I admit that being a fan since the 80's I no longer had faith that this band can do anything exciting, especially after Piggy's death and the last couple of albums consisting his partial post-mortem contribution, which to be honest sounded a bit pale and worn-out to me. In fact those who felt like me kind of wrote off the Canadians after "The Outer Limits" (1993).

I've never thought that one of the main reasons for this, shall I say, natural turn of events was first of all the absence of Blacky's essential blower bass after "Angel Rat" (1991) and then the lack of Snake's voice and at last but not at least the constant change of people who handled the bass including the contribution of Jason Newsted who, in the parallel VOIVOD world would call himself Jasonic.

That's why the news about this new album with Daniel Mongrain-Chewy of MARTYR replacing the late Piggy did not trigger any positive emotions until the release of "MECHANICAL MIND" single last year.

Then for the first time in almost 20 years the most devoted VOIVOD fans united in the small but ferocious army known as THE IRON GANG started to discuss their hopes more openly.

For the first time in many years the return of the original VOIVOD sound seemed like a visible perspective. The dissonant guitars, the absurd time changes, the blower bass, the alienated vocals-all components were in place in "Mechanical Mind". 

Yet no one suspected what monster of an album will be "Target Earth".

It’s written mostly by Blacky and Chewy is like a journey in a time machine, only it’s a parallel time and parallel reality. Undoubtedly, musically and aesthetically it belongs to 2013, but it could perfectly be the missing link between "Nothingface" (1989) and "Angel Rat" (1991).

As a fan of Piggy’s guitar style, Daniel easily becomes an integral part of the bigger picture mostly by playing a combination of traditional VOIVOD riffs Piggy style and his own ideas.

The guitar solo in the opening self-titled track and the acoustic introduction to "Empathy For The Enemy" for instance are thousand miles away from everything Piggy was doing, but despite that, these cuts sound somewhat natural.

I won’t be mentioning any more song titles, as "Target Earth" is one of those rare albums that should be listened to as entities.

This is a demanding process and it needs your full attention. It’s impossible to comprehend the whole magic of these 56 minutes while preparing yourself sandwiches, chatting over the phone with some of your buddies or surfing the Internet. It has to be done the old school way- alone in a room with your beloved stereo
And the journey begins…