks until the next object of internet lust arrives at the precipice...

Now, granted, that's fucking life, and I'd have better luck pissing into the exhaust of a jet engine than trying to shut myself away from it all. In truth, as a long term raving Voivod lunatic myself, there are few other bands in the world which deserve such a break, and I only pray that this time the world at large can wake up to what it's been missing as early as the 80s. I am, frankly, ECSTATIC that so many people are enjoying the music of this stunning band, and that they've managed to produce their first work without the beloved Denis D'Amour (aka Piggy), while honoring those musical techniques and songwriting aesthetics that counted him among the most unique guitarists in thrash (or any metal, really). But this comes with some degree of caution. Contrary to a lot of comments I've read, Target Earth is not a 'comeback' album. Dark Roots of Earth was not a comeback album. Ironbound was not a goddamn comeback album. The existence of this album does not suddenly counteract or overwrite its predecessors, opening a black hole to swallow them unto oblivion. Does Target Earth retrofit more of Voivod's later 80s thrash qualities than the 6-7 works leading up to it? Undoubtedly, and it does so without entirely Xeroxing itself from their Golden Age of 1987-1993. But is it perfect? Is it the best album evar (until six weeks from now). Absolutely, resoundingly not.

It IS a pretty damn satisfying new link in the Canadians' chain, but that's coming from someone who has found nearly every Voivod studio album (excepting Negatron) to range from greatness to perfection. I enjoyed the softening of the band's spacey core through Nothingface and Angel Rat. The nightmarish evolution of Phobos. The simplified, stratified rock out of the eponymous 2003 effort, which approached the band's punkish roots from a different angle, and was later honed through the superior Katorz. Hell, I still listen to those albums when highway cruising and love to imagine myself speeding along a wormhole. I had no problem with any of that material, and even with the posthumous Piggy riffing of Infini, it felt like a fresh rendering of Katorz concepts backwards into an even more science fictional mold. With Target Earth, I've definitely been feeling a heavy Dimension Hatross vibe, threaded with some warmer and more harmonious elements from the band's 1989-1991 material. Not so much of a reinvention or 'step forward', apart from the obvious confirmation of personnel, but more as if the band took a time machine back to 1988 and then, from that album, opened a dimensional portal somewhere other than Nothingface.

The very idea of that gets me giddy, for sure, but ultimately this material seems slightly inconsistent, and short of a new masterpiece. But that's not to deny the labor of love here, or the array of strengths Target Earth has its disposal. The question on everyone's mind: how does Daniel Mongrain fit into this picture? After all, he's got such rare shoes to fill, but he's fully on board here, first with the appropriate nickname 'Chewy', and then a selection of riffs and techniques that fit D'Amour's style pretty snugly. Plus, he's obviously a pretty huge metal nerd and has stamped his territory not only with Martyr, but with a number of Canadian's most popular extreme metal acts (Cryptopsy, Gorguts), even in just a live capacity. I doubt there was a better choice possible, in fact, with the caveat that the tunes here really only give us faint traces of what he'll bring to the table in the future, assuming Voivod moves forward. Most of the chord configurations, grooves and Rush-like mechanical progressions could more or less be conjoined with half the tracks of Hatross and I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference, but I think his own personality comes through in the zippier leads, or a few of the crisper, almost speed/thrash metal licks that provide a busy contrast to the usual expectations.

But, despite the excellence of tracks like "Kluskap O'Kom", "Mechanical Mind" and "Resistance", it is not Mongrain who I was most impressed with through this hour of material, but rather Blacky and Snake. The former is in fine form, returning us to the buzzing grooves that were so prevalent and important on the 1988 and 1989 masterworks; a departure from Newsted's strong arming lines on records like Katorz (which I enjoyed for its own reasons), but then what else would we expect? Jean-Yves Thériault has long been a rock for this band, whenever he's appeared, and there's no reason to have doubted that his long awaited, 'official' return to this fold would pan out. Not to mention, he's already got experience playing alongside Mongrain (as a guest on Martyr's Feeding the Abscess), so the pairing is natural. If any one musician here is expanding upon past performances, though, it's Denis Bélanger, who seems to have burst from some ambiguous haze of the past three records, and offers a sharper and more seasoned inflection with some warmer tones and melodies than just the typical post-punk petulance. All the swirling psychedelic and progressive rock influences circa Angel Rat or Nothingface are still there, but there's just something more matured and refined about his delivery, without abandoning the anger and energy requisite to remaining a record rooted in thrash.

I suppose I should talk at length about Away's drumming, but truthfully it was the least standout element of the album for me, probably because he just does his usual pretty damn good job of peppy rock rhythms and lavishly anchors the more proggy, jamming, mathematical tempos. It's simply never at the fore of Target Earth's curiosities. As for his cover art, a bit of a letdown. I do dig this more cartoony logo, but the artwork looks very digital comic, simply not as detailed or mysterious as Dimension Hatross or Killing Technology. In spirit, it's got the spikes, the alien raygun, and a few floaty drone bots, but even the central figure looks a little disinterested in what's going on. The lyrics are decently written, somewhere between the campier sci fi approach of The Outer Limits and the more social and environmentally centered philosophical and political rantings and ravings of the s/t or Katorz (like the gasmask-punk of "Resistance"). Nothing so unified, cryptic or compelling as Nothingface, and I for one would have appreciated this retrogression of aesthetics to include the lyrics themselves, but these are at least pretty relevant to our beloved human condition, not short on effort, and substantial in their imagery. I dug the duality of the title track, which I expected to be about an alien invasion but really seemed to be about the potential danger of megalomaniac computer hackers.

In terms of songwriting, I felt as if there were a handful here with something quite compelling beneath them, and then the rest were more or less filling out the track list with a modicum of style and a few interesting gimmicks. "Kluskap O'Kom" is addictive, with a great, haunting chord pattern, nice escalated mutes that make you feel like you're on the edge of something alien, larger than life, and then the great use of the backing, percussive gang shouts that don't sound similar to any they've used in the past. Not to mention, they pack better riffs into this 4 and a half minute piece than most of the longer tracks that dominate the record. "Mechanical Mind" is also killer, from the quirky opening ambient/noise elements to the total Dimension Hatross styled structure. "Resistance" rocks your fucking gasmask off, and "Empathy for the Enemy"  builds an excellent, atmospheric gap between "Kluskap" and "Mechanical" (for a straight shot of about 17 minutes of almost pure brilliance). Elsewhere, I wasn't too impressed. "Warchaic" has a nice melody and rhythm, but the riffs are largely just paraphrased from earlier Voivod tunes; even the later vocal harmonies seem like an attempt to just reinvent the patterns on "Astronomy Domine".

Then there are those like "Target Earth", with a nice little thrash hook in the verse rhythm but not much else happening, and no good chorus to speak of. The song in French, "Corps Étranger" has these two killer riffs, but never really reaches the climax I was anticipating, and the outro "Defiance" is not a healthy way to pad out an album for 90 seconds. A few of the transitions on the album feel rather slammed together, which is distracting, but only an occasional issue. Target Earth probably has one of the cleanest productions in the band's entire discography, with an appreciable balance of atmospherics and pure riffing, and each instrument occupying its own, audible place in the mix. I might miss some of the bulkier guitars of the last few albums, but those were likely the result of how they had to record the music without Piggy available. Voivod did a pretty impressive job producing it themselves, and I was happy to see they got another Canadian thrash veteran, Pierre Rémillard (of Obliveon) to record the music. Fuck, had they reserved a few guest spots for 'Lips', Dave Carlo, Lord Worm and Gordon 'Piledriver' Kirchin, and maybe replaced "Defiance" with a Sacrifice cover, this album could have been credited Canada vs. the Daleks and no one would have been the wiser. Maple leafs and death rays aplomb.

Surprisingly, though Target Earth is without question a more intricate, coherent and balanced experience than its predecessor Infini, I found myself enjoying it just a fraction less. So you'll have to forgive me if I'm not about to jump on the wagon of 'best album of the year' accolades when there is so much yet to come. It has proven to me that Voivod can continue to exist post-Piggy, and not only exist, but thrive. It's got a handful of tunes I'd certainly place on the career highlight reel, and it's well worth every cent I paid for it. But I don't really view it as this triumphant 'comeback', the Canadians riding through the streets of Montreal on chariots with robot horses pulling them and plastic-gowned future Québécoise with Rutger Hauer haircuts showering Voivod with holographic confetti. Target Earth is more about perseverance in the face of the impossible, and about old dogs hitting rewind before applying new tricks. I ask myself: how often has Voivod ever failed me? Not bloody often, and certainly not this time. So dust off the maser cannons, drag out the anti-aircraft missile arrays, test the silo doors, and keep your radars fixed on the sky. We are not alone, and I don't think they're friendly.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (toxic assets, unstable)

http://www.voivod.com/

Voivod - Nothingface (1989)

Something I rarely seen spoken of Nothingface is just how prescient it was, not in terms of its outlandish musical aesthetic, but as a work of science fiction. Though its setting and subject matter could hardly be considered novelties by the late 80s, mirroring everything from Asimov to Borges, I like to imagine the Wachowski brothers had worn out a few copies of this album when coming up with the 'awakening' sequences for Neo in the Machines' human battery incubators. The overwhelming level of synesthesia created through the narrator's stream of consciousness reads like an earlier draft of Greg Bear's 2010 novel Hull Zero Three. Nothingface doesn't just tell the listener, it 'shows', in the accumulation of first person imagery and the cloudy dystopian nature of the music.

It's the most cryptic of Voivod's records, in that the audience is thrown so deep into its universe, the chilling images coming on in such rapid succession, that it plays out like psychological warfare; like Anthony Burgess' Alex undergoing a Ludovico Technique not of reconditioning violence, but force-fed domestic bliss. In stark opposition to the central character of Dimension Hatröss, we're dealing not with an outsider looking in, but an insider finally escaping a dream-haze, glimpsing for the first time the cold shell of a world that surrounds and supports its slumber. Nothingface was certainly impressive in theme, exponentially more compelling and intelligent than the vast majority of crap choking up the airwaves, even in harder metal; and yet it's not so brainy that a barely literate fan couldn't tune into its eclectic threads and ride the revelations. Once more, the Canadians had gifted us with a concept that can be unraveled in multiple lairs, grandiloquent metaphor that can resonate far beyond the bounds of the actual narrative. For example, how many of you office employees and salary men/women could relate to "Into My Hypercube"?

Nothingface is also one of the first authentic cases of 'post-metal' in memory, in terms that it so far removes itself from the precepts of the genre that it's difficult to even compare with its own predecessors. Perhaps a more appropriate tag might be 'post-thrash', steeped in progression and psychedelia like a tea leaf in heated water. Clearly there are still a few surgical muted, aggressive intricacies to the guitars in "Nothingface" itself, "Sub-Effect", "X-Ray Mirror", or the stomping staccato chord barrage in "Missing Sequences" that plays out like a muscular Rush. Denis D'Amour has refined many of the dissonant and jazz-based, atonal chords he experimented with on the prior albums, but here they've been grafted into a mechanistic haze that becomes the rule and not the exception. The distortion is also dialed back an increment, to match the cleaner, clinical atmosphere of the story's setting. Beyond the fact that there is still an investiture of anger and confusion inherent to the music, understandable in the narrator's situation, one could honestly get away with not calling this 'metal' or 'thrash' so much as its harder and more nihilistic predecessor Dimension Hatröss. 

Ultimately, though, whether one defines this as interstellar ukulele robofolk or Asimovian progressive metal, the album is fucking outstanding, with not a single second of compositional choice detracting from its depth of message and character. I doubt I've ever heard much bass playing that can compare to Blacky's work here: nebula-surfing grooves ("Missing Sequences"), apocryphal future funk-punk ("The Unknown Knows"), or android assembling schematics ("Into my Hypercube"). Maybe he's not the fastest, or the most technical performer, but in terms of the lines he writes, Geddy Lee, Les Claypool and Flea can all eat their fucking hearts out; and the decision making on when to apply a little distortion or not is spotless. Piggy also earned enough of a creative paycheck here to retire (though I'm glad he didn't). Despite the fluidity of his four string counterpart, he truly takes the helm on the album, steering us into a dream state of eloquent oblivion with hundreds of brilliantly conceived chords and picking sequences. Seriously, there is not a single phase of Nothingface upon which something interesting is not happening, no corner you'll turn where a wonderful hook or bass line won't attract your attention, whether the album's intensity is expanding or retracting.

Michel Langevin's drums are likewise reflexive and perfected, manifesting all manner of cadences, jazz techniques, double-bass rolls and killer fills which you can hear rumbling through your gut as clearly as anything else on the album. His performance is actually more important than on any prior effort, not that he wasn't giving it his all then, but because his interactions with Piggy here provide that callous, mechanical substrate of the setting's fallen society, so crucial to its effectiveness. Perhaps the only member who has not technically upped the ante here is vocalist Snake, but I don't think his evolution was quite as necessary. In fact, since he's polished his inflection of most of the haughty shouts and grime from the earlier efforts, we're getting that pure, crass, punk delivery with almost no exception save for a few harsher barks (as in "The Unknown Knows"). Still, it adheres so wonderfully to the groove of the bass and the collision of the varied riffing sequences, and the more tranquil passages ("Missing Sequences" intro, for example) that I wouldn't have changed a damn note.

I do regret that the album was most known at large for the cover of Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine". A brilliant choice, mind you, and the Canadians' mutation with heavier guitars, harder percussion, and textured cosmic serpent vocal harmonies is the best rendition I've ever heard (possibly even superior to the original); but I'd have liked the album to break out for one of their own pieces, which in my estimation are every inch as brilliant as their progressive forebears. It was a little disheartening to have someone approach me in high school and ask if I'd heard this 'cool new band Voivod with the Pink Floyd cover!, which generally resulted in a response of 'have you heard all the other great music, you know that they've been releasing for fucking YEARS now?' dumping a classroom trash can over their heads and kicking it repeatedly. Yes, I was one of those assholes who couldn't stand peoples' sheepish predilection to allow MTV to do their thinking for them. I went to find the music, I didn't always wait for it to find me. Especially after the previous year's Dimension Hatröss, to which I had practically built a shrine and handed out leaflets of information, with null response.

But, hey, that's not the band's fault, and the tune fits in fluently to the remainder of the album's narrative, not just being wedged in at the end. Funnily enough, though Nothingface was the band's best selling album, and even had the Canadians headlining a tour with Faith No More and Soundgarden of all fucking bands (back before they both exploded, obviously, and were themselves putting out some of their finest work), its impact beyond the loyal niche of progressive and thrash metal fans was negligible at best. Voivod's ensuing efforts Angel Rat and The Outer Limits, while both excellent, never hit the same buzzing stride, and the flame of science fiction-themed metal temporarily quelled, or handed off to extreme metal outlets like the Floridian Nocturnus, who were no more successful despite their own earnest efforts. People didn't want to dream in technicolor and static, or explore the Outer Rim: they wanted doc martins, Perry Farrell and Eddie Vedder, and had begun to converted their morning coffee to a cappuccino.

Alas, Nothingface is still considered by many to be the Canadians' finest hour, and its a sentiment that I find difficult to argue. Certainly Killing Technology and Dimension Hatröss appeal more to the thrasher within me, and my taste in apocalyptic, frightening savagery. The latter of those is probably my favorite to this day, but this 1989 gem is nonetheless immortally haunting and awe-inspiring, and it stuck its nose out the furthest from the safety net of its predecessors' extremity. Forty-five moments of perfection translated through a cautionary escape into the perils of the mundane, the inherent entropy in ultimate order, and the potential threats of eternal, unchecked apathy in civilization; all cloaked in musical expression so thoughtful, creative and forward thinking that almost a quarter-century later, few can even comprehend it, much less match it.

Verdict: Epic Winface [10/10] (loop rewind)

http://www.voivod.net/

Voivod - The Outer Limits (1993)

Leave it to Voivod to come up with the gimmick to include 3D glasses with a CD, but that is indeed what happened for the limited edition of the 7th full-length album, the last for MCA records and the first without longtime bassist Blacky. To be honest though, I'd risk being mauled by Martians to get a glimpse of Michael Langevin's artwork, and was not disappointed with the great concept behind the booklet, and lucky to buy that version day one. Like Angel Rat, the songs here each have their own, individual sci-fi concept, many with a more nostalgic tendency than previous albums. So the various 3D graphic panels and the comic book kitsch match up well with their themes, and with the possible exception of deciphering Nothingface, I doubt I've had so much fun with the superficial aspects of a Voivod album.

Of course, they'd be pretty hollow without some damn good music, and The Outer Limits provides plenty of it. God, I remember these days, when I could head out to the store on a release date and pretty much count on my favorite bands to release quality albums, evolution or none. For the Canadians, this would be the last of these, for not only was this Snake's intended swan song with the band, but they'd also lose their major label status. Most people in the 90s were far too busy with alternative rock, hip hop, grunge and hardcore music to really give a fuck about the creative side of the metal spectrum, and Voivod were clearly a casualty of this trend, especially when you consider the buzz they had been generating through the latter half of the prior decade. At the very least, though, The Outer Limits sounds like a lot more push was put behind it than Angel Rat, at least in terms of studio work. This sounds like the last album's more muscular brother, with brighter, mightier guitar tones, and a less psychedelic mix fit for the Saturday Night at the Drive In aesthetic that permeates much of the songwriting.

Similar to "Panorama" or "The Prow", you've got some uplifting, energetic tracks here with a few of the most catchy and accessible choruses the band has ever written, namely the opener "Fix My Heart" and closer "We Are Not Alone", such proud exclamations of joy for the band's lyrical niche that I practically had to restrain myself from crying out in happiness. Piggy's got a lot of flare on this record, almost like he's at long last taking his place as an 80s guitar god, so expect some craziness in both the rhythms and blaring leads, often with a bluesy hue. The Outer Limits is indeed more 'metal' than the two previous albums, but that qualification takes the place of a lot of driving, positive melodies and not so much the murk and groove of a Dimension Hatröss. That said, there are still plenty of creepy moments, or vivid atmospheric tweaks to his performance that it feels like a Voivod, just a Voivod that was cheery to head out the studio and lay these tracks down.

Though he was only a session musician, Pierre St. Jean keeps the bass busy enough that we can forget and forgive the lack of Blacky. The tones are cleaner all around, with less distortion but plenty of low end presence thanks to the higher pitch of the guitars. Drums are very polished here, but more powerfully driven than on Angel Rat, and Snake brings some of that due aggression back from, say, Nothingface. The best moments on this album are admittedly the atmospheric guitar passages reigning cuts like "Moonbeam Rider" and "Jack Luminous", but for 54 minutes, there are few moments worth complaining about. Voivod return to the Pink Floyd cover well with a brazen rendition of "The Nile Song", and while it lacks that hypnotic splendor of "Astronomy Domine", it's nonetheless quite excellent.

The crowning gem, for myself, was the 17 minute epic "Jack Luminous", the tale of a TV-faced invader from beyond the stars who is coming for Earth, and the disenfranchised alien who comes to warn us. First time the band ever attempting such a swollen concept within just one track, and it truly pays off without ever growing dull. Otherwise, you've got plenty of cuts about kitschy, out of this world themes like rocket ships, time travel and, perhaps more ominously, a near abandoned space hulk soaring through the void. This might just stand as one of the band's most professional sounding records, but it's brighter, carefree aspects and looser concepts haven't stood the ages with me like some of its predecessors. That said, it's a Voivod album. A great one. Not much else there sounds like it, and well worth owning, 3D glasses or not.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (give me a reason to stay)

http://www.voivod.net/

Voivod - Angel Rat (1991)

Poor Angel Rat. Few seem to love you as I have, for you arrived at a time when people were simply not equipped to appreciate the many values you wore like a billowing gown upon your many-hued flesh.

On the heels of such masterpieces as Dimension Hatröss and the ensuing Nothingface, albums so far ahead of the metal mindset in their time that they are still widely misconstrued and underrated, it would have been a tall task for Canadians Voivod to match themselves effectively with another full blown, heady concept record, and so they didn't. They penned a number of smooth, melodic curiosities, imbued them with the dark, futurist melancholy of Nothingface, and set out to create what was their most accessible album to date, perhaps STILL the most accessible (though the eponymous 2003 album comes mighty close). Lacking the grand, experimental unification of its predecessor, which if we're being honest, had just about abandoned the band's thrash roots entirely, Angel Rat was an attempt at creating a 'metal lite' style that still honored the Canadians' psychedelic, progressive influences like Pink Floyd and Rush, and it's no surprise to me that it was an inspired, if understated success.

Though I had quickly become used to the idea that Voivod was going to be one of those bands who would put out effort after effort of evolving, reliable fascination, I didn't warm to Angel Rat quite as quickly as my brain melted to the two previous albums. The strange collage of images relating to individual songs seemed a bit unusual, as did the classic scrawl of the band name and title font. Yet it still kept that purplish background hue, and I'd be shocked if this turned out NOT to be Away's favorite color. Once I listened, I found that the songs were deceptively simple, quite airy, and focused more on simple melodic hooks. Piggy's dissonant development was subdued throughout, and the band's aggression did not return to its previous heights from the mid 80s. The vocal lines seemed aimed at a broader audience, and Snake was relying less on the punkish pitch he was built on. Also, while Nothingface had turned out a mellower album than its own predecessors, there was still something cryptic about it, unfriendly to the mainstream; where, in a kinder world, Angel Rat could have easily gotten some airplay on rock radio for a "Panorama" or "Clouds in My House".

But don't let this subdued, simplification deceive you into thinking that these tunes aren't poignant and haunting, because frankly they're among the most hypnotic the Canadians have written. Take "The Prow", a fetching piece of maritime mermaid-punk with incredibly catchy verse lines and chorus, and then this trippy bridge with organs, mellow vocals and scintillating guitar harmonies that wouldn't have been out of place on the 1989 album. "Clouds in My House" is what might happen if the Rolling Stones overdosed on space dust and David Bowie covers, while "Twin Dummy" is simultaneously happy and creepy, bass lines flowing like melodious syrup while the titular homunculus makes a new 'friend'. More powerful than any of these, the machine-like, pseudo-industrial rock of "Golem" tells us the sad tale of an artificial intelligence becoming self aware despite its monotonous, predictable existence. I'll take that over any sentimental Star Trek: The Next Generation episode in which Data discovers and contends with another facet of his humanity.

Angel Rat doesn't sound like it was on quite as mighty a budget as Nothingface, but whether it was simply rushed, or underfunded, I couldn't tell you. Regardless, the music is so well structured and memorable that it achieves its own sense of timelessness. The guitars, while not as driving and central as on earlier works, are so light and beautifully scripted to the vocals and drums that I can envision seraph wings sprouting from Denis D'Amour's back. The bass is still slightly distorted, not as often brought to the fore as it was in 1989, but still perhaps the central instrument. Drums are much easier on the ears this time out, and Away could have probably made himself a snack while performing most of these with a single hand and foot, but then the songs don't call for much more energy. As a whole, Angel Rat steers between uptempo, jubilant swathes of melody and steadier, slower pieces that build a more psychedelic resonance, but it's got a remarkably deep track list, of which only the mellow "Freedoom" and "Nuage Fractal" come up a fraction short (and both are still pretty good...)

People that had long felt alienated from Voivod through their 80s progression might have heard this and exclaimed 'what the fuck?' loudly, but I can't say that Angel Rat is ultimately that much of a surprise. It's a subtler record than Nothingface. It doesn't hit you over the head with its outlandish, convulsions of being 'Other', but it just slowly settles onto your spirit like a drugged haze. It may have breached the band's 'perfect streak' in terms of my own reaction, but it's still an amazing album and was a highlight for me in 1991, a year in which I had an adverse reaction to many of the latest records from many of the extreme metal titans (Sepultura, Morbid Angel, Death, etc). It's not heavy in the slightest, at least not in terms of the riffing or aggression, but it's unique, compelling, and very often beautiful...

Verdict: Epic Win [9.25/10] (bold emptiness, omniscient fog)

http://www.voivod.net/

Voivod - Dimension Hatröss (1988)

Have you ever experienced a symphony live, stood back and soaked in all its various, congruent instrumentation? Puzzled at how a single human being could have coordinated all the various threads and sections into one cohesive movement? Marveled at what a mind, or collective of minds, this would require? Well, Voivod's fourth full-length Dimension Hatröss offers much the same sense of wonderment, only its orchestra pit has been rendered down to a quartet of Canadians, gradually evolving out of the raucous post-apocalyptic punk/speed metal of their youths into something I don't think anyone could have predicted. This is not a mere album, but a coherent science fiction journey expressed through some of the most creative thrash metal of the 80s.

Personally, I find the band's three successive albums in that 1987-1989 period to each be spotless in its own right, but if prompted to choose just one as an introduction to the band's genius, Dimension Hatröss would be that defining experience. Not only for the unforgettable music itself, but for the amazingly prescient Outer Limits-like concept fueling its central narrative. It's basically an extraterrestrial Fantastic Voyage-noir, in which the band's mascot creature, the 'voivod' uses ridiculous Goldberg science to spawn a microcosm of galaxies, and then use its own twisted technology to step in and explore them, reveling at the various alien cultures within these shattered atoms. Like all great science fiction, though, the numerous social and political situations the voivod encounters within this debatable space reek of tyranny, chaos, oppression, and class warfare, all reek true of our own civilization through history, and thus as foreign and otherworldly Dimension Hatröss may seem on its surface, it's really one giant, timeless metaphor the listener can bet will retain its relevance for the rest of his/her natural lifespan on Earth.

Each component of the album's production and visualization is the perfect catalyst to shape its story. The cover art, drafted beautifully by drummer/writer Away, is one of the most striking and iconic images of the band's career, more colorful than his artwork for the first three records. A frightening, freakish biomechanical aberration stands against some radiating nucleus, crowned by the band's blood red logo. The sort of album cover that I stare at decades later and still find attractively disturbing. The lyrics are scrawled in patterns that create a first-person stream of consciousness of the imagery the 'narrator' has experienced, very brief lines and refrains that relay all manner of key phrases as the voivod journeys on into the madness of this genesis. Much like a captain's log, or a scientist's rambled test recordings; even the narrator itself seems difficult to trust due to its 'voice', but at the same time, the lyrics remain strangely accessible, more 'street talk' than arbitrary technobabble. A wise choice, as the band didn't wish to confuse an audience that was adjusted more to the messages of Anthrax, Possessed, Slayer and Metallica.

One would suspect that the Canadians might drown such a 'space oddity' of a record in loads of effects and excess futurescapes like synthesizers, but once again Dimension Hatröss trumps expectations with a very grounded, sincere production. There are occasionally some processing effects on Piggy's riffing experiments, some fuzz to the bass, and reverb to the vocals and drums, but otherwise this is completely down to Earth progressive thrash metal which you might be experiencing in a rehearsal room. Don't get me wrong, this was professional and polished enough to run with the bigger guns like ...And Justice for All or South of Heaven, but it's remarkably workmanlike, and Voivod sought only to deliver their alien experience through the lyrics and composure of the music itself. Everything is clearly defined and audible, from the grooves to the vocals to the dissonant slices of atmosphere D'Amour splashes upon its obscure universe.

It's not an easy sound to pinpoint, but to best describe the music would be like taking Killing Technology's brash, grimy hyperspace acceleration thrash as a base. Then stir in the percussive, tempo twining hysterics of progressive rock titans like Rush and Yes, swirl in some psychedelic Pink Floyd ambiance and abandon, and season liberally with fusion rock or the voluptuous, eclectic space-funk of artists like Herbie Hancock. Plenty of pure, post-industrial thrash riffs abound through the eight tracks, but they're sauteed in all manner of strange architecture thanks to Piggy's inventive chords. Through the 90s and beyond, a lot of sludge, math core, industrial black and technical death outfits would implement a similar field of streaming minors and abstract note configurations, and a lot of 'core kids and metal nerds were reared on them. But who was the first extreme metal angler casting for dust on the moon, fuckers? Denis motherfucking D'Amour. The leads are whacky, trippy and sparsely wrought through the experience, but each perfectly placed. I also love that the rhythmic choices in each of the songs seem to reflect the culture being explored, but they maintain an aesthetic cohesion throughout the 40 minutes.

Away proves himself an extraterrestrial Neal Peart here, eagerly matching the dynamic eccentricities of the bass and rhythm guitar with swaths of double bass, thundering fills and ample athleticism. Bassist Blacky stands out more here than on Killing Technology, a grooving dimensional rift-beast that anchors the spectral, slumming atmospheres of a "Chaosmongers" or "Brain Scan" with the psychotic communique of its bridge; but also fluid and distinctive in the faster lanes. To this we add Snake's unique punk inflection, somewhere between Bob Dylan and Johnny Rotten if they were spending a night at the local rehab, flushing the chemical adversary from their systems. His voice might run on the nasal side, but it's quite effective at piercing the nebular haze of the galaxies being explore, you can just hear it ringing out on the edge of some black hole, shouting out to you: 'Hey, I'm over here!' Everything instrument and vocal passage is bound together into a lattice of brilliant, ever mutating rhythmics and alien introspection.

There was not a goddamn record out there in the 80s that sounded nearly as stoned on xeno-substances, and every moment from the turbulent intro of "Experiment" to the hammering, jamming sendoff to "Cosmic Drama" has had me hooked for almost 25 years now with no signs of letting up. I'll except the bonus track, a dystopian street surfing spin on the old Neal Hefti television Batman theme, which is obviously not so ambitious or serious as anything else here, but this wasn't available on my original cassette, so it never mattered much to be as anything more than a quirky addition when I upgraded to the CD. Still, the fact that they would even perform such a piece infuses positive karma to the Canadians' inner geek; I once tracked a psychedelic, surfable metal cover of the theme from the moody 60s animated Spider-Man theme for fun, replacing the vocal lines with spacey leads, totally inspired by Voivod.

Of course, there's always been a Flat Earth Contingent among thrash/speed metal fans who never enjoyed this album, never 'got it', or never really cared to try, since it wasn't a rehash of Kill 'Em All, Show No Mercy or Seven Churches (hypocritical, perhaps, since those albums themselves were innovations). People don't want their air space threatened. Many will change the channel when they see Star Trek original series reruns, and hell, some folks just don't want the Twilight Zone impeding into their mosh pit. Much like Killing Technology before it, Dimension Hatröss was just too 'out there', the story of the Canadians' career, and the uphill battle that they've always fought, even when writing more accessibly works like the followups Nothingface and Angel Rat. To these I offer a beer, a cheer, conversation, condolences, and then I'm on my merry way, because I was just bred for an album like this. It's surely a top 20 metal album (all time) for me, and possibly my single favorite Canadian metal effort. Where imagination, vision and musical talent collide and tear asunder the fabric of possibility of something new. Frightening. Inspired. Immortal. Get connected.

Verdict: Epic Win [10/10] (loud echoes of the end)

http://www.voivod.net/

Voivod - Rrröööaaarrr (1986)

Confessions of a 12-year old: Rrröööaaarrr was my first Voivod experience, the first cassette I was able to land of the Canadians through a crafty trade with a fellow junior high student who didn't like it and would be far happier with a copy of Anthrax' Spreading the Disease. Who truly made the most of that deal might be an arguable point, but forgive me for feeling the victor, because this was my introduction to what would become one of my most venerated bands of the 80s. Sure, my Mom took the tape away after reading that it had a song called "Fuck Off and Die", hiding it alongside Slayer's Hell Awaits, but that fateful shoebox on top of the refrigerator did not prove quite so elusive, and eventually I was able to enjoy this to the fullest.

Right away you could see what would attract a tween Dungeon Master to this album, that dreary and frankly horrifying album artwork, another Away classic, with the 'voivod' creature fused into some flame hurling, post apocalyptic megatank chassis of destruction. Spikes everywhere, to impale foot soldiers and of course any unwary pedestrian who would dare cross the fucking street around this thing. The best band logo ever. Rrröööaaarrr took this unforgiving, 'don't fuck with me' attitude to the music itself, which was incredibly brutal and primal compared to most of the other metal I was listening to at that age, but there was something more, far more happening which confirmed and maintained its allure, and has to this very day. In retrospect, having now also owned War and Pain for a considerable length of time, I can note a number of mutations to the core, punk thrash aesthetic that would be further refined into Killing Technology. It's still an irradiated cannibal scurrying about the streets, picking through refuse and taking on all comers with its spiked bat, but the songwriting takes a stride forward and there's a broader dynamic range through the track list.

There's a bigger budget here than War and Pain, or perhaps I should say that there's an actual budget. Period. Gone are the totally disgusting, sloppy guitars from the debut, replaced by a meaty but resonant tone that better suits the chords. Piggy's leads were still as wild as uncaged apes, but the rhythm guitars are just so more poignant, the riffing progressions quite catchy in pieces like "Korgüll the Exterminator" one of the most ambitious among these, and one of the best of all Voivod. What's more, you've got a lot of eerie melodies being flung out into the apocalyptic nightscape of the album's atmosphere, and Denis was starting to sharpen his unique, dissonant approach to chords, while clobbering the listener with a lot more mutes and metallic patterns than the more purely punk aesthetics the first time out. Away's drums here are loud as hell, maybe a fraction TOO loud, but the guy was hitting so hard that it's a wonder he wasn't instantly catapulted into the Dave Lombardo rank in terms of percussion heroes. The bass-lines are even more intense this time out, but the more prevalent tone of the guitars is better balanced against them.

As for Snake's vocals, still pretty bloody and brutal, but there is more of a haughty shout to the inflection than his wretched performance on the debut. The song selection is just so much better, with rich riffing sequences in "Thrashing Rage" and "Ripping Headaches" that set the groundwork for Killing Technology, frivolous leads wrought over the grinding nuclear inferno of the rhythm tracks. Still a lot of punk in here, especially in tracks like "The Helldriver" which remind me of earlier C.O.C.. I can see why some folks believe this album has a lot of repetition, the constant crash of the drums does get redundant as the 38 minutes stretch on, but when it comes to the barebones riffs, there is admittedly a good share of variety, from the more robust and pissed off chord-storms to the NWOBHM styled structures and solos that the band brought over from their obvious Venom and Motörhead influences (the latter of which might have also inspired the use of umlauts in album titles like this one). In general, though, Rrröööaaarrr is more clearly a 'thrash' record in the purest sense of the word.

It's not entirely a work of genius like its successors, and I have a few problems with the mix levels, but the calamitous cacophony of sounds and relentless lyrics have endured for me through the years almost as much as those monolithic works to follow. This music is not going to appeal to you if you're a pussy or a stalwart audiophile; it's restless and off the hook for much of the run time. It's not a mere recycling of speed metal riffs from other bands, either. Though War and Pain was unique enough in its own right, Rrröööaaarrr was truly a band apart from the rest of the world, and this is a timeless and turbulent record that has never been reproduced by anyone, even if its originators would surpass it repeatedly. Rusted madness, social collapse mayhem, and molten industrial spew. The grimier side of 'cyberpunk' joined to the visceral belligerence of the emergent thrash genre.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (exposed to the direct danger)

http://www.voivod.net/

Voivod - War and Pain (1985)

Some dream of perfecting their pastry baking and bonbon skills, so they might end up on an episode of Cupcake Wars. Some just dream of the day they can improve their golf game and compete in some tournament Open. I, on the other hand, dream of melted flesh, nuclear Armageddon and the warring tribes of mutants, cannibals, cockroaches, disgruntled postal employees and other sure survivors that would ensue from such a scenario. When the young Canadians wrote War and Pain, they were thinking of these same things as inspiration, and thus, for all its faults and flaked off rust, I still wanna take this album hand in hand and gallop off into an irradiated cloudset together (we wouldn't be able to see the sun for a few years).

To claim that War and Pain feels underdeveloped compared to later records like Killing Technology, Angel Rat or Nothingface would be an understatement, because this is the antithesis of eloquence and experimentation. This music is not about progression, it's about abuse. Though drummer Away's unique artistic perspective and the hostile, post-apocalyptic lyrics set it apart from quite a number of other speed, thrash or crossover records of its day, you could say Voivod had a lot in common with bands like Cryptic Slaughter and Corrosion of Conformity just as much as it mirrored Venom or Slayer. In fact, despite the fact that the Canadians incorporate a bruising NWOBHM shuffle to some of the riffs here in tracks like "Suck Your Bone" or "War and Pain" itself, with a few heavier muted metal passages, this is pretty much a punk album, with simplistic chord patterns that are half the time predictable, half the time spinning off into something more unusual. Mad Max anarchy unfolds throughout the track list, but then there seems to be that added edge of ambition and musicianship which separated the two strains of extremity.

But, as crude as this debut felt, even for the year of its release, there is something tangibly charming about the Canadians. For one, the vocals of Snake here were intense, placing a strained, growling edge on that post punk inflection he would hone through the rest of the band's career (1987 and beyond). The bass is far more prominent and repulsive than most punk music, making it feel more like a caustic, ghetto grind. The guitar tone is quite choppy here, and really the whole album feels like a mess, but there was already something about Piggy's playing that set him apart. The leads in tunes like "War and Pain" were more or less your average blues wailing, but then he'd explode off into other techniques that were more redolent of an Eddie Van Halen if he had been soaked in rust and radiation. The overall aesthetic to the album is one of anger and darkness, it never feels bright or even remotely enthusiastic, but there are a few more psychedelic passages like the end of the title track, or the echoed intro to "Voivod" itself" which foreshadow the band's future.

War and Pain is a great record to throw on if you're in the mood for something unfettered by the burdens of polish and professionalism. I actually like to shuffle these tunes in a playlist with Corrosion of Conformity's Animosity, Repulsion's Horrified, and selections from the Misfits, GBH, The Exploited, maybe some early stuff from The Accused; a giant, splatterific, Cold War terror and gore grinding punk-metal paean that really stirs up the blood. It's also got some parallels to Venom's first few records in terms of just that raw level of theatrical aggression, not to mention the bass-driven foundation for the songs is highly similar to that of the mighty Motörhead. I don't want to deceive anyone, though, this is pure primacy compared to even the band's sophomore Rrröööaaarrr, and I'm far more of a fan of their 1987-1989 material than anything else. That said, I've grown to appreciate this debut forever for its repugnant innocence, bleak world view and utter disregard for subtlety and taste. The 3-CD reissue from 2004 is fucking phenomenal, packed with live demos, videos, and whatever you'd want from this period other than locks of Blacky's hair.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (no gods give you the guts)

http://www.voivod.net/

Voivod - Katorz (2006)

To best describe Katorz would be that it gets everything the eponymous 2003 album got right, only much righter. To a degree, there's a bit of an eerie, sci-fi back pedaling through this than its predecessor, reflective of the band's 1988-1991 phase; but for the most part, it's still the same roots heavy rock/metal/punk hybrid sound they'd started with Jason Newsted in the fold, just the songs are better written, almost completely kicking ass throughout the 45 minute run time. Nowhere will you come up against a cut without some bludgeoning, mesmerizing groove, and Snake's vocal lines are twice as memorable as anything he laid out on the previous album. In fact, Katorz was the best Voivod album to have come out in 15 years (since Angel Rat), and even though it's dropped down a few percentile pegs on my listening board, I still love it through and through.

The production here is nothing fancy, a little less fleshed out than the prior album; the band involved Glen Robinson, who has quite the resume, but it still feels open, raw and honest. The guitars are a little more flooded than on Voivod, the drums more aggressive, the bass slightly less affected but just as potent, and the vocals a nice, thin slice through the meatier rhythmic backdrop. The album does possess some sentimental resilience, since Piggy had tragically passed away almost a full year earlier; the organic, raw tone of the guitars can be attributed to the fact that they wanted to use his prerecorded tracks without much alteration. So, considering the crushing effect this must have had on them all, they did a commendable job of using their own instruments to compliment him without unnecessary tweaks. There aren't exactly a metric ton of quirks to the album, mainly predominant walls of riffing, but a few alien tones made it to the final product, like the intro to "After All", or "No Angel" with its atmospheric sliding. If anything, Katorz gives the listener the impression he/she is sitting in the studio right next to the band as they track it; sincerity defined.

As on its predecessor, the lyrics here are simplistic and more political in nature than a weird trip like Killing Technology or Nothingface, aesthetically fit for the brawling barrage of punk-inflected chords in a piece like opener "The Getaway" or the groovy "Mr. Clean", which is almost like early Clutch or Stone Temple Pilots with its swerving, bold flow of guitars, and not at all in a bad way. Newsted does occasionally engage the fuzz ("Silly Clones"), and rather than simply rock the spot, the guitars often create these dense walls of force that envelop the wrestler in Piggy's strange, atonal composition. That said, this is not so complex as Nothingface or Dimension Hatröss in scope. There's a dark atmosphere lurking in most of the tracks, darker at least than albums like Angel Rat or Voivod, but overall very few traces of the pure sci-fi thrash that the band had developed at their peak, and I can say that those who loathed the 2003 album are not likely to dive deep into this, despite its more swollen, textured sound.

Personally, I fucking adored this, and it evokes a lot more testosterone with the mightier numbers like "The X-Stream" and "The Getaway" than anything from its predecessor like "Gasmask Revival". Pure heavy metal riffing patterns soaked in a road ready attitude that meshes well with the self-reflective in most of the lyrics; but with that added, 'secret ingredient' in the guitars and vocals that always made this band stand out from the crowd, even as early as their primordial War and Pain record. Though Piggy's songs were also involved in the following album, Infini, Katorz is more of a proper sendoff to the extent that it never feels like anyone is fleecing his corpse for ideas. A workmanlike, fully memorable swansong for one of the greatest and most unsung guitar gods in all hard music, everywhere, for all time. As I'm positive there were extraterrestrials also listening to and loving Voivod, I like to dream that they've somehow, using higher technology, preserved the guy's conscience, and that he's out there wrecking their worlds just as much as he rocked this one.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (the good old days expired)

http://www.voivod.net/

Voivod - Voivod (2003)

Voivod was a heavily anticipated album for me, because despite having mixed feelings over Eric Forrest's tenure with the band, they were still (and remain) one of my all time favorites, one of the groups that formed my fundamental appreciation of the potential in music for positive growth and progression. As it turned out, once the Canadians returned after the six-year gap from Phobos, they would launch one of their highest profile campaigns yet. Though Snake had returned his rump to the vocal seat, the band had yet to attract Blacky back into the fold, so they did the next best thing: hooking up with one of the most famous bassists in all the metal genre, Flotsam & Jetsam/Metallica alumni Jason Newsted, who as it turned out, was a long time fan of Voivod. This also no doubt helped them secure a second stage spot at Ozzfest 2003, though I can hardly imagine the unwashed, wallet chain armored Korn masses did enough homework to take something away from the experience...

I have to admit, from a recording perspective, this was actually a good match. Newsted's not exactly god on the bass, but he's a damn solid performer, and he seems to very clearly comprehend the aesthetic Voivod were gunning for this time around. And the importance of that solidarity cannot be understated, because the eponymous album was a very different experience for the long-term fan, and likely confusing to anyone new who checked out the band and then went through their catalog in reverse. This was once again a 'stripped' or dumbed down Voivod, but not in the same sense as Negatron. Where that 1995-1998 phase of the band adopted industrial and groove metal tendencies, this sees the resurfacing of the bands oldest influences, punk and traditional metal. In particular, a lot of the riff patterns seem like burlier, beefed up NWOBHM songs circa Venom and Motörhead dowsed in Piggy's unique, dystopian dissonance and Snakes harder proto-punk inflection. There's still an almost mechanical, alien nature to the music, but even the lyrics here have been rendered down to a more personal and sociopolitical platform than the xenorobotic wasteland and nuclear astrophysics of the past.

Understandably, this was not a welcome change to many of the band's remaining fans who wanted to hear Nothingface 2.0 or Killing Technology II: The James Cameron Director's Cut, and it didn't get a very fair shake in my opinion. But I have to admit I quite enjoyed this, if taken for what it actually was. There is still subtlety coursing through the album, like the occasional wailing melody ("Blame Us") or trippy psychedelic echoes ("The Multiverse", "Divine Sun"), but for the most part it's bold, knock-down chords and riffs with a great, organic bass tone lighter on distortion than what Eric Forrest was bringing to the table. Sure, the guitar progressions are incredibly simple, but still dynamic and powerful, and I like for once that the band did some soul searching, and gave us a closer glimpse of their worldview rather than...perspectives of other worlds that don't yet exist. The drums are settled into a standard rock climate, and the guitars pretty clean, but Newsted and high profile engineer Brian Joseph Dobbs were quite successful in producing this polished incarnation of the band, and certainly this selection of songs doesn't suffer from the treatment.

There are plenty of straight spaceway/raceway rockers here like "Gasmask Revival" and "Reactor", but I found myself drawn far more to the steadier, lurching tracks that took their sweet time with me, like "I Don't Wanna Wake Up" which translates from this airy, acoustic rock into a dissonant gargoyle groove with a few punkish permutations; or "Invisible Planet" and its brazen, driving walls of chords and the great, contrasted riffs in its bridge. "Real Again?" and "Rebel Robot" also feature some damn interesting spins on the classic Voivod formula riffing, the chorus in the former has this bluesy, post-Motörhead groove that I dig to this day. There are a few generic, predictable riff sequences peppered throughout, but in total I found this to be a solid enough track list.

As a space cadet of the nth degree, I can't really fault anyone who was desirous of a return towards the more ambitious Voivod of the late 80s, but sometimes we've just got to judge something for how it sounds, and not what we so lusted for. Bearing that in mind, I think Voivod was about as good as it could be in the circumstances. Accessible without being 'accessible', well produced and packing a lot of punch for those that don't mind some dust in their coffee. The album might feel more like an exploration of Earth's dry deserts than the lunar dunes, but it's great for road trips and general reflection. The followup Katorz definitely takes a few of the ideas here to their fullest, and proves a better album, but regardless, I don't plan on forgetting this anytime soon.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (remember why you're here)

http://www.voivod.net/