VOIVOD drummer Michel "Away" Langevin spoke to Montreal Rocks about the inspiration for the title of the band's upcoming studio album, "Synchro Anarchy". He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It was a chain of events, really. When we came back from touring Europe with GWAR at the end of 2019, we took a break for holidays. And we got back together in early 2020 to record some improvisations and ideas that everybody had. So after one of these rehearsals, I was untying my shoes and I had this flash of skipping a beat every bar. So I stood up and I said, 'Hey, I have an idea,' and I was walking towards the drum and I stepped on one of my shoelaces and I tripped and almost fell on the drum kit. It was pretty funny because the flash I had was to skip a beat and I skipped a step and all that. Anyhow, I played the beat and Chewy [guitarist Daniel Mongrain] recorded the beat and named it 'Away's Shoelace Incident'. And it gave Snake [singer Denis Bélanger] the idea of writing lyrics about these strange timings in life when you stop to tie your shoe and a car will whizz by and a second later it will be over and these things. And he had shortened the title to 'Shoelace', but I saw in his lyrics the words 'Synchro Anarchy' and I said, 'Man, it would be a great title for the song.' And he agreed."
Away continued: "Because of the pandemic, half of the work really was done while socially distancing because it was in mid-March 2020 that the lockdown happened and we didn't have access to the studio anymore. So we were stuck with what we had recorded in early 2020 — just snippets of ideas. And then we spent months trying to get an album out of that. It was a huge puzzle. And even when we got into the studio last year, we were not one hundred percent prepared because we are used to rehearsing a lot more before an album. So we were still building the album while recording, writing lyrics and music. So the whole thing led us to think it would be a good idea to call the album 'Synchro Anarchy'. And it's also representative of the planet we are living on right now. So it captures the whole thing."
"Synchro Anarchy" will be released on February 11 via Century Media Records. The follow-up to 2018's "The Wake" was produced by Francis Perron at RadicArt Studio and features cover artwork created by Langevin.
The video for the "Synchro Anarchy" title track was created by Syl Disjonk of 5600 K Productions and can be seen below.
"Synchro Anarchy" track listing:
01. Paranormalium
02. Synchro Anarchy
03. Planet Eaters
04. Mind Clock
05. Sleeves Off
06. Holographic Thinking
07. The World Today
08. Quest For Nothing
09. Memory Failure
Langevin previously stated about "Synchro Anarchy": "We are eager to present our latest work, a real collaborative effort. The new album represents countless hours of writing, demoing, recording, mixing and so on. The band and Francis Perron at RadicArt Studio gave their very best to make it happen under unusual circumstances, which led us to call it 'Synchro Anarchy'. We feel that the sound and music are 100% VOIVOD, and we hope everyone will enjoy it as much as we had fun making it. We certainly can't wait to play it live."
When the official music video for "Planet Eaters" was first released, Langevin said: "On April 21st, 2021, an animated video for the song 'Nothingface' popped up online. The video was done by Pierre Menetrier on an Amiga computer in 1991, which I thought was beyond cool. The spectacular imagery and visual effects were just perfect for a VOIVOD song. After wrapping up the recording and mixing of the 'Synchro Anarchy' album, we all agreed on 'Planet Eaters' as the first single/video. We thought the song had a vintage 'Nothingface'/'Hatröss' vibe, so I immediately contacted Pierre and asked him if he could make a video for the song. Once again, the result is just mind-blowing. You just can't get more Voivodian than that!"
VOIVOD released a new live album, "Lost Machine - Live", in November 2020 via Century Media Records. The disc was recorded in Québec City during the worldwide touring cycle for "The Wake".
In the summer of 2020, VOIVOD released a new three-track 12-inch vinyl and digital EP titled "The End Of Dormancy" via Century Media Records. The EP is centered around a special "Metal Section" version of the title track (off VOIVOD's latest album, "The Wake") with added trumpets, saxophone and trombones. The complementary songs on this release are exclusive live versions of "The End Of Dormancy (Metal Section)" and the group's classic "The Unknown Knows", recorded at Montreal Jazz Fest 2019.
