World legends of screaming metal, the Quebec group Voivod celebrates with pomp the fortieth anniversary of its founding in Jonquière. After a reissue earlier this year of his classic album Nothingface released in 1989, now a magnificent box set (CD and vinyl) bringing together three of his first four albums will be released next Friday. ” He is magnificent ! rejoices Michel “Away” Langevin, drummer, official archivist and illustrator of the band’s album covers. “I scanned photos and drawings that had never been published, I’m really satisfied,” he says of the box set. Forgotten in Spacestuffed with unreleased demos and live recordings.
“When I’m not on tour or in the studio with Voivod, I take the opportunity to digitize all the archives we have”, adds “Away”, and God knows how many he has been able to accumulate in forty years of career. “Fans send us old concerts on VHS” which testify to the musical evolution of the group, first inspired by thrash metal and which, on its masterpiece Nothingfaceembraced the influence of progressive rock, innovating on the planetary metal scene.
The three albums featured in the box set, Rrröööaaarrr (1986), Killing Technology (1987) and Hatross dimension (1988), all published at the time by the German label Noise Records (bought by BMG), allow us to follow the dazzling musical evolution of these gifted rock stoners. Rrröööaaarrr is strikingly brutal, almost punk in energy, while the execution of the compositions tends to become more refined and more complex on the following two albums, particularly on Killing Technologythe first testimony to the musical singularity of the group.
We were super dedicated. We practiced every night, and we had to develop our idea at lightning speed since we were recording our records in Berlin and then we were going on tour. I still can’t believe we did this every year, an album, a world tour, and so on! From 1986, everything went very quickly.
The illustrator Michel Langevin finds a tenfold pleasure in admiring the graphics of the box, which highlights the drawing of the group’s mascot, Korgull, appearing for the first time on the cover of War and Pain (1984), the band’s very first album.
“It was the image of the cover of Iron Maiden’s first album that struck me — I was immediately drawn to the cover and said to myself, ‘This is my new favorite band’, even though I had no idea how it sounded. And when I dropped the needle on the record, it sounded exactly as I imagined it. So I said to myself, when designing the cover of the first album, that it had to represent our music as faithfully as possible: the idea of the Cold War, the apocalyptic and fantasy side of Heavy Metal “adds Langevin, referring to the animated film Heavy Metal (1981) and its futuristic aesthetic derived from the French comic book magazine Screaming metal.
“What was great with Voivod was that we evolved in a way where everything was connected: the music could influence the drawings and the drawings could influence the lyrics, and the lyrics the music. Everything was progressing at the same time – it must be said that, when we moved to Montreal in 1985, all the members of the group lived in the same apartment”, a second floor on rue Ontario, near De Lorimier, where the group could do as many noise he wanted. “We stayed there during all these years grouped together in the new box, the Noise Records years, developing our sound, our texts, our concept. We were super dedicated. We practiced every night, and we had to develop our idea at lightning speed since we were recording our records in Berlin and then we were going on tour. I still can’t believe we did this every year, an album, a world tour, and so on! From 1986, everything went very quickly. »
More popular than ever!
Forty years after its creation, Voivod is still very popular in Europe and North America, assures Michel Langevin, who very recently completed a tour of the United States which stopped on June 18 at the Pure Filth festival, in New York State, where the band was inducted into the Metal Hall of Fame.
“I’m glad that Voivod still exists, because when I work on reissues, there’s a lot of nostalgia and melancholy about a lot of memories, for example the death of Denis D’Amour. A memorial project to the guitarist, who left his mark on the metal sound through his use of a type of chord dubbed “Devil’s chord,” is currently seeking crowdfunding. The work of sculptor Fred Laforge will reach nearly three meters and will be installed at Place Nikitoutagan, in the Jonquière sector of Saguenay. “If the band didn’t exist anymore, I feel like I’d be sad to look at our old material. »
Michel Langevin confirms that an album of original compositions will be released next year. As well as a compilation, a reissue of the album recorded in 2003 with Jason Newsted (ex-Metallica bassist) and the last studio album on which plays the late Denis “Piggy” D’Amour, who died two years later. A book and a documentary film on the group are also on the program.
“We are more popular than ever! said Langevin, who, during our conversation, whispered in our ears that he and his colleagues Denis “Snake” Bélanger, Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain and Dominic “Rocky” Laroche would be delighted if ADISQ awarded them the Félix Hommage award. one day. On good terms.