Target Earth

Target Earth is the thirteenth studio album, and the sixteenth release overall, by the Canadian heavy metal band Voivod, which was released on January 22, 2013. This is the first Voivod studio album to feature Daniel Mongrain on guitar (replacing the late Denis D'Amour) and the only one since 1991's Angel Rat with Jean-Yves Thériault on bass. Background After the 2005 death of Denis "Piggy" D'Amour, Voivod created two albums to realize the song ideas that he had left behind. With that material having been transformed into songs (as heard on Katorz and Infini), Voivod did not know what its future would involve. However, the band eventually decided to continue provided that the band, according to Michel "Away" Langevin, could "preserve the Voivod essence" and keep "Piggy's spirit intact." The main songwriters on Target Earth were Jean-Yves "Blacky" Theriault, in his first songwriting credit with Voivod since 1991, and Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain, who replaced Piggy. As Langevin explained, Mongrain's role was both challenging and natural: "He [Mongrain] had to think from his point of view how Voivod should sound like nowadays...He learned to play guitar listening to Voivod, and he knows all the albums, he's a fan of all the eras, so it feels very natural for him to write Voivodian material." Mongrain, a long-time fan of Voivod, was openly reverent about the role that he would play in succeeding Piggy as the guitarist for the band.