VOIVOD
Biography and discography of Voivod, the metal band formed in Jonquière, Québec, in 1982, with a page for each of their sixteen albums from War and Pain in 1984 to Morgöth Tales in 2023 and for the 2026 live album, including running orders, CD details, liner notes and a record of their concerts in Japan.
Biography
VOIVOD
Biography
Voivod are a metal band formed in Jonquiere, Quebec, in 1982. They set out as thrash metal was exploding and never sounded like anyone else in it: dissonant chords that avoid the third and the seventh, metres that split part-way through, and a story built around the Voivod, a post-apocalyptic vampire lord — all of it carried, for more than forty years, by the sleeves drummer Michel "Away" Langevin draws. The band's own discography lists sixteen albums; Synchro Anarchy of 2022 is the fifteenth studio record and Morgoth Tales of 2023 is a set of re-recordings made for their fortieth anniversary. In 2026 they released Symphonique, a live album recorded with the Orchestre symphonique de Quebec.
Formation and the first records (1982-1986)
The band formed in 1982 in Jonquiere, in Quebec's Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. At the centre were drummer Michel Langevin, known as Away, and guitarist Denis D'Amour, known as Piggy; singer Denis Belanger (Snake) and bassist Jean-Yves Theriault (Blacky) made them four. The mythology of the Voivod, a post-apocalyptic vampire lord, is Away's; the official site says the band originally coalesced around that idea and credits him with most of the science-fiction subject matter that followed.
A demo called Anachronism appeared in 1983, and Metal Blade Records released the debut album War and Pain in 1984. The band's own site dates it 10 August, and in a 1986 television interview they said it had passed forty thousand copies in two years. A video was made not for the title track but for "Voivod", directed by Dede Fortin.
The second album, Rrroooaaarrr, came out on Noise International in March 1986. The speed and the roughness are the debut's, but the choice of dissonant chords is now plainly there. It sold more than forty thousand copies worldwide.
Progressive writing and the peak years (1987-1991)
Killing Technology, from 1987, is generally named as the first album to put progressive rock inside their thrash. It was recorded at Music Lab in West Berlin and produced by Harris Johns with the band. In interviews from the time they said that by 1986 they were more influenced by hardcore punk and crossover than by metal, and that the only metal bands every member still cared for were Kreator and Motorhead. It sold more than sixty thousand copies worldwide.
Dimension Hatross, from June 1988, is a concept album following Korgull, the mechanised figure that is the band's own emblem. They explain the title as Snake's pronunciation of the French atroce, meaning terrible or horrible. It sold more than seventy thousand copies, and in 2017 the American magazine Rolling Stone placed it at number 78 in its Top 100 Metal Albums of All Time.
Nothingface, from October 1989, is the only Voivod album to enter the Billboard 200, where it reached number 114. Glen Robinson and Steve Sinclair produced it. The third track is Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine", which got airplay on MTV's Headbangers Ball, and the centre of "Pre-Ignition" takes its riffing from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.
Angel Rat, from 1991, was produced by Terry Brown, known for his work with Rush, and recorded at Metalworks Studios in Toronto. It moves further from progressive metal towards an alternative, psychedelic kind of rock; bassist Blacky left before it was released.
Snake leaves and Eric Forrest arrives (1993-2001)
The Outer Limits, from 1993, was made without Blacky, with the session player Pierre St-Jean on bass. It holds Pink Floyd's "The Nile Song" and "Jack Luminous", which at seventeen minutes and twenty-six seconds is the longest thing the band have recorded. The first CD pressing came with a miniature pair of 3D glasses for the booklet, and "Number 8" printed in the top right of the sleeve means that counting the compilation The Best of Voivod this was their eighth release.
Snake left the band for a time in 1994. Rather than replace him, the new bassist Eric Forrest took the vocals as well, and the two records of that period are Negatron in 1995 and Phobos in 1997. The sound here carries an industrial hardness and growled vocals, and stands clearly apart in the band's history. Forrest left in 2001.
Snake returns, Newsted joins, Piggy dies (2002-2009)
Snake came back in 2002, and in the same year Jason Newsted, who had just left Metallica, joined on bass as "Jasonic". The self-titled album of 2003 came out on Newsted's own label, Chophouse Records; the video for "We Carry On" was in heavy rotation on MTV2 and Fuse TV and brought the band to a younger audience. They played the second stage of Ozzfest that year, with Newsted playing bass for both Voivod and the headliner, Ozzy Osbourne.
On 26 August 2005 guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour died of colon cancer. He had been born on 24 September 1959 and was forty-five. A memorial was held in Montreal on 22 October that year, with some of his gear, photographs and tour footage on display. The band's manager, James MacLean, writes on the official site that Piggy lived for his music, never wanted to be a burden on anyone, and simply wanted to write music and play his guitar.
Piggy had recorded guitar and bass onto his own Mac at Newsted's house in California, and the band turned that material into two albums. Katorz came in 2006 — its title is the phonetic spelling of quatorze, French for fourteen, that Piggy wrote on the Pro Tools discs he sent them — and Infini in 2009. Infini is the last album to use his playing and the last with Newsted on bass.
The present line-up and recent years (2008 onward)
Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain took over on guitar in 2008. Blacky returned in 2009, played on Target Earth in 2013 — Mongrain's first studio album with the band, and the only one since 1991 with Blacky on bass — and left again in 2014. Dominic "Rocky" Laroche replaced him, and those four have continued since.
The Wake, from 2018, reached number 26 in Germany, 51 in Switzerland, 94 in Wallonia and 32 in Hungary, and number 8 on the American new-artist chart and 148 overall; it won the Juno award for Metal/Hard Music Album of 2019. Synchro Anarchy, written when the band could not travel and released in 2022, is the one they count as their fifteenth studio album. Morgoth Tales, from 2023, marks forty years: one song from each era of their history, re-recorded by the current line-up.
In May 2025 the band received an honorary doctorate from the Universite du Quebec a Chicoutimi. That September a book covering more than forty years of their work, Always Moving - The Strange Multiverse of Voivod, was published. On 4 June 2025 they played with the Orchestre symphonique de Quebec at the Grand Theatre in Quebec City, and that night became the live album Symphonique in June 2026. Away says a second orchestral collaboration, with the Orchestre symphonique du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean, is planned for 2027.
The members
The line-up is Denis "Snake" Belanger on vocals, Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain on guitar, Dominic "Rocky" Laroche on bass and Michel "Away" Langevin on drums. Away is the one member who has never left since the band formed in 1982, and the sleeves and everything visual have been his throughout. Snake was there from 1982 to 1994 and has been back since 2002. Mongrain joined in 2008 and Laroche in 2014.
Among the former members are Denis "Piggy" D'Amour, who played guitar from 1982 to 2005; Jean-Yves "Blacky" Theriault, on bass from 1982 to 1991 and from 2009 to 2014; Eric Forrest, on bass and vocals from 1994 to 2001; and Jason "Jasonic" Newsted, on bass from 2002 to 2009. The official site also lists Pierre St-Jean (1992-1993), Martin Bolduc (1993-1994), Gilles Brisebois (1994) and Vincent Peake (2002).
Discography
The band's own discography lists sixteen albums, and this site gives a page of its own to each of those and to the 2026 live album Symphonique, seventeen in all. Running orders, CD details and liner notes for each are reachable from the album list on this page.
| Year | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 1984 | War and Pain | Metal Blade |
| 1986 | Rrroooaaarrr | Noise International |
| 1987 | Killing Technology | Noise |
| 1988 | Dimension Hatross | Noise |
| 1989 | Nothingface | Mechanic / MCA |
| 1991 | Angel Rat | Mechanic / MCA |
| 1993 | The Outer Limits | Mechanic / MCA |
| 1995 | Negatron | Hypnotic / Mausoleum |
| 1997 | Phobos | Hypnotic |
| 2003 | Voivod | Chophouse / Surfdog |
| 2006 | Katorz | The End / Nuclear Blast |
| 2009 | Infini | Relapse / Nuclear Blast |
| 2013 | Target Earth | Century Media |
| 2018 | The Wake | Century Media |
| 2022 | Synchro Anarchy | Century Media |
| 2023 | Morgoth Tales | Century Media |
| 2026 | Symphonique (live) | Century Media |
Beyond these there is the 1983 demo Anachronism, the EPs Thrashing Rage (1986), Cockroaches (1987), Post Society (2016) and The End of Dormancy (2020), the live records Voivod Lives (2000), Tatsumaki: Voivod Japan 2008 (2009), Warriors of Ice (2011) and Lost Machine - Live (2020), and the compilations The Best of Voivod (1992), Kronik (1998) and Build Your Weapons (2017).
Concerts in Japan
Four dates can be established, and all four are two-night stands at Thrash Domination at Club Citta' in Kawasaki.
The first pair is 20 and 21 September 2008, Thrash Domination 08. The venue's own page bills Testament, Voivod and Forbidden across both nights, with doors at 15:00, music from 16:00, all standing, 8,500 yen in advance and 9,000 on the day, each with a 500 yen drink charge. It was presented by bayfm78's Power Rock Today, produced by Club Citta' and supported by tvk. The line-up on those nights was Snake, Blacky, Away and Daniel Mongrain, and the visit produced the live release Tatsumaki: Voivod Japan 2008.
The second pair is 15 and 16 March 2014, Thrash Domination 2014, on a bill with Exodus, Sanctuary and Artillery: doors at 15:00, music from 16:00, 9,500 yen in advance with a 500 yen drink charge. The venue's page carries a video message from Away himself, in which he names the 15th and the 16th, says they would play alongside Exodus, and recalls sharing the 2008 edition with Testament. The organiser's own archive records the same two nights.
About the sources
The facts above come from the band's official site (the biography, the member list, the per-album discography pages, the memorial page for Piggy, and the home page's Symphonique announcement and news list), from MusicBrainz's release and songwriting data, from Wikidata, from the Spotify entities' own availability data, from the English Wikipedia articles on the band and on each album, and from the archived pages of Club Citta' and of the Thrash Domination organiser. The year and place of formation, the members' dates, each album's release date and label, and Piggy's dates and the date of the memorial are all as the official site states them. No performer and no concert date is written here from inference. Where two sources disagree about a release day, the individual album page reachable from the list on this page says so.
Trivia
The Voivod, which is also the band's name, is conceived as a post-apocalyptic vampire lord. The member section of the official site says the mythology around it is drummer Michel "Away" Langevin's, that the band originally coalesced around that idea, and that most of the science-fiction subject matter that followed is his as well. Langevin is the one member who has never left since the band formed in 1982, and the figure gives the opening song of the debut album War and Pain its title.
Dimension Hatross, from 1988, is a concept album following Korgull, the mechanised figure that serves as the band's own emblem. Of the title, the band's official site explains that Hatross is how singer Snake — Denis Belanger — pronounces the French word atroce, meaning terrible or horrible. Drummer Michel Langevin conceived and drew the sleeve, and the album sold more than seventy thousand copies worldwide. In 2017 the American magazine Rolling Stone placed it at number 78 in its Top 100 Metal Albums of All Time. The cover of the Batman Theme is on the CD alone and is not on the original vinyl or cassette pressings.
The first CD pressing of The Outer Limits, from 1993, came with a miniature pair of 3D glasses for looking at the booklet artwork. The words "Number 8", set small in the top right of the sleeve, mean that counting the compilation The Best of Voivod this was the band's eighth release. The seventh song, "Jack Luminous", runs seventeen minutes and twenty-six seconds and is the longest thing they have recorded, and the fourth is a cover of Pink Floyd's "The Nile Song". It was the last album with singer Snake until he returned in 2002.
The title of Katorz, from 2006, comes from something guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour wrote by hand. D'Amour recorded guitar and bass onto his own Mac at Jason Newsted's house in California and sent the band Pro Tools discs of the demos; the word he wrote on them was "Katorz", a phonetic spelling of quatorze, French for fourteen. He died of colon cancer in August 2005, and the album was finished by Langevin and Belanger adding drums and vocals over what he had left. The ninth song, "The X-Stream", was included in the video game Guitar Hero II.
Denis "Piggy" D'Amour, who played guitar for twenty-three years from the band's formation, was born on 24 September 1959 and died on 26 August 2005, according to the memorial page on the official site. A memorial was held in Montreal on 22 October that year, with his gear, rebuilt custom guitars, photographs and footage on display and music chosen from his own record collection playing through the evening. On that page the band's manager, James MacLean, describes Piggy as someone who lived for his music: easy-going but focused, never complaining, unwilling to be a burden on anyone, and wanting only to write music and play his guitar.
Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain, who plays guitar in place of Piggy, joined in 2008. The member section of the official site says he plays guitar and backing vocals and writes as a member of the band, and that he is also a co-founder of the Quebec technical metal band Martyr. Bassist Dominic "Rocky" Laroche has been there since 2014, and singer Denis "Snake" Belanger from 1982 to 1994 and again from 2002.
Of the 1984 debut War and Pain, the band's official site cites a 1986 television interview in which they said it had passed forty thousand copies two years after release. The video from the album was made not for the title track but for the opening song, "Voivod", directed by Dede Fortin. It has been reissued on CD many times since: on Enigma in 1990, in Roadrunner's Pricekillers series the same year, remastered by Metal Blade in 1994, and again by Metal Blade in 2004 as a remastered three-disc box.
Behind the self-titled album of 2003 the band played the second stage of Ozzfest that year, where bassist Jason Newsted played for both Voivod and the headliner, Ozzy Osbourne. Television carried them widely in this period: the video for "We Carry On" was in heavy rotation on MTV2's Headbangers Ball and on Fuse TV's Uranium, and the band appeared on the latter, where Newsted talked through how he had come from Metallica to Voivod — a band he had been listening to long before he joined it.
News
VOIVOD: The Nuclear Warrior Unveils New Demo Trailer Ahead Of Steam Next Fest
Chaosmonger Studio's officially licensed, narrative-driven run-and-gun Metroidvania is based on the music, artwork and dystopian science-fiction universe of VOIVOD.
Play MVVOIVOD Forced To Cancel US Tour Dates
The band cancelled its US dates with BAT due to a family health emergency in the Voivod clan, saying it cannot commit to new dates for now. Tickets will be refunded at point of sale.
VOIVOD Have Eight Songs In The Works For Their Next Album, Three Already Recorded
Guitarist Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain shared the update on the Gas Masks & Hand Grenades podcast, saying the band will finish the remaining songs after its U.S. tour in October.
VOIVOD’s Documentary “We Are Connected” Is Aiming For A Christmas Release, Michel “Away” Langevin Says
Langevin told Poland’s Noise Magazine that all the music has now been cleared and that separate versions are being prepared for festivals, Blu-ray and online platforms.
Current Members
Current line-up as published by the official site, verified on 2026-09-30.
Albums
The band's first live album with a symphony orchestra, recorded with the Orchestre symphonique de Quebec in Quebec City on 4 June 2025.
Nine songs from across the band's history re-recorded by the current line-up for their fortieth anniversary, plus a new title song and one cover.
Voivod's fifteenth studio album, from February 2022, written by sending files back and forth when the band could not travel.
Voivod's fourteenth studio album, a concept record from September 2018 that reached number 26 in Germany and won a Juno award.
Voivod's thirteenth studio album, from January 2013 and the first with Daniel Mongrain on guitar.
Voivod's twelfth studio album, from 2009: the last to use what Piggy left behind, and the last with Jason Newsted on bass.
Voivod's eleventh studio album, from July 2006, built from the guitar and bass tracks Piggy had recorded before he died.
Voivod's self-titled tenth studio album, from March 2003, with Snake back and Jason Newsted newly on bass.
Voivod's ninth studio album, from 1997 and the second and last with Eric Forrest on bass and vocals.
Voivod's eighth studio album, from November 1995, the first after Snake left for a time, sung by bassist Eric Forrest.
Voivod's seventh studio album, from 1993, with the seventeen-minute "Jack Luminous" and a Pink Floyd cover.
Voivod's sixth studio album, from 1991, produced by Terry Brown of Rush fame and turned towards alternative rock.
Voivod's fifth album, recorded at Victor Studio in Montreal in 1989 and released by Mechanic/MCA on 13 October that year.
Voivod's fourth studio album, from June 1988: a concept record about the band's cyborg Korgull, recorded in West Berlin.
Voivod's third album, recorded at Music Lab in West Berlin between November and December 1986, produced by the band with Harris Johns.
Voivod's second studio album, from 1986: still as rough as the debut, and already moving towards what came next.
Voivod's debut, recorded at Le Terroir Studio in Laterriere, Quebec in June 1984 and released by Metal Blade Records.