Voivod - Negatron

After the release of The Outer Limits, longtime vocalist Denis Belanger decided to leave the band, which left essentially half a band to decide what to do. Considering retirement, Denis D'Amour and Michel Langevin decided to "hire on someone who could actually sing" and reform Voivod from the ground up. They found this singer in Eric Forrest, who was hired on to fill in on both bass and vocals. The result is Negatron, a return of sound from the late 80's period, much, much heavier than the last 3 releases. Everything is here, the power guitar chords, the frantic double bass drumming, the tortured vocals, unfortunately, it just seems like a step backward for the band. The album ends up being a mishmash of sounds. I understand that the band wanted to go back to their roots, to create more aggressive music, and that's exactly what happened here. What confused me, and still does, is that here the vocals switch between screaming and a spoken word style that sounds exactly like Snake. I think that the band needed time to work together, because they managed to produce one of their best albums to date after this. So, while possibly the least favorite Voivod album, there is still enough interesting pieces here to warrant a listen.