Voivod
Target Earth

THE REVIEW

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.