VOIVOD – Infini

Will this be the last shot of glory by one of the most obscure bands in Metal? According to one of the band’s latest interviews, their new album, and their twelfth, Infini, will probably be the last one from the Canadian giants. Nevertheless, who knows, anything can happen in the music business, so nothing is final yet.

Infini, similar to the band’s previous release Katorz, from three years ago, is a material collection of Voivod’s late brilliant guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour, who died from Colon cancer in 2005. Infini awards the Metal world another chance of getting a hold of unreleased material by Voivod with a special flavor. After Piggy’s death, the remaining band members, Snake Belanger, Jason Newsted and Away Langevin, used the man’s guitar riffs and continued the Voivod heritage by adding their own musical talents: Snake added the well-known freaky like lyrics with his maniacal theatrical vocals, Jason Newsted created havoc with the bass and Away slaughtered with great drumming.

The album illustrates the advancement and the route, both which the band chose ever since they completed a quantity of awkward changes within their music in the course of their wonderful 1989’s release, Nothingface. The prior era of Voivod was between 1981-1988, an era where they played Thrash / Speed Metal with several unusual flakes merged in their past violent approach. These great times produced killers such as War And Pain, Killing Technology and Dimension Hatross. After that wild period of blood and speed, Voivod decided to adjust a new tune-up to their Thrash Metal roots and became a rather more Progressive Metal outfit and the Thrash Metal element , over the years, stepped aside while new creative, yet highly obscure and weird musical touches were slowly taking over. This era produced, besides Nothingface, classic conceptions and examples of the old Piggy’s talents coming in the image of The Outer Limits , Negatron and Phobos.

While you tune in to Infini, you might notice that Voivod are a more Progressive Metal company than Thrash and not in the usual Progressive Metal way, yet the old violent flame can still be seen within some of the tracks presented. The music, occasionally, has small shares of hard moments when it is a bit tricky to understand what the main lanes of the songs are. Yet by listening closely to the music, even with Snake’s amazing vocals, you will observe that the largest part of the riffs and grooves were made simple without too much complexity in them. The album’s complexity mostly derived from the entire passages of riffs within each song, the lyrics and the beats. With assurance, after a couple of spins you will get the hang of the songs because there is a pattern within the majority of them. Piggy’s writing has a knack of being repetitive, which means that he tended to choke out his own riffs in the tunes. Tracks as “Volcano” , “God Phones” and “Pyramidome” are amazing tunes yet they are also a good illustration for Piggy’s riff choke down.

Only a few other tracks from Infini amazed on several levels. You can’t place this musical piece in the same line as Nothingface and The Outer Limits or even albums from the band’s Thrash Metal era. Songs as “From The Cave” and “Morpheus” are two additional hits besides the three mentioned while “Krap Radio”, “Global Warning” and “Earthache” serve only as solid material yet quite artistic with their total obscurity shakedown.

If Infini is Voivod’s last album, it is a nice goodbye from an inventive band who made a huge rumble in their time. May their decision to end their career take a different turn and they will stay for a few more releases, even if Piggy isn’t around to enjoy them.