Album Review

Voivod – “RRROOOAAARRR” [Album Review]

The early punk thrash fury of ‘RRROOOAAARRR”, that was Voivod’s seminal follow-up to their now legendary debut ‘War and Pain’, gets the reissue treatment and goodies that it deserves after 3 decades of influence courtesy of BMG.

Published

7 years ago

05/30/2017

Mathieu Sankeralli

Article Views: 982

Though I won’t be doing a review on a legendary piece of wax – if not history – long unavailable to fans other than dated mp3s and under-mastered aging CD’s, I will say “Hell yes!” That, and give an interesting little-known fact: In the band’s very beginning, Away got his nickname by missing the odd rehearsal or hanging with his girlfriend; he also nearly passed on drumming for the band initially for university, while Piggy and Black were getting everyone together. Seeing that he brought the ideas and art that the band is known for, he made the right choice!

This is the timeless follow-up to their classic debut War and Pain and a sadly overlooked powerhouse at that. Any black thrash or speed metal band owes a definite tip of the hat of influence to this record. “Fuck Off And Die”, “Ripping Headaches” and “The Helldriver” are still vibrant live set standards when these guys play, the classic era of thrash would do well to hold this as a banner album to be part of any collection (never mind the die-hard Voivod heads). The CD/DVD version of this reissue has jewels in a full live set from October 1986 in Montreal, as well as early material from their first US show, RRROOOAAARRR’s Rough Mix demo, and their really early days in Jonquiere, Quebec too.

Makes it really hard to just get the vinyl version (of course of which there is), so why not overindulge. Goodness knows the throngs of the faithful ‘Iron Gang’ worldwide have pined for this forever, so the overkill of audio/visual goodies is appreciated beyond words. These words instead will have to do: BMG, thank you!

RRROOOAAARRR Track Listing:

CD1
01. Korgull the Exterminator
02. Fuck Off and Die
03. Slaughter in a Grave
04. Ripping Headaches
05. Horror
06. Thrashing Rage
07. The Helldriver
08. Build Your Weapons
09. To the Death!

CD2 – Spectrum ’86 – ‘No Speed Limit Week-End’; Live at Montreal, October ’86
01. Korgüll the Exterminator
02. Ripping Headaches
03. Blower
04. Fuck Off and Die
05. Tornado
06. Iron Gang
07. War and Pain
08 Warriors of Ice
09. Nuclear War
10. Overreaction
11. The Helldriver
12. Ravenous Medicine
13. Voivod
14. Thrashing Rage

Run Time: CD1 – 38:17; CD2 – 1:06:08
Release Date: April 28th, 2017

Check out the track “Thrashing Rage”