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Rating: Since the early '80s, the Canadian Voivod have been among the most enlightened contributors to the qualitative growth within the tumultuous world of heavy metal, staging a highly personal variant that soon established them as one of the most solid entities within the crowded circle of music agitators.
Decidedly unaligned with the rest of their contemporary counterparts, the Quebec quartet has consistently sought an (im)possible escape route through a process of progressive regeneration: both in terms of execution and in terms of iconography and texts.
A sound that is always powerful, gruff, acidic, full of dissonance, free from showy virtuosity and the sterile revelries typical of most of their ear-splitting brethren. The massive triptych starting with "Killing Technology" arriving at "Dimension Hatross" (perhaps their small masterpiece) and reaching "Nothingface" produced in the late penultimate decade of the last millennium, saw them protagonists of an impressive and constant rewriting of their coordinates; critics at the time, somewhat bewildered, labeled them as leading exponents of Post-Thrash, which in effect meant everything and also little to nothing. Following the somewhat raw diamonds mentioned above, they further diversified their range of action and amid highs and lows due to inevitable lineup changes, they have produced a considerable series of albums always at least of a respectable level.
"Target Earth," released at the end of last January, sees them back on track four years after their last studio work, for the second consecutive time with ¾ of the original lineup: unfortunately, guitarist Denis "Piggy" D’Amour has left the earthly realms several years ago.
As soon as the tumultuous bass intro kicks off the album, one begins to sense what will unfold over the course of the ten tracks: the gut feeling is that overall the album turns out to be much more solid and convincing compared to what they have done lately and more than was objectively expected; in fact, it's been over twenty years since one of their albums sounded "authentically Voivod" like this: it's as if they have naturally resumed a path altered many years ago, without falling into the easy trap of slavish recycling. In short, it feels akin to dealing with the spurious clangors of the disjointed "Nothingface" played with the powerful vehemence of "Dimension Hatross" but with a lightness of "rock" approach as a consequence of the evolution traceable from the early '90s onwards: "Resistance," in its more than six minutes, is the piece that best tells the Voivod of 2013; it is precisely the quality of the writing more than the expressive mode used that stands out positively.
It is clear that those who found their multiform psycho-metallic torpedoes filled with percussive clangors and turgid ups and downs indigestible in the past will also find it difficult to not find these congruent alien basalt blows hard to handle, hence agnostic.
I, in doubt, would press PLAY again.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
05 Nothingface (04:20)
May I? May I?
Valves plugs pump to erase
Rictus from my face
Lapse of time
Synchro freeze
Loop rewind
Forward speed
Will to walk
Crossed out feet
Fingers tall
Far from reach
Mind to talk
Still words bleed
Optic box
Melted through
Sonic shock
Silent clue
Drop by drop
Drain-out tube
I hope, I need
I want to dream
Cold choke choke cold
I float unseen
Outside the screen
Cold choke choke cold
A wish, extreme
Awaiting the stream
12 Experiment (05:49)
Loud echoes from the end
Nothing but a flat lie
All I need is a new world
Create my universe
The four basic forces
Are ready and fixed
All set to prove myself
It really exists
Risk it, try it, find it !
If my body cannot stand
Don't wanna be born again
I have enough of my land
Putting myself in this project
Within a space that's still secret
Am I to blame for future fate ?
A ball of energy
Vortex around me
I have to realize
My theory is wise
The four basic forces
Are ready and fixed
All set to prove myself
It really exists
Risk it, try it, find it !
I think I've found the way
I wanna move not stay
Time is fast and so unsafe
Conquest is what I can expect
Without frontiers there's no respect
The less you give the more I take
Burst getting stronger
In atoms smasher
Powerful magnets
Interchanges the mass
Annihilation, a full reaction
The protons travel
In a big circle
Meeting in this race
Their mirror-image
Dematerialized
Body lost its size
Tube without exit
No way out of it
Micro-galaxies
A lot more to see
Magnetic fusion
My self-creation
I'm in the machine
Going through my dreams
Dimension Hatröss
Dimension Hatröss
14 Overreaction (05:08)
It's coming over you!!
Can you see the phosphorescence of the factory
Moving away, out of this territory
The systems became overload
The warning lights were on that night
Nobody knew what was going on
But it will be here for months
Or even years
It's coming over me !!
The ugly underside of the nuclear energy
Brings us today this atomic calamity
The malfunction of the instruments
For this blunders we have to go to hell
It's coming over us
Don't be scared, the engines exploded
But it's just a technological risk
And this thing will continue throughout the ages,
the evolution can't run without damage
Mother nature can't hear you
The China Syndrome will die much later than you....
The China Syndrome...
In the air, it smells bad,
Feel the disease, the nuclearchy
We're lucky, we'll die young
It's hard to endure, to be a mutant
The transformation, is almost complete
Research has no end, containing the power
The dangerous results, it's not our fault
Create the force, we got no fear
Lock the doors, we're engineers
Awaiting to suffocate, purchasing the program
Vomiting the pollution, of energy games
Create the force, we got no fear
Lock the doors, we're engineers
Welcome to the China Syndrome
It's an over...Overreaction !!!
15 Ravenous Medicine (04:37)
Another emergency truck keeps rolling fast
Two lane highway and they run on the wrong track
You still don't know that you're never going back
You're going to the science hospital
You guess that your body is still alive
They estimate you're in pretty good health
Good shape for some of our sadistic tests
Doctor said you must stay in bed
Surgical scourge on you
Surgical scourge on you
Electric shock through you
Electric shock through you
Feel the scalpel they cut you with
Going into the experimental room
How much radiation can your body stand?
You did very well, you'll feel better soon
The red cross is turning black
Wake up in another department
You see the nurse with blood on her clothes
They got another experience for today
Maybe the worst of them
Diagnosing the pain, the ravenous medicine
Discovering the cure, the ravenous medicine
Died through illness, the ravenous medicine
Don't care how many organs you gave
Injecting the drugs
'Till you become the slave
Turn off the machine that keeps your heart beating
They're gonna do it to you !!
17 Voivod (04:21)
Struggling through this
Disturbing life
Surviving is
the only way
to understand
the reasons why
each of us live
riding the blind
tension will pull
you down beneath
way underground
you shall remain
using your soul
dying to breathe
nothing to say
no one to blame
I've always been
slightly confused
all things appear
doomed in a way
whispering voice
is this the end?
my only fate
Tormented, down
Reality...
Tormented, down
Reality...
Upside down reality
I can't hide anxiety
Say goodbye to sanity
Upside down reality
19 Ripping Headaches (03:32)
Delivering the noise to keep
My head red hot
Riding in the long run
I get the energy
Tonight let's go I'm here
To feel my suicide
We turn it on
And you'll be going crazy
The electricity is in the air to shock
Breaking into shivers
If you want disorder
They're many maniacs here
The shit is just beggining
It will be long before
We see posers again
I'm gonna tear some wimp
Rockers limb from limb
Running the speed in blood
Blowing my ears with noise
In this place everybody becomes mummified
I don't know why but it's sure
We're the violators
Anyway I shall go wether fate leads me
In some place they looked at
Us in wide mouthed
Maybe because we are heavier
Than all destructors
It's a lot of fuss and you don't have a choice
Bite kill rush skulk and there's
No chance to save your cracked brain
Burn slam shout scream the end is
Always near I want to drop my pill
Ah!Ah!The riff came full putch at my head
Do you like it ??
You've got a brain damage
It's the ripping headaches
I'm still smashing and
My body is doing bad
We don't care and you know
All the world must die ! Aah!
21 Astronomy Domine (07:12)
Syd Barrett)
Lime and limpid green
The second scene
The fights between
The blue you once knew
Floating down
The sound resounds
Around the icy
Water underground
Jupiter and Saturn
Oberon there on the run
Titanian, Neptune, Titan
Stars get frighten
Winding signs flap
Flicker flicker flicker flap
Pow! Stairways scared
And death rules there
Blindman limpid
Green the sound
Surrounds the icy water on the
Lime and limpid green the sound
Surrounds the icy
Waters underground
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22 The Prow (03:26)
There you are, you're with me
Protecting all my crew
I carved you, from a tree
My vision is you
Lorelei, I have thee
In front of my ship
Cutting waves, at full speed
Savouring the trip
Down the mirror of the waterline
Leaning over underwater life
Hidden treasures of the seven seas
I'm starboard to nowhere
On the Milky Way
Howling wind, salty air
Tearing at the sails
Looking down the crow's nest
Gliding in the sky
Without sound, going west
Boating on the fly
But some day
You'll go home
Far away
On your own
Dans la mer
You'll go down
Go down where
You belong
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