KILLING TECHNOLOGY

Beware! Th 5-star rating is based on the band as a progressive thrash band, and is not necessarily mandatory for every progrock fan. But to give it any less credit would be an insult, as 'Killing Technology' was one of the first two metal albums from the heavier end of the genre to stretch the boundaries and defy all limitations (the other being Celtic Frost's avant-garde 'Into The Pandemonium', also 1987). Plus it holds up well after all these years, still remaining as vital and vicious as the day it came out.

Opening with the sound of some kind of space vessel warming up, then a computerized voice confirming "We are connected.", Voivod launches into a fury of bizarre guitar-chords, jumbled rhythms and urgent vocals. The dirty, out-of-control approach of previous albums is still here, but it has been meticulously reconstituted and molded into a thing of damaging authority. Everything is ultra-tight, even when at the rhythmic breaking point ("Too Scared To Scream" being the most abstract arrangement, a song I still don't quite understand). Riffs-and-rhythms merge into one massive whole, especially within "Ravenous Medicine", "Tornado" and the staccato attacks in the climactic point of "Order Of The Blackguards". Arrangements are not only ambitious but innovative, especially considering the thrash world Voivod came from and were quickly evolving away from. At a little over 6 minutes, "Forgotten In Space" constitutes the most satisfying journey on the album, weaving through myriad threads in hyperspace, indeed lost and frightened, every new riff bettering the last one, a really tight sense of structure within the adventure and chaos. And once again, while the other 3 members operate at a high level of intellect and intuition, it is guitarist Piggy who propels the Voivod machine toward new and interesting sounds, devising a multitude of strange guitar chords that would become the perplexing focal point of the band's unique aura. His technique didn't always rely on the tired bar-chord methods of metal, preferring distinctly diminished angular figures, achieving those ideas with lots of open chords and the use of (gasp!) all 6 guitar strings in each chord's construction.

At the time it would seem Voivod could go no further.where could they possibly go? But this was just the beginning of their ultra-progressive take on metal. If this was a futuristic thrash album, their next one was without any time/space/genre boundaries whatsoever.