Nothingface (album)
| Nothingface | ||||
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| Studio album by Voivod | ||||
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Publication |
October 13, 1989 |
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| Label (s) | MCA Records | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
9 |
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running time |
43 min 11 s |
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| occupation | ||||
|
Glen Robinson |
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Studio (s) |
Victor Studio, Montreal |
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Nothingface is the fifth studio album by the Canadian metal band Voivod and was released in 1989. With the move to MCA Records , the album is the band's major label debut.
Emergence
After separating from the German independent label Noise Records , the band was signed by the American major label MCA Records and received the highest budget in the band's history for the recordings. Guitarist Denis D'Amour was responsible for the majority of the compositions, especially the basic melodic concept, the rest of the music was written by bassist Jean-Yves Thériault. The lyrical concept was designed by drummer Michel Langevin and singer Denis Belanger, who also contributed to the vocal harmonies. The melodic singing was an idea by Belanger, which he implemented together with drummer Langevin.
The individual parts of the titles were pre-produced in the studio for a demo , which was the basis for the later studio recordings. Producer Glen Robinson played a major role in ensuring that the album was the band's best-produced album. He wasn't afraid to stop a studio recording in progress if he thought something was wrong. Drummer Langevin in particular had to suffer from this high standard when he didn't play bass drum parts well enough for X-Ray Mirror and Pre-Ignition . However, in an interview, bassist Thériault later denied the rumors that there had been tensions between the band members during the recording of Nothingface :
“We all suffered in the studio, it's just part of the job, but the results were great. It really was our best album, maybe more accessible but the most elaborate. Hats off to Glen. "
“We all suffered in the studio, it's part of the job, but the results have been great. It was really our best album, maybe more accessible, but definitely the most elaborate. Hats off to Glen. "
The album was also the first of the band to be recorded digitally. It was released in October 1989 as a long-playing record , music cassette and compact disc . To date, Nothingface is the band's most commercially successful release, selling around 150,000 copies and reaching number 114 on the Billboard 200 . The music video for Astronomy Domine (a cover version of the play of the same name by Pink Floyd ) was shown regularly on MTV on the Headbangers Ball show.
Musical meaning
With the album, the band largely turned away from the thrash metal rooted style of the first four albums. Influences from progressive rock dominated and the band increasingly used elements from electronic music such as samples and synthesizers . This change is underlined by the clinically cold cover version of Astronomy Domine , a 1967 Pink Floyd track in which Syd Barrett draws his psychedelic version of the universe. The album is considered to be the beginning of the band's progressive metal phase.
Text concept
With Nothingface the band continued the story of the Voivod . In this chapter the Voivod actually destroys itself by withdrawing into its deepest interior. The first track The Unknown Knows is about a little Indian who is waiting for the "Flying Lords" (Langevin's equivalent for UFO ). It is inspired by Indian mythology and is about questions that you ask yourself without ever getting an answer. The theme song Nothingface is about a fictional creature who kills its original personality and instead creates several new identities. When she later realizes that these new personalities are not real, she tries to regain their original form, but does not succeed. Finally she wonders if she actually ever existed.
Another partial concept of the album results from the experiences of Langevin when he lived in his hometown Jonquieres in the immediate vicinity of the largest aluminum smelter in North America (Vaudreuil refinery of the Alcan group ). The result was a story of gigantic spider-shaped factories that spread across the planet. Pre-Ignition describes the robots that work in these factories and Missing Sequences describes the fate of the individuals who have to live in a world that has been taken over by such factories.
Reviews
The album received mostly very good reviews and the band was noticed for the first time by media from the field of progressive rock music due to the progressive influences. The New Gibraltar Encyclopaedia of Progressive Rock compares Denis Belanger's vocals with Peter Hammill from Van der Graaf Generator and certifies that the album only contains excellent pieces. John Chedsey from Satan Stole my Teddybear attests that the band has a chromatic guitar sound that hardly any other band has played before, as well as phenomenal rhythm work.
The Babyblauen Seiten classify the music as "spacey avant-garde metal", and Thorsten Gürntke certifies that the album has a brilliant and fat sound and high-class compositions due to the completely digital production. Fix Sadler, on the other hand, criticizes the uniformity and coldness of the music, saying it is “sterile, computer-generated, futuristic” and “hard, aloof, sometimes brutal and punky” and by no means “radio compatible”.
Holger Stratmann from Rock Hard notes that the sound is much more multifaceted than on the previous albums and that the musicians use their instruments in a more diverse way, only the guitar sound leaves a lot to be desired. For Greg Prato of the Allmusic Guide , Nothingface is the best album of the Denis Belanger era, and at the same time he hears jazz influences in Denis D'Amour's guitar work .
Track list
- The Unknown Knows
- Nothingface
- Astronomy Domine
- Missing sequences
- X-Ray Mirror
- Inner combustion
- Pre-ignition
- Into My Hypercube
- Sub-Effect
Individual evidence
- ↑ Holger Stratmann (Ed.): RockHard Encyclopedia . RockHard-Verlag, Dortmund 1998, ISBN 3-9805171-0-1 , p. 454 .
- ↑ a b c d Greg Godin: Interview with Jean-Yves Thériault. voivod.net, April 14, 1999, accessed November 27, 2012 .
- ↑ a b c d Charles Koci: Interview with Michel Langevin. B-Side Magazine, March 1990, accessed November 27, 2012 .
- ↑ Article in the Kerrang! # 365 of November 2, 1991. voivod.net, accessed November 27, 2012 (English).
- ^ Greg Prato: Review: Nothingface . Allmusic Guide, accessed June 26, 2009 .
- ^ Voivod biography. VH1 , accessed June 27, 2009 .
- ^ Moira McCormick: New Faces: Voivod . In: Rolling Stone . No. 573 , March 8, 1990.
- ↑ Heather Mackenzie: Review: Voivod - Nothingface. (No longer available online.) Progreviews.com, archived from the original on October 5, 2009 ; accessed on June 27, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Entry on Voivod. New Gibraltar Encyclopaedia of Progressive Rock, accessed June 27, 2009 .
- ^ John Chedsey: Review: Nothingface. Satan Stole My Teddybear, accessed June 27, 2009 .
- ^ A b Voivod - Nothingface. Baby Blue Pages, accessed November 27, 2012 .
- ^ Holger Stratmann: Voivod - Nothingface. Rock Hard, accessed November 27, 2012 .
- ^ Greg Prato: Nothingface> Review. Allmusic Guide, accessed June 27, 2009 .
