Suffering Jukebox

This morning's episode features an interview with Zoh Amba. A highly regarded saxophonist who operates from within the avant-garde, Amba has a just released Eyes Full, an album full of country-folk influenced songs inspired by her southern roots. You can find out more about Zoh Amba (and purchase their music) here; https://zohamba.bandcamp.com/music

Nick's Pick of the Week is Voivod's Symphonique, released Friday June 5th. You can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here; https://centurymedia.bandcamp.com/album/symphonique-live-24-bit-hd-audio and my review can be read below.

Voivoid: Symphonique (21st Century Media)

Released June 5th 2026

Heavy Metal has been accused of many things, there are some who think it takes itself too seriously, some who say it doesn’t take itself seriously enough and then there are those “satanic panic” folks who blame it for all of the evils of the world —including a spate of teen suicides in the 1980s. Canadian progressive-thrash band Voivod somehow manage to (rather masterfully) combine all three of those complaints and use them as building blocks to create their idiosyncratic and highly technical brand of metal.

Formed in 1982, Voivod’s earlier music shared much in common with their speed/thrash-metal contemporaries such as Metallica and Exodus. As their career advanced and their lineup changed, they began to incorporate even more technical and progressive themes into their sound. This —coupled with an interest in Cold War era politics and science-fiction that informed their lyrics— led to some of the band’s greatest triumphs, such as Dimension Hatröss and Nothingface.

On Symphonique, Voivod team up with the Orchestre Symphonique De Québec to blast through an expertly curated set of some of their most memorable songs and throw in a Pink Floyd cover (Astronomy Domine) for good measure. Metal bands teaming up with symphony orchestras is nothing new, with numerous bands (dating as far back as Celtic Frost’s To Mega Therion album) adding orchestral flourishes to their recordings through to Metallica’s legendary 1999 concert album, S&M.

Half of the performance is culled from (the aforementioned) Dimension Hatröss and Nothingface: Cosmic Drama, Experiment and Tribal Convictions from the former and Into My Hypercube, Pre-Ignition and The Unknown Knows from the latter. Aside from Forgotten In Space, from Killing Technology (1987) and Nuclear War, from War And Pain (1984) the rest of the show contains tracks from some of the bands more recent albums, such as the excellent Synchro Anarchy from 2022. Across the whole of the seventy-three minute set, Voivod’s songs, regardless of the era, fuse seamlessly with the musicianship of the Orchestre Symphonique De Québec to create something equally epic and enjoyable.

Symphonique, despite the formality of its setting and Voivod’s reputation for technicality, is a thoroughly gratifying listen. Transformative at times, it takes the listener on a journey through outer space, apocalyptic visions and nuclear war, without ever losing its sense of fun. This is an album made to be enjoyed loud, so, suspend your beliefs for an hour, slip off your shoes, kick back and enjoy the ride.

Nick Stephan