My introduction to Voivod was the Rrroooaaarrr album real time in 1986. I thought it was terrible and couldn't understand the buzz the band was receiving back then. Subsequently I ignored the group, despite continuing rave reviews, until I walked into a local Dallas record store in late 1989 and their new album Nothingface had just been released. The store owner convinced me to buy it, saying it wasn't anything like what I'd heard from the band prior. Boy, was he right. I thought it was great (still do), and that's a story for another day. But what of the albums in between? Surprisingly, even to this day, I've never heard Dimension Hatross. I'll get to it (I think I've been saying that for 30 years now...). But it wasn't long after the event above, that a friend played me Killing Technology. I wasn't moved. I thought it to be noisy. For whatever reason, I've had a few opportunities to retry this album, but it just never captured my imagination. Now our local b&m has it on their wall from a recent metal buy, and shoot, I'm going to get it. It wasn't cheap of course, but I felt maybe if I owned/invested-in the LP and just focused on it intently, my opinion would soften.
And it was a solid premise that came through for me. It's still not my favorite type of thrash metal - and it is noisy. I think part of the issue I had was the date itself. 1987 is awfully late for this kind of post punky scratchy thrash with screamed vocals. I wanted some muscle in my music! Killing Technology is not heavy in my opinion. But it's definitely still thrash metal. Metallica was already on their 4th opus, and continuing to progress - at least technically. On close listen, Voivod is also technical, but it's lost in the barrage of sound. But I have to give Voivod credit - they just keep coming at you. This album is relentless in its riffing. There are no breathers here. They're going for broke for the entire 40 minutes. I hadn't really given this much thought before, but there are parallels here with the first Coroner album, another band that was a little late to the party, but improved exponentially in a short period of time. I could see this album growing in stature for me, now that I have my mind adjusted to the contents within. Gee, I really need to hear Dimension Hatross sometime...
Ownership: LP: 1987 Combat / Noise (USA). Single sleeve with lyric insert. Recent acquisition as noted above.
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