May 24 - Tribal Convictions

Canadian Voivod came into my life through Jan Are. He had their first two albums - War and Pain from 1984 and Rrröööaaarrr from 1986. He played them for me on a couple of occasions, and I was amused by their song titles, such as Korgull The Exterminator and Fuck Off and Die but not so much by their music. When he played the Killing Technology album for me, which he had on cassette, I believe, I was a little more positive, but my real Voivod awakening came with their album Dimension Hatröss from 1988. Jan Are brought the tape over to Arve's dad's place, where we were playing a role playing game (I believe this was one of our attempts at playing Warhammer Fantasy Role Play). He was really excited and told us we had to listen to this. The song was Tribal Convictions, and finally I could hear what he had heard in them for a long time.

The song opens with a very tribal drum pattern, then the guitar comes in with a slow riff that maintains the groove from the drums before the drums come back again. When the drum patterns gives way for the song, the groove is still there if you listen for it, and the guitar riff from the beginning appears again towards the end of the song, helping it come full circle.

Tribal Convictions is not going to be music that appeals to everyone - and that was never Voivod's intention. However, if you are willing to spend almost 5 minutes with them, I am hoping you can hear what I hear in them - and remember, it took me years to find it...