VOIVOD's AWAY On Teaming Up With Orchestra For 'Symphonique' Album: 'It's Like A Soundtrack For A Dystopian Sci-Fi Movie'

By David E. Gehlke

Canadian cosmic metal visionaries VOIVOD have an increasingly shorter list of things left to accomplish. With their legacy secure as perhaps one of the most forward-thinking and daring metal bands to emerge from the Great White North, VOIVOD, in the last decade, has performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival, won a Juno Award for 2022's "Synchro Anarchy", had a documentary released chronicling their career ("Voivod: We Are Connected"),then a book ("Always Moving: The Strange Multiverse Of Voivod") and now have issued a live album recorded with a symphony by way of "Symphonique".

Recorded on June 4, 2025, at the Grand Théâtre in Quebec City, Canada, alongside the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, "Symphonique" features 12 songs at 73 minutes, bringing VOIVOD's obtuse prog-infused thrash right into the heart of a living, breathing orchestra, turning their inimitable style of metal into a soundtrack worthy of a blockbuster science fiction movie. The set blends the new VOIVOD with the old, putting a cinematic twist on enduring cuts such as "The Unknown Knows", "Nuclear War" and their cover of PINK FLOYD's "Astronomy Domine".

A lot of this wouldn't be possible without guitarist Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain, who joined the band in 2008 to replace founding guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour, who passed away in 2005. Mongrain's musical background (he's a jazz guitar teacher) has enabled VOIVOD to go places they've never gone before — which is saying quite a bit. As founding drummer Michel "Away" Langevin would tell BLABBERMOUTH.NET, there's still plenty more for VOIVOD to do now that "Symphonique" is out and about, including a new studio album that should see the light of day sometime in 2027. (Note: This interview was conducted mere days before it was announced that frontman Denis "Snake" Belanger would be staying home from the band's summer European tour to tend to personal matters in favor of Eric Forrest, who fronted VOIVOD from 1994 to 2001.)

Blabbermouth: What would Piggy think of VOIVOD performing with a symphony?

Michel: "He would have been really proud and excited. He was into modern Russian composers and put a lot of that into our music, especially around the 'Nothingface' period. Many members of both orchestras we played with totally noticed: 'Hey, this is like 'Rites Of Spring' from [Igor] Stravinsky.' We were busted. [Laughs]"

Blabbermouth: Can you go into the coordination between the band and orchestra? When did you realize you were all aligned?

Michel: "At first, of course, we picked the songs accordingly. Like, the songs that were more in a proggy style, with many movements. But, as soon as we got the first demos from Hugo Bégin, who was the orchestrator, it was made with samples, so all programmed. Chewy matched it with the original recordings of VOIVOD, and we knew immediately it was a perfect match. We wanted the concert to be like a journey, almost like a soundtrack for a dystopian sci-fi movie. He really understood what we were aiming for. I remember mentioning to him the early cyberpunk movies, like 'Mad Max' and 'Blade Runner', and also 'Planet Of The Apes' because they had avant-garde music mixed in the soundtrack. He got excited immediately. The result is quite mind-blowing. Chewy was more involved with Hugo. He charted all the songs for him. Hugo had a good head start. Also, it gave him a lot of ideas; let's say for a song like 'Holographic Thinking'. The band could stop there. The orchestra could keep going, and Snake could sing along with the orchestra. He had a lot of ideas that really helped. We worked on this for a couple of years before the first concerts in Montreal early last year."

Blabbermouth: How often does Chewy impress you? There's not much the guy can't do, it seems.

Michel: "He's like a secret weapon. He teaches jazz at a college and has a lot of knowledge we don't have. Rocky [bassist Dominic Laroche] studied music as well, so both of them have a way of communicating, whereas Snake and I look at each other, like, 'Alright. We'll try to catch up!' It's truly amazing. For 'The Wake', he charted music for a string quartet. For the Montreal Jazz Fest and the 'End Of Dormancy', he charted music for a brass quintet. We are exploring more and more with newer sounds. Of course, Chewy really helps the band become even more experimental. Thankfully, the people into VOIVOD are really embracing it. We're also winning Junos with these intricate albums. I think the symphony concerts influenced us in the writing of the new album. In between shows, we wrote and recorded a new album, but we can only afford to do it three songs at a time right now. We wrote a concept for the album with [cyborg mascot] 'Korgull' [The Exterminator] coming back, and I think because of the symphony concerts, it might sound more like a dystopian movie soundtrack than expected. We'll see."

Blabbermouth: Was the symphony given any guidelines from you?

Michel: "Yes, we gave him a couple of cues. But, as soon as I got the first demos from Hugo, I immediately understood that he arranged everything like it was a futuristic science-fiction movie. Some of the songs were sort of demanding to be arranged with an orchestra. 'Forgotten In Space' was one of them."

Blabbermouth: "The Unknown Knows" was a good choice.

Michel: "Oh yeah. Even though we wanted to skip the very thrashy material, we picked 'Nuclear War' from the first album ['War And Pain']. We thought it could become a very scary military march. It worked really well. Of course, we wanted to try Syd Barrett's 'Astronomy Domine' with an orchestra, and it turned out really good. The two surprises for me were 'Into My Hypercube', which became more dramatic and emotional. The bigger surprise was 'Fall', which is a newer song that became so majestic with the orchestra. At all three performances — the two in Montreal and the one in Quebec City, the one we recorded — we had a standing ovation. It surprised us. We didn't have any restrictions, except that it had to be shorter than 90 minutes. If it was over 90 minutes, you pay a lot of extra money to the union. We kept it at 12 songs to be safe. Once we picked the songs, we tried to find an order that made sense, where the public is on some kind of galactic journey. I was very involved in the visuals. I wanted to be very apocalyptic. I supplied a lot of art to many different artists for the shows in Montreal and the show in Quebec. It was a different visual. Some people animated my characters with traditional 2D animation. Others did 3D CGI. There was some AI as well. It was a mixture of mediums."

Blabbermouth: I saw a clip where you are playing behind a glass enclosure with the orchestra. Did that feel weird?

Michel: "It was very strange. [Laughs] The cymbals are a bit overwhelming to the musicians right beside me. There were two technical things I had to get used to. One was the glass cage. Also, we played with in-ears because we couldn't have monitors blasting music. We also had an iPad for the orchestra. That took some getting used to. I was set up on the side of the stage, pretty far away from Chewy. Usually, we have a lot of eye contact for breaks. It was a bit difficult. I'm used to being right in the action. I don't even like to have a high drum riser or anything like that. I like to be in the action with the guys. This was strange. At the very first show in Montreal, I realized that the angle of the glass cage meant the projections on the back of the stage were reflecting off the cage. I couldn't see Chewy for all the cues. I had to re-adjust that for the next shows, but that was the only thing. Aside from that, I think by show number three, in Quebec City, I got really comfortable with everything. I could really take the time to watch the animation behind the orchestra members and the public, the band, VOIVOD. The first couple of shows, I was very focused on [conductor] Dina Gilbert. I was watching her movements a lot. We also had many cues to look at each other. It's an experience we're going to do all over again in January in our hometown, where we formed in 1982 with the local orchestra. We'll have the same conductor. It's funny: At one point, I think at the second show in Montreal, people started chatting 'Dina!' 'Dina!' 'Dina!' It was really great."

Blabbermouth: Did anything go wrong during these shows? Did anyone miss a cue?

Michel: "I made one mistake in the first show, but I don't think people will notice. It's like an Easter Egg. [Laughs] That's about it. It was very stressful for me. As a drummer, if I miss one beat, the whole orchestra gets thrown off. Dina, the conductor, she can't really wave her arms going, 'Let's go back one bar!' I was really focused and a bit stressed out. I'm not really nervous before shows anymore, but all three shows with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, when I was going down the corridor when the orchestra was playing the intro, I had to tell myself, 'You can do it!'"

Blabbermouth: You touched upon this earlier: How do you feel about AI, especially for an artist who hand-draws everything?

Michel: "It's a controversial topic for sure. It's really moving along quickly, like weekly. Then, with the legislation. Like I was saying earlier, some of my characters and landscapes were animated with AI for the concerts. I don't mind if AI is fed with my art and it's being animated. I always dreamed of seeing my characters move. Also, since I studied science at a university, I didn't study art, so I don't have many notions, and I will often ask AI to give me an example, let's say, mainly perspective. Let's say I want to draw a monster running toward me. It's kind of hard, so I asked AI for an example so I'd know where to start. But I learned to be satisfied with the examples very quickly because now we all know how much water it takes to cool data centers, so it's a very strange world we live in right now, especially with AI connected to high-tech weaponry. It's like sci-fi has caught up with us for sure. You can't even predict what's going to happen next week. When I was a kid, I saw the movie 'Colossus' where a giant computer from the U.S., 'Colossus', gets in touch with a giant computer in Russia called 'Guardian', and they start conversing in their own language. Then, they take control of nuclear weapons, and humanity is enslaved. [Laughs] It's pretty much where we are now. Back in the day, when going on tour, we used to buy Discover magazine and try to see what would happen 30 years down the road. Now, you can't predict what's going to happen next week. The lyrics of the next album probably won't be anchored in the present right now. They may be more futuristic. It's harder to predict 30 years down the road."

Blabbermouth: Do you feel like VOIVOD has always been ahead of everyone with these themes? They were central to "Killing Technology" and "Dimension Hatröss" when you recorded them near the Berlin Wall during the height of the Cold War.

Michel: "I've always been super-stressed out about nuclear war. It never stops, so I never stopped talking about it. It wasn't popular in the '90s; now it's back into the headlines. We will never stop talking about it. I will never stop being stressed out about it, but I would say that VOIVOD helps me to evacuate all that stress. The drumming and creating art really help. Last year, I read the scariest book I ever read; it's called 'Nuclear War: A Scenario', by Annie Jacobsen. It's a very popular book. If it were turned into a movie, VOIVOD would be the perfect band to score the movie. It's the next dream. The symphony concerts were a dream come true. The next dream is to score a movie soundtrack."

Blabbermouth: Can you share an update on the progress of the new studio album?

Michel: "We did a template of eight chapters in a story. We're trying to write the songs accordingly, like what we did for 'Dimension Hatröss' or 'Phobos', like finding a musical bit for a character, and when he comes back, it's the same musical bit but arranged differently. We only gave ourselves one restriction: We want it to be like 'Synchro Anarchy' so that it can fit on one vinyl. The songs are intricate, but they're not long. They're like five and a half minutes. They are experimental, but pretty thrashy. We'll see. We only recorded three songs, and we're working on the next three and so on. Maybe late next year it will be out."

Photo credit: Catherine Deslauriers