Voivod - Infini (2009)

The immaculate monster returned in 2009 with one of their best records to date - still, albeit natural (or should that be supernaturally!) removed from the early days, Voivod have neevr sounded the same on any album, making a career spanning Pink Floy-esque weirdness and psychedelia melted into an iron lung hotpot of barbed wire thrash, smoking black metal and mechanized avant garde surrealism. 'Infini' treads similar ground, only in the fact that it's another Voivod mutant, the only predictable feature about the French Canadian's being their unpredictability! Whether it's the Motorhead-clank of 'Volcano', in which Snake sounds like the bastard offspring of Dave Mustaine and his former self, to the epic slow burner 'Morpheus' which casts the listener headlong into icy pools of varying netherworlds. 'In Orbit' nods to the cosmic days of 'Dimension Hatross' and boasts a Godflesh feel in its industrialized structure - all the while Snake effortlessly slips between the cracks with his weird sneers and spiky tongue. Voivod are an infection no-one wants to treat, a contamination within the metal genre that exists as proof that metal is without doubt an unstoppable force that can bridges styles so effortlessly. Back in the '80s so many people placed restrictions on the genre, refusing to listen to other styles, and yet all the while Voivod were planting their seed, not simply shattering the boundaries, because in their realm there never were any...and thank Voivod's mum and dad's for that!! 8/10