Voivod Lives

Hardradio review by Martin Popoff Voivod . . . Lives! As bassist and vocalist Eric Forrest continues recovery after a life-threatening road injury (Eric: "I feel pretty good. I'm pretty lucky to be able to walk, let alone live, after what I'vebeen through. Not too many people can do that after they break their spine in three places."), Voivod are readying two albums for release this year. The first, to be released in conjunctionwith a European spring tour supporting Therion (Christofer is a huge fan), is Voivod Lives, their first full official live album. Drummer Michel Langevin explains. "It's coming out probably in April on and Metal Blade in Canada and the States and Century Media in Europe and Japan. And we're going to Europe to promote it. And then we're going to come back and hopefully tour Canada once it comes out. But first of all, it's two shows, one recorded at CBGB's in New York, and the other one recorded at the Dynamo festival in Holland. Both shows are from 1996. We did record shows in 1998, but we had technical problems and we couldn't release those tracks. Eventually we'll have another live album with an expanded repertoire." The second album will be the band's new studio album, hopefully ready for the summer. The music's been written for two years, and pre-production has been completed, with Steve Albini expressing interest in recording it. Lyrically, Michel says it will be a concept record telling the final chapter of the Voivod saga. Musically, he offers this: "I think when Eric joined the band and we put out Negatron, I thought it was a little bit reminiscent of Killing Technology. And I think Phobos is like Dimension Hatross, and I think the next one is going to be more like Nothingface, with more psychedelia included in the writing. On the past couple of albums we've been trying to cut down on the tempo changes and find a groove that can be heavy without really being fast. And we've tried to do a little bit more ambient experimenting with the guitar effects, and not as many sampling as before. It's more of a real power trio thing but there are a lot of guitar effects of course." Guitarist Dennis D'Amour, aka Piggy, echoes this sentiment. "A lot of people who listen to it like it and say they are very surprised by it. But it's hard for me to comment. But yeah, I agree, there are some surprises. I use different guitar sounds and effects, and the way we write the songs was a little different too. We tried not to repeat the same record." Eric's take on it? "I think it's the type of thing where Voivod fans from War And Pain all the way up until Angel Rat are going to like this record. It's got progressive moments as well as heavier thrash moments as well as groovy, trippin' kind of vibes. It's heavy in spots, progressive in spots, a bit of everything." Michel has been thinking about adding as CDROM material, his years of artwork and peripheral writings on the story of the Voivod character and beyond. Parts of his library of work might show up chronologically in book form, available for sale on tour. Additionally, the band has been involved in the Heavy Metal II soundtrack. Michel: "Yes, Piggy and I did the music for Heavy Metal II, the movie. We did the score for the trailers of the movie for USA in Japan, and then we put a song onto the movie soundtrack. It's actually not on the CD, but it's the first song on the movie. Also we did five songs for a video game called Onslaught." Finally in Voivod news, in the works is a proposed Voivod tribute album. Michel: "Relapse Records are working to put that. And so far, the people interested, I was quite surprised. There's Primus, Mr. Bungle, Sepultura, names I wasn't expecting. So hopefully that is going to see the light of day."