Last Updated on 08:20 PM by Nikos Nakos

Words And Pain

When young Michel “Away” Langevin was immersed in science fiction novels and vampires as an escape to improve his artistic skills he would never have imagined that his creation, Voivod, would become a symbol of musical craftsmanship and creativity in the world of heavy metal today. Growing up in the shadow of North America’s largest aluminum plant in the town of Jonquiere in Northern Quebec, Canada, he drew inspiration and after demos and a sampler on the famous Metal Massacre V compilation (“Condemned To The Gallows”) he and his teenage gang would manage to sign a contract with a label of the time.

Until then, Canada was not so much a benchmark in the heavy metal world. Apart from Anvil and Exciter, the country had little to show for itself, metal-wise, until 1984. “War And Pain” changed all that. It was an album that was not only so extreme that it was surprising, but it was also an album that drew heavily from the various stable bands in the underground metal scene at the time. Merging science fiction with thrash metal was never a good combination, but Voivod in August 1984 via Metal Blade Records exploded like a bomb in the marketplace. Along with labels like Megaforce and Noise, Metal Blade Records was one of the leading purveyors of underground metal music in the early and mid-80s and they didn’t miss the opportunity. The album to get its hands on went through waves of changes as the 1981-born group was looking for a launching pad and reason to exist. That’s when Denis “Snake” Bélanger joined Denis “Piggy” D’Amour , Michel “Away” Langevin and Jean-Yves “Blacky” Thériault to create the demo “To the Death!….”.

Recorded within three days at Le Terroir Studio in a remote part of rural Quebec in June 1984, the sound of the debut is distinctly claustrophobic. However, as amateurish as the production was, there was one thing that set Voivod apart from other influential bands like Venom, Celtic Frost and Possessed: their first album, unlike the debuts of other bands, was tight. Extremely tight; synthetically the music on “War And Pain” is a raw and dirty, anarchic kind of heavy/speed metal with raw punk vocals. The sound production is noisy, messy and organic. At times it sounds like a lo-fi demo release, recorded live in the studio.

The 42:42 minute long material is presented one-dimensionally with plenty of raw charm. The heavily distorted bass sound of “Blacky”, the anarchic playfulness of “Away” on drums and the crazed guitar crescendo of “Piggy” with its distortions and blues elements in a raucous thrash storm composes a primitive madness of the Canadians in what they were looking for and wanted to discover. As great as the whole band sounds on tracks like “Warriors Of Ice”, “Voivod” and “Iron Gang” the progressive thrash brilliance of “War And Pain” and “Nuclear War” highlights Piggy as the band’s most potent weapon. With improvised flying V guitar and a playing style already clearly defined, no pedal effects to speak of, his straight-ahead metal guitar riffs move with blinding speed, while his lead fills feel quirky yet safe and melodic, helping the disgusting vocals of “Snake” tie in seamlessly with the inspiration.

‘War And Pain’ shows Voivod playing straight thrash metal, with a slightly forward, sci-fi touch. Although lacking the innovation that made their later works so great, the debut album is still a classic for its style, and a very entertaining listen at that. The lyrical themes are quite advanced beyond what a typical thrash band might sing about. Here, the Canadians take themes of nuclear holocaust and war and filter them through a futuristic setting. The album wins because of its raw charm compared to many of the up-and-coming big names in the burgeoning thrash scene, but its frenetic approach and strong influences from punk and a bit of acid rock gave it a unique sound for its time. Fluid, yet untamed. Dissonant, but held the melodic level of the best traditional metal. A nice dirty war/thrash metal release steeped in a purple post-apocalyptic meets cyber-punk dystopia, Voivod were clearly on to something special already this early in their career.

Forty years after that day, their sound is still very unique, recognizable and completely inimitable. “War And Pain” wasn’t flawless, with the most glaring example being the extremely silly “Suck Your Bone”, which contains the most unintentionally hilarious line of all time, “Go shit! I’m not a fish”, but really, this album is the sound of a band that was already halfway through their career, and the pace at which they improved as the years went by remains one of the most amazing trajectories in heavy metal history. Is this the beginning of a band that produced some of the best prog metal in the late 80s to early 90s? Yes, they are and they have proven it over the years.