Voivod
Target Earth

Either I'm completely tone deaf and musically dumb or it's the other hard rock reviewers that are so, or at least very bad at giving juste scores. There are pretty much speaking for both those things - my incompetence and as well as the other reviewers being that. I admit that I'm no expert in music, everything I know I've learned myself on my own ever since I first learned how to handle the record player at home by the age of three but then when we look at how other reviewers gives scores most of them seems to think that giving good scores is good reviewing. Most hard rock reviwers seems to think you can't give a score under 7/10 unless the album is completely shit and it seems like voivod and their 'Target Earth' is another case of this since I haven't seen many scores under the top two or three despite that you just as easily can grade this album at the bottom two scores - without being wrong.

Voivod has a long history with plenty of things to look back on, like fifteen full-length albums from a career starting already in 1982 - which is a couple of years before yours truly was even born. The debut was released in 1984 and next year will be their 30th anniversary since then, and if they achieve to finish another album until then that'll be the seventeenth album since this is number sixteen. The sixteenth full-length album is a sort of thrash-black metal combination wich has been putted together in a somewhat progressive way. It's also a kind of new beginning for the band since it's the first album in the new millennium without Jason Newstedt and also the first ever album without any contribution from Denis D'Amour (RIP) who died back in 2005 but still had parts added to the following two releases, that is the last two releases before this.

I'm no expert in music and neither I'm an expert in Voivod but even I can hear there are some differences in 'Target Earth' compared to previous releases quite immediately. This isn't something I say as a negative thing since it's pretty stupid for a band to mimic old things when times has changed them… like two members being the difference here. Another thing that doesn't make the difference in style negative is the fact that I haven't been super positive to Voivod earlier - it's not that I've disliked them, I've just not overliked them. Some releases and some songs has been pretty great, others been pretty good or standard and some has been poor or even bad. Here on 'Target Earth' I feel they've become a bit more angry and taken a heavier direction while still carrying a vein of progressive elements in their music. The person that replaced Jason Newstedt was the bands original bass player and Jean-Yves Thériault seems to have a more death metal sound on his bass. Unfortunately I can't say I find this as something positive.

in a way I feel 'Target Earth' is pretty chaotic and unstructured and it goes against the conventional way of doing thing almost uninterrupted. I think the album is creative and full of ideas but in my world I think it's pretty strange ideas and I don't really like any of the songs on 'Target Earth' because of them. At the same time, I don't really hate any of the songs on the album either but the lack of really interesting material I think is more negative than the lack of bad things is positive so overall I'd still say my feelings for the album are more negative than positive. I think the true fans of the band won't have anything against 'Target Earth' though and I can't see them minding the slight change in direction taken on this album being something negative for them. It has changed but not so much that you can't recognize the band and if anything it's a step backwards towards what they did before Newstedt and the last bunch of albums. If you like the heavier, more chaotic Voivod then I'm sure you'll love 'Target Earth'. but if you're not… I'm not so sure.

However, I'm pretty sure I'm the wrong guy to ask for Voivod tips and seen to the technical details I can't complain of much. The production has left the album with a nice sound and the music they've chosen to do is well played for what it is. My personal opinion, though, is that I don't find it particularly interesting. Creative, well-played and well-produced is one thing - that doesn't make it good. But I know there are people that like it, I've seen it in other reviews, and for that reason I can't see any reason why this album shouldn't be approved… but that's all.

 

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