VOIVOD — Phobos (review)

Album · 1997 · Thrash Metal

3.5/5 · 2012-10-20
voila_la_scorie

Voivod was one of those bands I snatched up on cassette in the mid-80's when thrash/power/speed metal was flooding the metal landscape. Though I bought a lot of stuff back then, very few of those bands impressed me enough in later years to be worthy of keeping in my collection on CD. Voivod's debut, "War and Pain" had a few tracks that I loved, and their third and fifth albums - "Killing Technology" and their seminal album "Nothingface" - managed to survive the decades of my changing musical tastes. Then early this year (2012) I took up interest in the band again and soon had my collection of their studio albums complete.

This is one of those bold move albums that either draws people closer or repulses them from the band. Or should I say revolts them? For my tastes however, this album is quite attractive in sound. The reasons often cited for disliking this album: new vocalist Eric Forrest is nowhere nearly as interesting and unique as founding vocalist Denis Belanger; Jean-Yves Theriault isn't playing bass on this; the guitars are just a wall of sound.

It's usually disappointing when certain band members we have come to love leave the band and the new members can't replace what was lost. But given the direction that Voivod was heading through the period of "Angel Rat" and "Outer Limits", I think it was a daring and bold move to take the new band in the direction of "Negatron" and "Phobos". On the other hand, the band had been moving away from their speed metal roots and these two more recent albums remind us that this is where the band came from. If the last album you heard was "Killing Technology" and then picked up "Phobos" ten years later, you would likely not be surprised by the sound nearly as much as by the line-up change.

I actually find this album really interesting to listen to, though I usually prefer to listen to a few individual songs like "Phobos", "Bacteria", "Neutrino", and "Forlorn" than the whole album straight through. The album is bookended by two sound effect instrumentals "Catalepsy" and "Catalepsy II", which are on their own not much but being there they give the album a sense of conceptualization, a sense that is reinforced with the bizarre and sometimes creepy sound effects that link the songs. You will also note that most tracks have a one-word title, further creating the idea of a theme.

There is little variety in the music. Almost every song is like being whacked by a giant tennis racket of distorted guitar, and given Denis D'Amour's penchant for weird and dissonant chords, that sensation of being clobbered is only stronger. The pace of the songs usually varies between doomy space extreme metal and a careening battleship of rapid-paced space speed metal. The songs do find time to fit in some interludes from the mayhem of sound with creepy undistorted guitar with spooky cosmic effects or abrupt tempo changes at times. The vocals are powerful screams from a terribly scratched throat - very much suiting the music - but sometimes they are distorted too and the lyrics are difficult to distinguish. That's a weak point for me. The music overwhelms the vocals.

Two tracks that stand out for me because of the mood they establish are the instrumental "Temps Mort" and "Neutrino". "Temps Mort" is a solemn and grim piece that reminds me a bit of something from Nine Inch Nail's "The Downward Spiral" but with accordion played by drummer Michel Langevin. It has a strong post apocalyptic atmosphere but with a folksy European funeral touch. It's a welcome interlude from the sonic assault that composes most of this album.

"Neutrino" has such a sparse but hideously creepy intro. The image that comes to my mind is of some enormous space creature hammering on the hull of a doomed spacecraft while the crew inside are frozen with fear. It gives me the shivers each time I hear it, a great example of how even heavy metal can create images with music.

If you love the classic Voivod then you should approach this with caution. If you want to hear something that will at first give you the feeling of listening to an extremely harsh hangover but later make you feel like you've just heard an album by a Sith Lord's evil twin's metal band, this might just appeal to you.