Canada’s favorite metal weirdos, Voivod, and one of the elite in all of extreme metal, return with their 15^th proper studio album, Synchro Anarchy.  Their last 2 return to form albums Target Earth and The Wake have been nothing short of exceptional.  In support of the 2013 Target Earth album I saw them live on the Grind Through Space Tour with Napalm Death and Exhumed.  What a freaking tour that was.  Regardless, ever since the band hired Chewy as their guitarist, prior to Target Earth the band has been a force to be reckoned with and Chewy fitting in perfectly and seamlessly incorporating Piggy’s (RIP metal warrior of ice) guitar sound, tone and weird riffs.  Perfection, what a find Chewy was and what he’s injected into Voivod.  This review is for the mediabook lmd edition 2 cd set.

Synchro Anarchy is 9 songs in 48 minutes of pure maniacal Voivod-truly in their prime.  “Paranormalium” starts the album with a buildup of drums, guitar squeaks and chirps before the main riff comes blasting through and Snake’s vocals sounding as incredible as ever.  The song is a mid-paced rager and excellent Voivod guitar melodies that are never emulated and are extraordinarily original and let’s not forget Rocky’s killer bass guitar as he continues to have a tone just like Blacky-former longtime Voivod bassist. Mainman Away destroying on drums and the song picks up pace and gets into a faster thrashy moment, before slowing down and really conjuring up Nothingface moments.  The speed returns and then the song returns to the sound just as the tune started.  The title track has the weird Voivod signature guitar sounds all over and really sounds like this album was recorded in some spiral space vortex-still to this day, no one sounds like Voivod and no band ever will.  This song is a great mid-paced rumbling song with killer bass lines and the 2 minute section of the stop n start part really could have some pits from here to that spiral space vortex going apeshit.  Some atmospheric moments are applied towards the song’s end.

“Planet Eaters” was the first single released for this album and once it was released I knew this album was going to be special.  The lyrics are great, but the music is so weird and catchy with excellent and varied vocal tones/phrases gelling very well with the rhythm section.  The song mixes up the pace from fast to slow and that bass thumping/plucking at the 2.10 slowdown stop and start moment will make you want to punch holes in walls all damn day.  Then the song picks up the pace and then slows down and the vocal phrasings are so catchy throughout this part as well as the rest of the song.  If you’re not repeating.. Building more building more buildings to build, Build more buildings more again and again…or We’re all planet eaters being repeated multiple times is too catchy and excellent.  I cannot stop humming or singing these moments.

“Memory Failure” ends the album with more awesome bass lines and pounding organic double bass drums.  This opening part is crushing with a lot of rhythmic changes throughout it’s pretty tough to keep track of what will happen next.  Voivod always keeps its listener’s on their toes, never following a linear path, the song switches gears and gets into faster mid-paced rumbling and an excellent main guitar melody which seems to go higher and lower down the fretboard-I love these moments.  This is one of the best ending songs Voivod has ever done-start the album strong, keep those elements alive throughout the album and end the album with another 1,2 knock out blow.

What an album….but the limited edition comes housed in a beautiful mediabook with the album cover in green and the packaging is top notch to match this 2018 live audio recording, entitled Return to Morgöth, a nice homage to an earlier live effort.  The setlist runs the gamut of some of their best songs:  “Post Society”, “The Unknown Knows”, “Technocratic Manipulators”, “Order of the Blackguards”, “Psychic Vacuum” and also ending with “Korgüll The Exterminator”, round out this special edition of Synchro Anarchy as one of the best albums of 2022.  In fact I am unsure now if this is mucking up my list, because I love this album so much…  I mean I’ve listened to this album damn near 75x already and I am not joking when I list the amount of times I listen to an album-I never do.  I think the first week this was released I listened to it around the clock.  In the morning, at work, at night, drive to and from work, in the shower and even when eating my fancy schmancey oatmeal breakfasts.  Synchro Anarchy is a buy or die of the highest order!

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