Voivod

Voivod, a heavy-metal band from Quebec, devoted their career to the exploits of the barbarian Korgull, set in an imaginary near-future Middle Ages.

Not only are the individual records concept albums—*the entire oeuvre* is a concept. Voivod accompany this sort of episodic rock-music “Conan” with a coldly cerebral and claustrophobic style that draws equally from Motörhead and Rush, from King Crimson and Pink Floyd, from dark-punk and industrial music.

With their slow but inexorable progression toward ever more complex and daring music—toward an avant-garde form of “heavy-metal symphony”—Voivod single-handedly ennobled the entire genre (even if perhaps, in the end, the first album remains the best). In parallel, their science-fiction visions created a small “Star Trek”-like phenomenon in the rock world. Far from perfect, the experiment was nonetheless always commendable.

Formed in 1982 by Denis “Snake” Bélanger (vocals) and Denis “Piggy” D’Amour (guitar), they debuted with the album War And Pain (Roadrunner, 1984). The record is dominated by epic songs such as Voivod, launched at a frenzied charging pace, and Black City, menacing and martial as demanded by the genre. The quintessence of the apocalyptic sound that would permeate so much sci-fi heavy metal is Nuclear War, which conveys the sense of panzers moving across a battlefield; while the title-track is simply the definitive bacchanal, the moment in which the band unleashes all its energy.
The vocals are hoarse and strained as the genre requires, the frenzy is the breakneck kind of Metallica, the drums roll in psychotic spasms, the guitars dart from every direction, but in the outbursts of Iron Gang and Warriors Of Ice (Deep Purple crossed with Jimi Hendrix) one can already glimpse the seeds of a new sensibility. One way or another, the melodies get pulverized in this kind of continuous Paleolithic uproar. Unwilling to conform to any predefined genre, Voivod’s sound burns with a malaise that is more metaphysical than existential. The canon had been foreshadowed: now it was only a matter of systematically dismantling it.

The piercing, occult geometries of that work also weigh on the next one, Rrroooaaarrr (Noise, 1986), which more or less repeats the same film, although Korgull The Exterminator heightens the rhythmic feats and brushes against dissonance, and other tracks indulge in the vulgarities and atrocities of hardcore (Fuck Off And Die) or death-metal (Helldriver). The album includes the fastest songs of their career (Ripping Headaches and Thrashing Rage above all), culminating in the apocalypse/apotheosis of To The Death.

Their heavy metal, armored in asbestos and titanium, now seems unassailable.

Instead—having paid their tribute to the “thrash” trend with that work—in 1987 Voivod revive their slumbering experimental ambitions with the third album, Killing Technology (Noise International, 1987). The title-track limps along on a ragged rhythm that is neither thrash, nor blues, nor rock and roll, while echoing all three, as the guitars alternate the usual hurricanes of staccato with sequences of dissonances. This overwhelming, devastating beginning sets the tone for the entire work.

The techno-fantasy thesis is reinforced by the explosive attack of Overreaction, Ravenous Medicine, and Tornado, tracks in which Voivod do not forget that they are a speed-metal band. The ultimate goal is always total immersion in the apocalyptic scenario of the post-nuclear world, amid seismic roars and android neuroses.

Incorporating electronic instruments as well, Dimension Hatross (Noise International, 1988) pushes even further.
The music now has an increasingly ceremonial (Tribal Convictions) and chaotic (Chasmongers) quality. The compositions are ever more complex, but never pretentious; the impeccable execution makes it possible to digest any experiment. This is a style that can no longer properly be called heavy metal—rather, a kind of “space-metal” that limps noticeably on the melodic front (Macrosolutions To Megaproblems), that has abandoned the rhythmic ambitions of speed-metal, that has shattered the canonical unfolding of the song form (no choruses, no crescendos), that seems to chase abstract sensations (Psychic Vacuum, perhaps the masterpiece). It is as if the MC5 were performing a piece by Schönberg, or as if a work by Bartók had been orchestrated for blasts of dynamite.
Meanwhile, the tale of Korgull’s sci-fi adventures continues, amid galactic mirages and antimatter catastrophes. The entire album is weighed down by a frenzy and melodramatic quality that, mutatis mutandis, is not so different from the grandiose emphasis of Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma or early King Crimson.

Nothingface (Mechanic, 1989) continues the band’s progression toward increasingly ambitious sonic goals and remains perhaps the work in which the progressive-rock, punk-rock, and industrial elements fuse most successfully. Having assimilated sampling techniques, polished the vocals, and refined the dynamics of the sound, The Unknown Knows and the others can now compete with Rush’s super-productions. To the neurotic syncopation that had always been their trademark is now opposed the almost psychedelic charm of Missing Sequences, a prelude to the triumphant return of melody (X-Ray Mirror). Their songs live mainly on continuous and unpredictable bursts of contrasts and reversals, though at the expense of immediacy and with a certain overall heaviness.
The group’s artistic itinerary can be summarized as a program aimed at progressively defusing the constituent elements of speed-metal. And in the harmonic labyrinths of Nothingface every residue of stereotype truly disappears.

The fundamental (and apparent) schizophrenia of Voivod’s music—the simultaneous progress in the direction of elite experimentation and mass accessibility—leads inevitably to Angel Rat (Mechanic, 1991), an album designed for mass consumption (even pop), yet at the same time the most elaborate (perhaps too much so) of their career (Panorama, The Prow, Clouds In My House). Here begins a new phase, only vaguely related to their early days.
Inevitably, that form of futurism was linked to the emerging cyberpunk phenomenon and thereby acquired renewed relevance. Panorama and the album’s other harmonic gems are ready for radio stations, while the barbarian Korgull and Voivod civilization are abandoned to their fate.

Unrecognizable, the Canadians recorded The Outer Limits (MCA, 1993), confirming that the commercialization process is now irreversible and that their sound has lost much of its conceptual ballast. The model for Fix My Heart is more than ever the late Pink Floyd; Le Pont Noir is inspired by Canadian folklore and mirrors the flow of a Kate Bush ballad; and We Are Not Alone compresses the violence of their early days into a brilliant boogie with a “railroad” rhythm.
The long suite Jack Luminous, which showcases their guitar technique of “melodic dissonance,” is the definitive homage to their idols, Van Der Graaf Generator, albeit filtered through Metallica, Pink Floyd, and Rush.

Negatron (Mausoleum, 1995), perhaps the worst album of their career (and the first without Belanger, replaced by Eric Forrest), pushes them back into the background from which they had come. Nanoman and the other tracks on the album are devoted to futuristic technologies, but no longer manage to compose a unified picture. DNA can be salvaged, but is actually a composition by Foetus (guest of honor).

Far from being a mere rehashing of their career's themes, Phobos (Slipdisc, 1997) is a sophisticated effort that deserves as much praise as (at least) The Outer Limits. Compositions such as Phobos and Bacteria display the trio's technical prowess as well as powerful riffs.

Denis "Snake" Belanger rejoined the band for the mediocre and poppy Voivod (Frontiers, 2003), that also features Metallica's bassist Jason Newsted.

Denis "Piggy" D'Amour died in 2005. Katorz (2006) used riffs that he had stored in his computer.

Voivod's drummer Michel Langevin launched the project Kosmos (The End, 2007), that harked back to progressive-rock of the 1970s.

To The Death 84 (Alternative Tentacles, 2011) documents an earlier demo tape.

Warriors Of Ice is a live album. Meanwhile, Daniel Mongrain replaced Denis D'Amour