Angel Rat

Oh man! That takes me back. I remember thinking the singing is a bit too nasal, and also thinking that I probably should hate that record (I was sort of a death-metal kid when I got it), but I just couldn't dislike it.

You don't even know. My band, the Subterranean Horses of the Impending Unknown (consult worst band name thread) covers "Panorama" from that album.

As the French-Canadians would call it, classique!

Phew, it's December 1991 all over again or something! Actually when did it come out?

i'm going to have to find a copy of this - i was just talking to a friend of mine about how i didn't really like this album when it came out and 20 minutes later i see this thread.

It came out in '91. Don't know the month. (Haven't heard the other 90s Voivod albums BTW.)

Someone here once described an album (Daydream Nation?) as "all flowing into one giant riff" - this concept makes sense to me when listening to this album. It was more straightforward, more classically HM, and more tuneful than Nothingface but also added new dimensions - overt elements of goth, echoing washed-out spacerock qualities, the almost dancelike "Nuage Fractal" with the high ringing guitars under the mix. Nearly every song has a melody that just sounds right - like it should have been discovered years earlier. The vocals are perfect - too indie for metal, too well-sung for indie, enthused, clear, sweet, snotty. The guitars break down straightforward riffs with dissonant or ambiguous changes that are surprising but make obvious sense, then sometimes fall into themselves murkily. And "None Of the Above" contains the Last Great Guitar Hero Solo.

"but make sense"