VOIVOD - Hypercube Session II - Nothingface

Even being vaccinated twice and with the voices of bonkers covidiots getting quiter I'm still not convinced that I'll attend an actual live music show any time soon.

And even though everybody knows that a livestream can never in any way be the same thing, it is still amazing to see the amount of effort and love you can actually put into those to make them into something really special on their own. The whole Roadburn Redux has been so spectacular and innovative that I've already decided that no matter how many "real" shows I will or won't see during the rest of 2021, I will surely include a couple of the best streams alongside the hopefully still to come offline shows in my end-of-the-year-list looking back on live events.

Voivod will undoubtly be among the chosen artists - and not just because they are Voivod, but because they definitely walked the extra mile for their full performance of the legendary 1989 "Nothingface" album.

I've only heard the greatest things about their first "Hypercube Session" last year, so I am glad that I could catch this one. Being effected quite a lot by lockdown restrictions Voivod weren't able to rehearse together for ten months, before they met inside a recording studio, where the band, their sound engineer - and later the film and production team - worked their asses off to deliver a complete live rendition of this unique mind-melter of prog / punk / space / thrash metal classic, which also incorporates influences from Strawinsky and even some playfully, almost jazzy parts.

And what can I say - especially given the fact that Chewy and Rocky, whose bass performance was the secret star of this show, were only very young fans when "Nothingface" came out and some of its tracks have actually never been played live by any incarnation of the band, the result is simply stunning. Sound, camera and above all the perfect and joyful performance by everyone set standards hard to be matched.
Since there was no stage - and hardly a real room -, it felt like like being locked in this hybercube together with the band. You weren't sitting on the drumkit like on a certain Ryan Porter album that springs to my mind, but it was as close as you can get without the sound getting bad, haha.

Inbetween some of the songs there were short sequences of each band member telling anecdotes about songs or their connection to "Nothingface", of which especially the enthusiasm of (again) Chewy and Rocky was very infectious.

After the first screening of the stream their even was a Zoom chat with the band including past members Eric Forrest and Jason Newsted. I didn't see that one, but some confirmed rumours from it are that the "Hypercube Sessions" (the next one is going to be "Dimension Hatröss") will probably be released in some physical form one day, and that - just like for "The Outer Limits" a vinyl reissue of "Angel Rats" is being planned.

So despite the grim times... I suppose it's at least good to be a Voivodian, right?