Canadian thrash legends Anonymus' 12th studio album La Bestia (Bam&Co Heavy) has won two GAMIQ Awards (Gala Alternatif de la Musique Indépendante du Québec) for "Metal Album of The Year" and the first-ever "Piggy Award", named in honour of late Voivod guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour for career recognition in the Quebec music industry. The full list of winners from the 15th annual GAMIQ awards can be found here along with the viewing of the event online here that was hosted on Sunday, December 6.

GAMIQ - Metal Album of The Year Nominees:
Anonymus - La Bestia - Winner
Obey The Brave - Balance  
Sandveis - Saboteur
Scare - Not Dead Yet, Probably...
Souphl - Commerages
Warsenal - Feast Your Eyes

Celebrating his birthday on the same night of the awards event, Anonymus drummer Carlos Araya comments on winning the GAMIQs:

"At the start of this adventure for La Bestia, which began not long after the release of our 2019 Sacrifices album, the question arose... What do we do afterwards, do we change the pattern? Are we going to push elsewhere and differently? So, Carlos Ponte, our manager proposed to do something different, to make an album totally in Spanish, which will naturally attract the attention of a Canadian band with a wide history along with all of us being tri-lingual (Spanish, French, English)… Starting from there, things were instinctively created in what we do and what we know in metal.

“We're very thankful and honoured to have won Metal Album of the Year, we want to thank those who worked with us on this, our label Bam & Co, including Steve, Dany, Virginie and company, Propagande, Believe, Soundblast Media, Asher Media Relations, Background Noise and Omv Networking who helped put us forward. Benoit Nantel for the live recordings, which served us well, Mat Charest for the video "Bicho Loco" and Anthony Chognard for the recording along with Colin Richardson and Jean-Francois Dagenais of Kataklysm for their co-producing contributions.

“I like to add, we are extremely honoured to win GAMIQ's first ‘Piggy’ for career recognition. ‘Piggy’ aka Denis D’Amour of Voivod was and still is a big influence on our metal culture in Quebec and beyond, so we feel very privileged to receive this award.

“What more can I say, but that Anonymus is a feat from over thirty years ago when I received my first drums from my parents and from the band's founding. That the band is together with only one change after all these years is also an achievement so let's underline the undeniable contribution of Marco Calliari in the band for the first 17 years. Continuing to make music with the Souto twins who have been my friends since I arrived in Canada at the age of 8 is a fate few can dream of. Our friend Carlos Ponte who has been helping us since day one is also remarkable. Marco's departure was not easy, but Jef Fortin was able to bring stability and efficiency to the riff and the songs. Wow, how lucky we are to have him as a guitarist, songwriter and producer. Above all, he quickly became a member of our tightly-knit family.

“There are lots of highlights from our career. We like to thank a brother-in-arms, Mononc ’Serge with whom we shared the stage on three tours, two albums and two DVDs; what a divine collaboration ... Many thanks to Nadine Methot, Kaz Choucri, Pierre Rémillard. All the promoters, presenters, bookers, festivals, technical teams, bands, people from the community that we met; you know who you are, thank you.

“And the biggest thank you without a doubt goes to our FANS. Without you, this band would be really anonymous…. Eternal Thanks."