2023 JUNO Award-winners, Voivod, are celebrating 40 eventful years of existence this year and will issue a special anniversary studio album, Morgöth Tales, on July 21 via Century Media Records.

Jimmy Kay from Canada's The Metal Voice recently spoke to Voivod drummer Michel "Away" Langevin about Morgoth Tales, Voivod's upcoming album re-releases, and AI. He also gives an update on writing new music and the releaser date of the upcoming Voivod documentary. Watch below.

When asked about the Jason Newsted-era and how he joined the band, Langevin reveals: "Well what happened was a year after the band split (around 2000), Piggy and I got anxious and checked out with Snake if he wanted to join the band again. So we thought let's phone Jason (Newsted) because we had done so many records with him in the past and he immediately got excited and ended up joining the band. The funny thing is when I phoned him to ask him to be a guest bassist on the album (originally), he said how did you know I just left Metallica? But it was just a very strange coincidence. We are also looking into re-releasing the self-titled Voivod album with Jason Newsted (2003). We secured the rights but I think we will save this re-release of this self-titled album for next year."

Once again recorded and mixed by Francis Perron at RadicArt Studio, mastered by Maor Appelbaum and produced by Voivod, Morgöth Tales includes fresh studio (re-)recordings by the band’s current lineup of nine especially selected, not-so-obvious picks from the band’s hyper-classy and extremely diverse back catalogue (between 1984 and 2003) as well as a brand-new song in the album’s title-track, “Morgöth Tales”.

Voivod drummer Michel “Away” Langevin commented about Morgöth Tales as follows: “Morgöth Tales covers 40 years of space exploration. It was really exciting for us to revisit a more obscure part of the Voïvod catalogue, from thrash-punk to prog-metal to…? The title track is a new song, which we started writing in the tour bus and hotels during the Opeth European tour in November/December 2022. It has the vibe of the experimental music we are doing nowadays, with a new twist I think. We also had the great thrill of getting E-Force (Eric Forrest) and Jasonic (Jason Newsted) involved on this album. I hope you’ll dig it, Chewy, Rocky, Snake and I certainly had a blast recording it. All aboard and ready for take off!“

Tracklisting:

"Condemned To The Gallows"
"Thrashing Rage "
"Killing Technology"
"Macrosolutions To Megaproblems"
"Pre-Ignition"
"Nuage Fractal"
"Fix My Heart"
"Rise" (feat. Eric Forrest)
"Rebel Robot" (feat. Jason Newsted)
"Morgöth Tales"

"Condemned To The Gallows" (2023 Version):

"Nuage Fractal" video: