SOUNDTRACK: VOIVOD-The Best of Voivod (1992).
Most Best of records promise you a selection of popular songs from a band. Voivod never really had any popular songs, so this is an interesting choice to start with. This may also be the only Best of compilation of a band where people who like some of the songs almost assuredly will not like other songs.
As my posts about the band have indicated, Voivod changed drastically over their first six records (which is the period this collection covers). And so in twelve tracks and 50 some minutes you get the very diverse history of this very unusual band. I’m not going to talk about each track (already done that), but I will list the songs
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Voivod [War and Pain] classic screaming metal.
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Ripping Headaches [Rrröööaaarrr] brutal, but I must say sounds a ton better than the original CD. I wonder if this was remastered for the compilation).
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Korgull the Exterminator [Rrröööaaarrr] hard to believe they used two songs from this album.
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Tornado [Killing Technology] heavy but quite catchy.
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Ravenous Medicine [Killing Technology] signs of complexity enter the heaviness.
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Cockroaches [EP] a strange inclusion, almost a rarity.
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Tribal Convictions [Dimension Hätross] very complex with some heaviness.
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Psychic Vacuum [Dimension Hätross] I’m surprised they didn’t pick other songs though from this album.
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Astronomy Domine [Nothingface] their hit.
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The Unknown Knows [Nothingface] very hard to choose just two songs from this masterpiece.
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Panorama [Angel Rat] Their newest single and quite a departure from everything that has come before.
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The Prow [Angel Rat] their prettiest number ever. If you buy this CD for this song you’ll hate the early stuff.
Although Voivod fans (like Dave Grohl)
are diehard, anyone who would buy only a Best of record from the band is sure to be disappointed. There are so many phases of the band and they are so radically different from “Voivod” to “The Prow” that it’s almost not even the same band. I’m very curious as to what sales for this album were like. (Even the cover isn’t that inspired)
[READ: September 2013] The Walrus: Tenth Anniversary Issue
It’s hard for me to believe that The Walrus has been around for ten years (even they seem a bit surprised). I still remember hearing about the magazine on Book TV from some Canadian channel that I just happened upon.
When I heard about it The Walrus seemed interesting–kind of like Harper’s and elements of the New Yorker but all about Canada. I’ve been a Canuckophile for decades now, so it seemed like an interesting prospect. And over the ten years of the magazine, while I haven’t written about every issue, I have read every article. I have written about all of the short stories that they’ve published.
This issue eschews some of my favorite elements (the short articles in the front and the arts section in the back), but they make up for it with an oversized issue (twice as long as usual and the articles are all packed with content) and some fascinating articles.
And while there are none of the short articles from the front, there are “Time Capsules,” one page articles about things that have happened in the last ten years: The iPhone, Sports Concussions, Armed Drones, The Residential School Apology, Justin Bieber, Foodies, Hand Sanitizer and Cyberbullying. It’s interesting to read about these phenomena from a slightly different perspective. We know that Canada and the U.S. share many similarities but there are, at heart some core differences. And it’s these differences that make you rethink a subject. (more…)
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