On its 13th album, Canada's groundbreaking metal veterans Voivod have undergone a renaissance of sorts. With vocalist Denis Snake Belanger returning to the fold, three quarters of the original band is reunited with a unified purpose. Adding former Metallica bassist -- and longtime friend -- Jason Newsted to the fold adds new energy and vision. No longer a thrash metal act, Voivod has simply become one of the best hard rock bands on the planet. They write songs with complex melodies and bone-splintering riffs, yet they stick to the roots of their trademark sound. In many ways they feel more like some crazy combination of the 1977-era Saints and Queens of the Stone Age with better lyrics and no stoner quotient. Newsted is nothing less than phenomenal in this new context; check out Rebel Robot, with its four-to-the-floor running riff, propelling the drums and pushing guitarist Piggy into overdrive. Stripping the songs to the essentials of shattering guitars, pumped-up muddy bass throb, and heavy-bottom drumming was a plus in the production department. On the opener Gasmask Revival, a rebel call to open protest in the streets and the refusal to be "good citizens," four chords and three riffs crank themselves into a frenzy of jarring, cacophonous, metal garage rock. Things slow down on Facing Up, but become heavier in the process with Michel Langevin's double-bass drumming, triple-timing the super-slow 4/4 grid of the tune led by Piggy's blues-out crunchy and Newsted plowing through the middle. The centerpiece of the album is The Multiverse, a complex, multi-faceted opus with its lyrics inspired by writer Michael Moorcock's -Eternal Champion series of novels. Time signatures shift, blur, change, reverse, and reinvent themselves. Newsted's bass work here becomes a wall of pure propulsive, sludgy writhe and Piggy's guitar is knife-edge yet weighs a ton. Langevin's lightning double-kick drums provide a flawless directional force as Snake soars above the mix telling dark truth after dark truth with intelligence, sensitivity, and a willingness to let the words hold him accountable.

1		Gasmask Revival
2		Facing Up
3		Blame Us
4		Real Again?
5		Rebel Robot
6		The Multiverse
7		I Don't Wanna Wake Up
8		Les Cigares Volants
9		Divine Sun
10		Reactor
11		Invisible Planet
12		Strange and Ironic
13		We Carry On

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