Great moments in art history: Voivod

There's a few things out there that sound good on paper, but in reality are pretty gay and people who like them should be treated as criminals. Things like snowboarding, video games in general, the Sopranos, Buddhism and Voivod.

There's not many bands out there I hate as much as I hate Voivod. I know there's a whole bunch of people out there who love them and will be quick to tell me what an ignorant fool I am for hating these Canucks, but I despise their music. Maybe I don't get it, but I hate their whole discography. From the early thrashier shit to the 90's stuff to the new shit. I hate it all. Just give me some serious fucking metal without all the techno-esoterical shit, you know? But there's more to my hatred... I think the reason I hate them so much is 'cuz they should have ruled. Voivod should be the raddest band ever! I mean all the elements of a shredding band were there! A cool name, good band member names, awesome image, and they were on a cool label. Even all that sci-fi robotic bullshit they were into, that now seems so fucking retarded, was cool back in the day. But the one thing that Voivod had going for them that, in my opinion, gave the obligation to rock hard was their artwork. Man, their logo was bad-ass and their records were chuck-full of awesome artwork. (I know that anything after 1989 sucks Canadian-hockey-loving-balls, but the early art was amazing and that's what this post is about)

These guys looked the part. What a waste of good bullet belts.

Sadly, however, Away, Piggy, Snake, Puppy, Teletubby and Sleepy formed a band that just sucked and found enough imbeciles with serious intelligence and taste deficiency to have a following that keeps them going to this day. I'd rather own one embroidered Voivod patch than their entire discography on limited edition 24k gold CDs.
Imagine if all Voivod fans would have saved the money they have spent on sub-par technical shit metal and put it in a jumbo-jar instead. Imagine how much money would be in that jumbo-jar? Millions of dollars, I'm sure. Millions of dollars we could have used to help the victims of today's world tragedies: the earthquake in China, the Cyclone in Burma, the food crisis in Africa or the Cavalera Conspiracy.

Anyway, let's take a closer look at some sweet, sweet art...

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Even in the early days Away's art was pretty metal. The type is rad and the tank has fucken spikes on the tracks. I'm a bit disappointed that the perspective is pretty good in the tank and the logo. I'd love to have seen a really crooked way off perspective, which would have been WAY more metal.

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Again, hand-written metal type is back and becomes a staple of Voivod's visual repertoire. IMO, this is the raddest piece of art Voivod produced. The logo is incredible and that techno-skull is as bad as the baddest riff Jeff Hanneman ever wrote.


Here's a further exploration of the techno-skull ("The Voivod"). This ranks #3 in the all-time best back-patch of all times list, after the Motörhead England skull and Venom's Black Metal.




Finally, the techno-skull comes into maturity. This is the best of all Voivod logos. It's got spikes and spaceship/building looking shit. It's just metal. This is the type of record I'd frame and when people asked me why I did that, I'd tell them "cuz the Gods of Metal have given us a gift. A gift of amazing Metal Art and I want to thank them, and honor them, by framing it" And then they'd ask me how I can listen to the record if it's framed, to which I'd reply "The Gods of Metal hate Canada, so the record is not worth listening to."

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I know what you are thinking: "I could have done this!" And you are right. My landlord's kid could have done a better logo and he's autistic. You gotta admit, tho, it's a pretty metal logo. Look at those spikes! Sure, the "D" is more like a sleeping "P", but I'm sure Away wasn't going for legibility. They are French-Canadian, dude, they don't even speak American. The perspective and foreshortening on The Voivod are prime. It looks and feels cubist, which we all know is just a label for talentless artists to hide under. Dude, look at that machine gun, the gas mask, the bullet arm-band, the Oderus Urungus-like shoulder pads... this is a Metal Masterpiece, if I ever saw one.

Cubist art was an obvious influence on Away's art

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I'm not sure why, but as a teen I thought RRROOOAAARRR was the best name for a record ever. Of course, I also wore a golden razor blade earring, so what did I know. Well, this cover is a natural progression from the previous one. Away sticks to the always reliable red/white/black color combo and may the Virgin Mary bless him for that (Do Canadians believe in the Virgin? Savages). It feels like the camera panned out from the War and Pain cover and revealed more of The Voivod. Plenty of spikes, once again. The Road Warriors pads make an encore and we appreciate them, once again. Also making a welcome re-appearance are the spike tracks on the tank. Nobody wants to fuck with a pissed off looking hunchback metal robotic tank thing with a knife. There's also a little Ed Roth thing going on here.

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I'm not sure why The Voivod turned into an old tape recorder/ghost grinder, but this cover is the beginning of the end. All the perspective and cubist experimentation is gone and we are left with a flat dead-on view of the subject. The spikes are all but gone and replaced with rivets. The colors are as poser as they can get and that gradient is pretty generic and does not help the static composition. I'm not sure about the bandages around his waist (right around where the cassette goes), maybe all the ghost-grinding takes up a lot of calcium and causes ribs to weaken. After this record Voivod's art went to the shit dumpster. Seriously, the covers from now on are so bad they almost match the terribleness of their music.

Ghosts maybe scary, but they are 0% metal.

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I was looking for a pic of someone sporting a rad Voivod tattoo to close the post, but I couldn't find one. What I did find was a photo of Lita Ford.