VOIVOD
open for Down Fri, Sep 18. Kool Haus, 132 Queens Quay E. $34. 8pm.

The story of Quebecois thrash metal veterans Voivod is almost perfectly
emblematic of the trajectory of heavy metal over the past 30 years.
Gaining popularity in the ’80s as an extreme and sophisticated musical
force, the band bumped up against grunge in the early ’90s and then
faded into a years-long hiatus as nü-metal reigned, only to find that
here in the 21st century’s classic metal revival, they’re more
respected than ever.

But there’s a further bittersweet quality to the Voivod story; their
past two albums, 2006’s Katorz and this year’s Infini, have been
completed and released since the death of guitarist and founding member
Denis “Piggy” D’Amour. How these records came to be is the stuff of
mythmaking:  when Piggy grew increasingly ill after being diagnosed
with colon cancer, he spent what were ultimately his dying weeks
recording the guitar parts for both albums in his home. On his
deathbed, he summoned long-time friend and bandmate Michel “Away”
Langevin in order to give him the codes to his laptop — in which a
heavy-metal legacy was stored.

“The guitar tracks for Infini are the very last tracks that we wrote as
a band with Piggy,” says Langevin on the phone from Montreal during a
brief break from the band’s summer festival schedule. “It’s a miracle
that this album even exists.”

According to Langevin, they had started working on a considerable
amount of material back in 2004, making demos of the songs on the cheap
just to get them down on tape. “After we wrote those 23 songs, Piggy
went back to his apartment with the laptop that Jason had given him,
and with Pro Tools he re-recorded all of his guitar tracks
professionally,” he explains. “When he passed away I didn’t know that
all of his solos were done and all of the effects, he had doubled the
rhythm — it was perfectly recorded and perfectly performed.”

Turning those songs into two proper albums was, understandably, a less
fortuitous experience. With former Metallica bassist and Voivod member
since 2002 Jason “Jasonic” Newsted at the helm, the band (which also
includes original singer Denis “Snake” Bélanger and long-time bassist
Jean-Yves “Blacky” Thériault) set to work adding proper drum parts and
beefing up the guitar sound. In the trailer for the upcoming Voivod
documentary by director Sam Dunn (Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey), we
see the band dealing with the loss of Piggy while they work on his
music. “Those sessions are a bit blurry in my mind because it was a few
months after Piggy’s departure,” Langevin recalls.

In the event that the name Voivod doesn’t ring a bell, what you need to
know is that this thrash institution began its unlikely ascent from the
northern Quebec town of Jonquière back in 1982 as a hash-addled hybrid
of punk and metal steeped in nuclear and Cold War paranoia. Voivod
earned much respect from metalheads the world over for their
idiosyncratic prog-thrash epics.

Listening to late-’80s albums like Dimension Hatross and Nothingface
today, you can hear elements of what became mathcore, metalcore and
just about every other subgenre under the blackened sun. “We were
trying to play futuristic music,” says Langevin. “Maybe the sound of
the recording might be a little bit ’80s, but musically we were trying
to be as far ahead as possible. But we didn’t really overthink it — to
us, it was just metal mixed with King Crimson and hardcore [punk].”

Of course, nobody said being futuristic was easy, or profitable. “There
were a couple of occasions where the band was Piggy and I, just writing
material for a couple of years while there was no band at all,” says
Langevin. “These were years where we had to soldier on. We didn’t want
to be put down by that and become depressed or become bitter musicians.
We were always writing material, and so when it was time to start a new
project there was always like 50 songs ready to develop.”

As for the future of Voivod, Langevin is enthusiastic about continuing
to tour but he doubts that they will make more new music. “Jason had a
very strong musical connection with Piggy, and I think he feels that
his mission is accomplished now that Infini is out.” While Newsted
helped bring the band back from obscurity, it seems now that Voivod can
maintain their own legacy.