Voivod
Nothingface

THE REVIEW

Talking about a band like Voivod is always a bit risky, not because one could ever doubt the quality of the individual musicians involved in this project, but because given the musical proposal and, in general, the whole path taken by the band over the years, one always finds themselves a bit bewildered.

Starting as a thrash metal group with almost punk influences, Voivod (led by the immortal and never too celebrated guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour) have managed over time to combine their raw musical style with progressive rhythms, incorporating cyber elements that give their compositions a futuristic flavor: the album that best represents this pastiche (French for "pasticcio", I haven't become illiterate :) ) was very likely their 1989 work called "Nothingface", which already from the cover, representing the face of an android (robot??) surrounded by "tubes", immediately gives us the sensation of novelty: novelty because it remains, even today, almost impossible to catalog this masterpiece within any predefined genre, as it is thrash, but also progressive, psychedelic and it was the foundation for many cyber-thrash bands that hit the market over the years.

From a musical point of view, "Nothingface" offers well-defined riffs, but never too metallic, with melodic solutions that decisively contribute to giving the album that "spacey" touch, especially thanks to Piggy's solos, aided though by breathtaking bass lines; as for the rhythm section, Thériault and Langevin prefer fairly essential tempos (except for the bass in regard to the previously mentioned melodic lines), sometimes sparse, but in the moments when they weave more complex music, here this rhythmic duo shows the ability to pull out foundations rich in time changes, sustained even at high speed. Then there's the voice, and what a voice: Snake at times is truly the added value of the band, capable of easily ranging from high to low tones, proving to be a great performer (note the Pink Floyd cover in "Astronomy Domine", in which our singer gives his best).

The cyber thrash base of the album then highlights, during the listening, the various tracks all the other aspects of Voivodian music, as can be seen in the first track, "The Unknown Knows", a typical thrash blow with some punk and progressive incursions, or the already mentioned "Astronomy Domine", equipped with a psychedelically effective thrust and vocals that seem to have been filtered, giving the piece greater depth. Another song worth mentioning is the closing piece, "Sub-Effect", surely a foundation for many of the techno and thrash groups that followed Voivod (almost impressive, it seems like being in front of the first sprouts of bands like Spiral Architect, but also bands like Meshuggah or the less core-based Mnemic).

"Nothingface" is objectively not an album suitable for everyone, since our Canadians seem to enjoy disrupting the most common concept of a song, and more generally that of music, but nonetheless, they manage, after repeated listens, to become extremely captivating and why not, even fun.

As for the themes dealt with in the songs, they range from abstract themes concerning the psyche ("Into My Hypercube" is a striking example) to others more focused on futuristic themes, but all the lyrics remain shrouded in an aura of "mystery", often resulting in being impenetrable and difficult to understand.

In conclusion, we are faced with an extremely complex album, both thematically and musically; the work done by the band proves to be always of excellent level, extremely precise and technical, but never too showy.

A masterpiece, therefore, that today still seems to be alone in the musical landscape and has a guaranteed place in the metal masterpieces' Olympus, where I'm sorry, but not everyone can enter.