About Voivod
Voivod is a Canadian heavy metal band from Jonquière Quebec. The original line-up consisted of vocalist Denis "Snake" Bélanger, guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour, drummer Michel "Away" Langevin and bassist Jean-Yves "Blacky" Thériault. The band has had numerous members changes throughout its 42-year career, with Langevin as the only consistent member. Their current line-up includes Langevin, Bélanger, Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain and Dominic "Rocky" Laroche .
Voivod's musical style has changed several times since its inception. Starting out as a speed metal band, they have added a mix of progressive and thrash metal to create their own unique metal style, and have been credited as progenitors of the "technical thrash metal" sound along with Coroner, Watchtower, Dark Angel, Mekong Delta, Anacrusis and Blind Illusion, among others.
To date, Voivod have released sixteen studio albums, as well as one EP, one live album, two compilations, seven demos and one DVD featuring a live concert. They have been grouped with Sacrifice, Razor and Annihilator in the "Big Four" of Canadian thrash metal. The band found mainstream success in the late 1980s with their fifth studio album Nothingface , which is Voivod's only album to enter the Billboard 200 charts, peaking at number 114. The band won the "Visionary" award at the 2017 Progressive Music Awards. In 2019, Voivod's fourteenth studio album, The Wake, won the Juno Award for Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year. Voivod's most recent studio album Morgöth Tales, a collection of re-recorded songs, was released in July 2023.
Voivod was formed in 1982 in Jonquière, Quebec. Influenced equally by the new wave of British heavy metal, the burgeoning hardcore punk scene and 1970s progressive rock, Voivod forged a distinctive brand of heavy music that often relied on lyrical themes such as Reagan-era Cold War politics, post-apocalyptic literature and science fiction. Killing Technology began the band's evolution in earnest, with the character from Voivod's album covers significantly being depicted in a spaceship. Drawing more heavily on hardcore punk than metal influences by this point, Voivod began evolving without the aid of increasing speed and storytelling on the following Dimension Hatross. Voivod was one of the first thrash bands from Canada to gain popularity outside of their country's borders, reaching the peak of their global popularity with the 1989 album Nothingface, which featured a cover version of Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine". Other covers include Pink Floyd's "The Nile Song" on their 1993 album The Outer Limits and "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson on Phobos. Much of the band's sound comes from guitarist Piggy's use of dissonant chords, usually played in the high register of the guitar, combined with Blacky's bass tone and chords as well, used extensively on Nothingface. Albums like Dimension Hatröss are dominated by unexpected time signatures and both Piggy and Blacky's liberal use of dissonant, unconventional minor chords.
Two of the four founding members left Voivod in the early 1990s. Jean-Yves co-founded The Holy Body Tattoo, an avant-garde modern dance company based in Vancouver BC and also wrote extensively all the music for it, as well as other electronic music projects, while Denis Belanger isolated himself and eventually started a new project, Union Made. Meanwhile, the band recorded four albums as a trio in the mid-to-late 1990s with new member Eric Forrest, nicknamed "E-Force", handling both vocals and bass guitar. Forrest was seriously injured in a car accident in Germany in 1998, and that incarnation of Voivod never regained the momentum they lost during his rehabilitation. After Eric Forrest left the band, his insurance company attempted to sue the band for the injuries he sustained in the crash, as he was in the care of the band at the time.
Voivod briefly disbanded in 2001 before Bélanger returned to the band. The next incarnation of Voivod featured three of the four founding members: Denis Bélanger , Denis D'Amour , and Michel Langevin along with Jason Newsted on bass guitar. The album Voivod was released in 2003. Guitarist Denis D'Amour died at the age of 45 on August 26, 2005 due to complications from colon cancer. In July 2006 they released Katorz, based around riffs found on the laptop of D'Amour. Just prior to his death, he left instructions for his bandmates on how to use them. In November 2006, the song "X-Stream" was featured on Guitar Hero II.
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