aglasshouse Adorned with what can only presumed to be a hellish-looking Voivode (hereafter named "Korgull"), the Quebecois metal act Voivod's 1984 debut is often forgotten by those other than hardcore fans of the band, which can be for a few reasons. For one, it does not sound like the Voivod that would become to be well known around the end of the decade with Nothingface. In fact it's quite bare-bones in its thrash metal delivery, in strict adherence to the sounds of hardcore punk and the extremely popular wave of heavy metal from Europe in the latter part of the 1970's. Very scratchy guitar licks and vocals that border on the edge of actually being vocals (granted Snake would go on to abandon his Chris Rock impression for a more humble style later on) head off the release, similar to other Canadian contemporaries like Razor or even like a stripped down version of Anvil's early work. The banger track on here for me has got to be 'Nuclear War', a song fueled by Cold War sentiments and fears of it growing into what it's named after. Although it's not exactly a complex view into society's emotions or any of that hoo-ha a la Pallas' The Sentinel, it is a rapid fire, machine gun track that burns out almost gracefully as a stupid fear mongering track to rival the likes of 'Electric Funeral'. In all War and Pain is a punchy splash into the metal pool and is a firecracker showcase of the band's talents, but doesn't nearly stand tall next to the complexities of later progressive-oriented albums or the bigger thrash hits like Killing Technology. Stupid fun.

UMUR "War and Pain" is the debut full-length studio album by Canadian thrash/progressive metal act Voivod. The album was released through Metal Blade Records in August 1984. Voivod originally formed in 1981 as the trio of Denis "Piggy" D'Amour (guitars), Michel "Away" Langevin (drums), and Jean-Yves "Blacky" Thériault (bass), but as a consequence of lack of playing skills, they disbanded for a full year before reforming in late 1982. Lead vocalist Denis "Snake" Bélanger was added to the lineup in January 1983 and Voivod was born. The band released the "Anachronism" demo in 1983 (essentially a live recording of the band playing covers by artists like Motörhead, Judas Priest, and Venom mixed with a few original compositions) and the "To the Death!..." demo in 1984. All tracks on "War And Pain" appear in demo versions on "To the Death!... (1984)".

Stylistically the music on "War And Pain" is a raw and filthy, anarchistic type of heavy/speed metal featuring raw, shouting, and punked vocals in front. The sound production is noisy, messy, and organic. Sometimes sounding like it´s a lo-fi demo release, recorded live in the studio. The material on the 9 track, 42:42 minutes long album is rather one-dimensional but not without memorable hooks and loads of raw charm. Bélanger´s punky vocals are probably an aquired taste, but he arguably provides the music with something original. D'Amour´s guitar playing is also quite inventive for the time, and while he hasn´t yet fully developed his trademark dissonant guitar playing style, there are nods toward it here and there. Thériault´s highly distorted bass sound is also introduced here. The same with Langevin´s anarchistic organic drumming style.

So this is an album which wins as a result of it´s raw charm and great energetic performances rather than for it´s sophisticated and clever compositions. And that´s not to say the material aren´t intriguing in any way, the tracks are just generally pretty simple and a bit more variation between tracks could probably have made the overall listening experience a bit more interesting. As it is "War And Pain" is still a nice little filthy heavy/speed metal release, and Voivod was clearly on to something special already this early on in their career. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

Vim Fuego Canada has a fine Rock and Metal tradition, but there seems to be something about the frozen North which seems to warp the minds of musicians a little. Canada's greatest export, Rush, forged a reputation for producing highly imaginative progressive rock with a hint of the unusual, even for the experimental world of prog rock.

Voivod did the same with thrash metal. These four twisted musicians produced one of the oddest albums of Thrash's early days. While Metallica and Slayer were content to play it straight and fast, Voivod seemed to make things deliberately difficult for themselves on `War And Pain', opting for a complex and choppy songwriting style. Playing at a speed where it would be easy to trip and stumble, the band doesn't miss a note. Think it sounds easy? Check Possessed or early Celtic Frost for examples of bands playing too fast for their own good then.

Title track "War And Pain" for example mixes up several riffs, which seem to tumble past like a rockslide, and are bridged together by guitar solos or rumbling drum fills, all the while Snake shouts blank verse lyrics of the horrors of war over it all. Sounds complex? It's the most straightforward song on the album.

Piggy was an incredibly underrated guitarist. Most bands of the time went for a twin guitar line, either to cover for lack of ability or to fill in holes when playing fast. Piggy carried all the guitar duties on his own. He possessed a killer chainsaw tone which cut red raw to the bone, and was able to slip effortlessly from rhythms to solos and back again. This album avoids double tracking the guitars, so during solos the rhythm drops out and is picked up by Blacky on bass. The galloping rhythmic pattern of the final track "Nuclear War" features countless guitar/bass interchanges, and it is difficult to keep up with who is playing what.

It's not just the music which is unusual. Vocalist Snake invented the Voivod, a creature that lives in a violent, dark cyber world, and is fond of torture and killing. The Voivod continued to pop up on subsequent albums. Snake's lyrics use simplistic words to express complex themes, probably because of the band's French Canadian heritage, where English is only a secondary language.

At a time when speed metal bands were stealing Iron Maiden and Judas Priest riffs to impress their fans, Voivod blew them all away with a raw and truly original thrash creation. Unfortunately, most metal fans in 1984 weren't prepared for such experimentation, and `War And Pain' remains a forgotten pearl cast before undeserving swine.

voila_la_scorie 1984 was the year that speed/thrash metal became the new black, and in Canada, the label Banzai was imprinted on the spines of many of the cassettes filling my metal collection. Among the many bands such as Exodus, Slayer, Kreator, Celtic Frost, Metallica, Venom, Destruction, and so on, Voivod was a band whose style stood out for me as one of the more remarkable. Years later, I gave away most of my cassettes, but War and Pain soon came back to my collection in the form of a CD. I could not forget some of the tracks that had impressed me as a young teen and to this day (now 2012) I still love those tracks.

What made Voivod stand out for me was their use of tempo changes within their songs and the heavy use of distorted bass. In "Black City" there is a cool bass break and the bass figures prominently and is clearly audible in most of the songs. "Warriors of Ice" is a ripping speed metal tune with a beat like a juggernaut charging down a cracking, crumbling highway. After the solo, just when it seems the battering ram chorus is about to pound away again, there is this instrumental break of bass, heavy guitar and drums that are the audio equivalent of being beaten up by a mafia thug at a foggy wharf late at night. "Live for Violence" has a rhythm break that turns a galloping song into a full cantor - complete with that Voivod pounding rhythm section. And "Nuclear War" with its spacy psychedelic delay guitar and a beat and riff that work together to crack your skull 'til your tongue is lolling uselessly and your eyes are swollen and blind will make you blissfully stupid.

In addition to this music that works like a marauding metal works hammer in a nuclear blast, vocalist Snake seems to growl, scream and roar out the lyrics as if he is about to vomit up a muffler. There are times when he almost seems to suck in a roar as much as push it out before volleying a strained growl in the form of a word. He uses his abilities very effectively to suit the mood of the music. For a 13-year-old, this was very interesting and cool. For a 41-year-old metal fan, I can perhaps appreciate better from a more analytic perspective the approach this band used on their first album.

What's not to like about it? The production is pretty raw and a bit muddy. And if you don't like aggressive, ominous, thumping music with lots of delayed guitar or the vocal style, then this album will not be to your liking.

Conor Fynes 'War And Pain' - Voivod (6/10)

As so many other great bands do, Voivod developed their sound a lot as they matured. The end of the 80's would see this Quebecois act do some incredible things and virtually reinvent the genre of thrash metal. Early on though, these experimentations were much less pronounced. 'War And Pain' shows Voivod playing straightforward thrash metal, with a slightly forward- thinking, sci-fi twist. While lacking the innovation that made their later work so great, Voivod's debut is still a classic for its style, and a very fun listen at that.

Although this is Voivod at a much more primitive level, the band's trademarks are still here to some extent. Most notable is Denis 'Piggy' D'Amour's distinctive guitar work. Especially on the album's last track 'Nuclear War', Piggy wails away with the guitar, creating psychedelic soundscapes with feedback. The chords and riffs are also slightly more dissonant than the genre is used to, especially given the fairly early context this album has within thrash. Suffice to say, Piggy's performance here is the highlight, above and beyond. The rest of the band performs admirably, getting some good force through despite the grimy production. While 'Snake' Belanger's vocal performance here is fairly generic, the lyrical themes are sufficiently advanced beyond what a typical thrash band might sing about. Here, Voivod takes themes of nuclear holocaust and war, and filters them through a futuristic setting. Although the music is straightforward, the lyrics help create imagery of this band playing in the middle of a bombed out city.

The songwriting here has a few gems, but in general, the songwriting sacrifices depth for speed. Its certainly fun, but upon subsequent listens, I found the music losing its initial shock. Voivod are one of my favourite bands, but as my personal tastes stand, 'War And Pain' is the sort of album I will only be able to put on once in a while. There is plenty of energy and vitality to this band's performance, but musically speaking, the waters are a bit shallow, and the more familiar I get with the music, the less I find myself moved by the primitive approach they were going for at this point in their career.

AtomicCrimsonRush The melding of science fiction to black metal was never a good combination but Voi Vod went for it with no holds barred crunching guitars and caustic vocals. This one blew me out of my skin during the huge metal hiatus, the golden era when metal was king during the mid 80s. I had this on vinyl and used to thrash it in the 80s during the birth of the heavy metal revolution when the 80s Metal gods unleashed thier hordes. I grew out of this type of music indefinitely after the initial excitement of new metal kicked in and ultimately died. But I remeber how I listened to that slamming guitar riff of War and Pain so much I was virtually consumed by its power. That was then. Now, I have different feelings toward this. It is pure noise but nothing else. The riffs are easy to play and over simplified, and the vocals are nauseating. The themes delve into purile post-apocalytica meets cyber-punk dystopia. Check out those metalitia lyrics of War and Pain!

In the smoke of the combat, The bombs fall by your side, No gods give you the guts, You see the fire in the sky, Let me free, let me run, I put the powder in my gun, I. run, kill and fight, Armed with swords and hash, I remove the knife in your sore, I believe in the death's call, You die for fire, burns in flames, I live to kill, create war and pain, Our disaster is not complete today, We make no defense because You fall in fate, The war punishes, and the war resists, We're going to hell tonight,

Ok, if that's what floats your boat, be my guest - but this is really the type of dross that was churned out off the metal machine in the 80s and has no place now and feels very outdated and childish.

If you want great prog style Voi Vod you are better off to move to later entries such as 'Nothingface' or 'The Outer Limits'. The debut is not very well produced and is really just a noise - It may plaster you to the wall, but then again so would a jackhammer. This album is only for collectors so tread carefully among the hallowed ruins of the 80s metallution, for among the greatness there was so much mediocrity.

kluseba The first album of Voivod is surely one of the best debut albums that I know. Even though the sound and the song writing of the album are far away from being perfect, the band has already its own unique sound and sounds very energetic, straight, rough, heavy and hungry for more to come. The title of this album could not have been chosen better. They already offer some of their first unforgettable classics in here.

The title track and opener "Voivod" introduces us already in the world of Voivod. Strange sounds of rattling chains and a person who walks through the snow in slow motion open the song before a fast mixture of punk and thrash metal blows you away. Somehow influenced by different bands such as Slayer, Venom, Motörhead and local punk bands, Voivod already create their own style within this very first song. The chorus is simple but easy to remind of and sing along with and to this day, Voivod always play this song live and after more than twenty five years, this little masterpiece has not lost its energy and aggression and works perfectly.

You get drowned in an atmosphere of a strange and devastated future world, heavily influenced by the cold and frostbitten winters in Quebec and the political frost of the cold war during the early eighties. "Warriors Of Ice" is an allusion to this and a very personal band hymn. The song starts with a tight drumming before riffs are shredding in a heavy but still melodic way. Snake didn't really know how to sing and express his emotions and did a lot of his work by his straight intuition as he tells on the special edition of the album. By listening to his feelings, he did a very authentic and emotional job and is as important to the early sound of Voivod as the galloping bumblebee bass guitar, the tight and precise drumming and the melodic riff shredding guitar.

Another of my favourite songs of the album is the bonus track "Condemned To The Gallows" which appeared on the 20th anniversary box set and originally on the "Metal Massacre 5" compilation. It has a very slow and still heavy intro which you haven't heard a lot of times at that time and in that genre, before a very dark chant comes in and leads us not only into the world of thrash but also death and American power metal which shows already the diversity and talent of the band to change its style by staying unique and honouring its roots and idols. The guitar solo is one of the best ones on the whole album and on the mentioned compilation and shows us already the extraordinary talent of guitar player Piggy.

Every song on this album contributes to a unique and very interesting sound and a very dark and desperate atmosphere. The band already shows his huge talent on this first album. From the short and intense "Blower" to the more developed, epic and very atmospheric band hit "Nuclear War", this band offers a lot of diversity without losing its straightness. Sure, there are a few little fillers towards the end of the album and the musicians are not yet that diversified and open-minded as they were on the future records, but this debut album already announced what the band was able to achieve later on. And though the style of this album is very straight and there are not as many things to discover as on the future albums of the band, this one really grows more and more on you.

Seriously, this is one of the best debut albums in metal history and in the same time the birth of a unique band in regard to which we haven't seen anything comparable in 40 years of metal history.