Voivod

This 1984 jam room demo of Quebec metal warlords Voivod has circulated as a bootleg for years and has been included as bonus tracks on reissues, so the band's fans are no stranger to this. But here it is again, all 70 minutes of it, in its insanely raw glory. Demos can be sketchy time-wasters, but when it's a band as legendary, and unique, as Voivod, it's sort of a reasonable way to pass the time, as it's interesting to see the germination of what would become a trailblazing progressive metal band. Here, the material is definitely noisy, thrashy and even punk-y (see "Condemned to the Gallows"), but there are enough strange guitar work and song arrangements even at this early stage to give warning of what was to come. Fascinating as a historical metal artefact, this one is also fun because apart from material to later surface on the first two albums, the band lay down a Mercyful Fate cover, two Venom covers and an unreleased "spooky" intro song, which almost actually sounds spooky, considering it was recorded in 1984, in Quebec, by a bunch of freaky young misfits.