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Voivod: Target earth
12/04/13 || gk
Voivod has been around for more than 30 years now and in that time the band has produced some captivating and challenging thrash metal with landmark albums like “Dimension hatross”, “Nothingface” and “Killing technology”. The band sort of fell away for a bit in the late 90s and early 2000s but when I read that Martyr’s Daniel Mongrain had been recruited into the fold, my interest in the band came back and “Target earth” is one hell of a return to form.
The title track opens the album with Blackie’s thick and heavy bass riff starting things. As the guitars kick in with their distinct dissonance and the band lock into an off kilter groove, most fan boys will start to wet themselves. Things only get better from here though. “Kluskap o’kam” is catchy and the most thrash metal they’ve been in a long while, but still maintain their sense of strange and atypical grooves. “Empathy for the enemy” is moody and alternates between a soft verse section and a groovy chorus to good effect. “Mechanical mind” returns to the atonal grooves and mind fucking with its effortless song writing and “Target earth” is off to a ridiculously strong start. Elsewhere on the album, “Resistance” is just a damn catchy song and Snake pulls of a great vocal line. “Corps etranger” strings together a series of dissonant riffs with great urgency to create a song that is unrelenting in intensity but still has a hook.
The star of the show for me is Daniel Mongrain aka Chewy. It feels like all the time spent touring with Voivod the last few years has helped Mongrain figure out Dennis D’Amour’s distinct guitar style and understand the spirit of this strange, strange band. His guitar playing right through this album is pretty damn great as he brings dissonant riffs and weird but perfectly placed solos but always makes sure there’s a groove or hook to reel the listener in. It also helps that the rest of the band is in sublime form. Blacky’s bass is thick and rumbling under the guitars but it’s Away’s drumming, often at odds with the riffs that provides the forward momentum to these songs. Vocalist Snake grounds things with his singing which is unconventional but still provides the soul that makes this complex and challenging music a bit more approachable.
“Target earth” is better than I ever thought it would be. I’d even say this is the best album the band’s done since 1993’s “The outer limits”. It may not be an exact musical match to the older albums but one spin of this and you know the spirit is the same and this is the same Voivod.
If you’ve never liked Voivod then “Target earth” will do nothing to change your opinion but fans of the band will love and worship this album as a true return to form. It’s early days yet but “Target earth” could well find itself in my top 5 come December.
- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Century Media Records
- Website: Voivod Facebook
- Band
- Snake: vocals
- Chewy: guitars
- Blacky: bass
- Away : drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Target Earth
- 02. Kluskap O’Kom
- 03. Empathy for the Enemy
- 04. Mechanical Mind
- 05. Warchaic
- 06. Resistance
- 07. Kaleidos
- 08. Corps Étranger
- 09. Artefact
- 10. Defiance
