Basically, it's what we'd put on a single vinyl release (being limited to 20 minutes per side) if we were asked to put a Best Of record together to convince the uninitiated long haired miscreant that this band is worth checking out. This episode is dedicated to French Canadian nuclear thrashers. Voivod! The 80s were an an interesting time for Voivod. Their initial two blights being some of the most over-the-top, extreme, whacked-out thrash ever put to tape (War and Pain + Rrroooaaarrr!!!).
VOIVOD have been creating mind-blowing music for 35 years, influencing the likes of Opeth.Michel ‘Away’ Langevin has been weathering the pandemic by doing what he does best: making new music and concentrating on his art. Some songs like 'Pre ignition' are really uneasy to listen to and destroy the interesting flow which the first songs elaborated.VOIVOD 35thAnniversary Tour AUSTRALIA JAN 2019 ANNOUNCED. But I think that Voivod sadly concentrated too much on the technical and conceptual aspect in some of the songs and forgot about the eerie and floating catchyness of the first four songs.
The Wake – the band’s last studio LP – emerged in 2018, delivering 14 tracks of progressive metal and a conceptual narrative created by Snake.Since the release of their debut, 1984’s War And Pain, concepts have driven Voivod’s lyricism the band serving up thinly veiled dystopian allegories with each album. A hugely acclaimed self-titled album followed, only for tragedy to strike when Piggy was diagnosed with colon cancer, passing away in the summer of 2005.Despite the obvious trauma, Away and Snake eventually recruited guitar player Daniel ‘Chewy’ Mongrain and bass player Dominic ‘Rocky’ Laroche, arriving at a new incarnation of the band whose musical invective has developed even further. Then, as the next decade dawned, they split following a road accident while on tour in 1998 where their singer Eric Forrest was hospitalised for several months.In 2002, the three-piece of Away, Snake and Piggy regrouped under the Voivod banner with Jason Newsted – freshly departed from Metallica – in their ranks. The original four-piece of Away, frontman Denis ‘Snake’ Bélanger, Jean-Yves ‘Blacky’ Thériault and guitarist Denis ‘Piggy’ D’Amour found themselves burnt out by the early ’ 90s, causing a line-up reshuffle. In that time, his band have become one of the most respected acts to emerge from the early ’ 80s thrash metal melee, their sound expanding from its punkier roots to absorb elements of psychedelia and progressive rock.In a career that has contained several moments of musical innovation and triumph, the Canadian outfit have also faced moments of near collapse and tragedy.
But you have to stay positive,” he shrugs. “It’s all I’ve ever known, really. “And now we’re focused on writing some new material while socially distancing because we’re still in lockdown in Montreal.”Like all musicians, Away admits he is missing playing and life on the road. “We’re like the neighbours peering over the fence and, in the light of the Capitol riots, saying, ‘What are they doing now?’ I did ask Snake if he was going to use the pandemic as source material for the next album but he really doesn’t want to do that.”The band have begun work on the follow-up to The Wake, having released two live projects from 2019 during lockdown – the Lost Machine album (recorded at SummerFest in Quebec City) and The End Of Dormancy EP (two tracks from which were recorded at the Montreal Jazz Fest and feature a brass section).“We’ve been lucky because we had that material recorded so we were able to release it,” nods Away.
I was nine or 10, and there was a drum set-up at their house so I started to jam with him. It was the whole family and he knew the chords to Beatles songs. Where I grew up, in northern Quebec, there was a kid whose family had a Partridge Family type band called The Teddy Boys. A film documenting their story is also in the works, directed by Felipe Belalcazar, the man responsible for the three videos Voivod have made during lockdown.While the 57-year-old Away is already looking to the future, we take the opportunity to ask him to take a backward glance, starting off at the very beginning…What was the first music that really affected you? “ The Beatles were my very first favourite band.
I didn’t know who they were, but that voice and style was so distinctive, and I would hear them on the radio. Even though I was impressed by post-punk and hardcore, the real route for me was heavy metal, and then thrash metal.”Growing up in Canada, was Neil Peart a huge influence on you? You played shows with Rush in 1990, too… “Of course, I first started to hear Rush in the ’ 70s. All of sudden Venom showed up, and suddenly everyone was going full-speed ahead with thrash metal.
After the first show we played with them, we went back into the dressing room and there was a bottle of champagne from them for us with a note that we gave to Piggy immediately because he was the world’s Number One Rush fan. I was trying to figure out his drum rolls and I couldn’t.“When we finally toured with Rush in 1990 on the Nothingface album, I was at the side of the stage watching him and I still couldn’t figure them out! Rush were really, really great to us and real gentlemen. There were two drummers that impressed me that way – Christian Vander from Magma and Neil Peart.
Also, we lived by a paper mill and I was trying to imagine what kind of creature would make that type of a sound. I was always trying to stand away from any kind of machinery. When I was about five I was hit by a car and I developed a fear of mechanical things. But it stems from a very personal place, doesn’t it? “Yes.
So I started to create my own nuclear vampire, influenced by the factory nearby, the nightmares I had, and the fear of machinery. I really wanted to be a graphic artist for Métal Hurlant and that’s when I started thinking of this voivod world.”Where did the idea of the voivod come from? “I’d seen the word ‘voivod’ in a couple of places but mainly in Bram Stoker’s book, Dracula. He was my favourite and I copied him a lot. Through that I discovered the artwork of Bilal, Moebius and especially Philippe Druillet. I started to take it seriously when I discovered a magazine called Métal Hurlant.
Everybody was trying to go faster than D.R.I. It was only on Rrröööaaarrr that we went full-on thrash metal. We were really into the fast stuff, and on War And Pain, that was really a mix of heavy metal and punk. They all said, ‘These guys are worse than Venom!’ and we thought, ‘Yeah! They’ve mentioned Venom! We’re badass!’ ( Laughs) It was quite funny.“It seemed to us – and everyone in the metal scene – that there was a revolution going on. It was completely slated by Kerrang! at the time… “Yes! The early reviews of War And Pain were really against us. All of this came in very handy when Voivod happened because I was able to adapt my art to that.”You formed Voivod in 1982 and released your first album, War And Pain, two years later with Venom as a key influence.
On Killing Technology I can still hear mistakes on my part, but on Dimension Hätross I really can’t. The same thing happened with Dimension Hätross, so we rehearsed a lot and I could feel we were getting better and better. With Celtic Frost, and then we were due to go on tour in Europe with Possessed before ending up in Berlin to record, so we had to write Killing Technology before we went to Europe so we would have everything ready. Rrröööaaarrr came out, we were going to tour the U.S. But also in ’ 83 we were rehearsing pretty every night and living downtown in Montreal, so we evolved very rapidly and we became very tight in a short time.“The craziest part I find these days is that we’d release an album a year, and do a world tour every year, which was a lot of work. What shaped that shift? “Well, bands like Killing Joke had a huge impact on us.
0 kommentar(er)
