With Synchro Anarchy Voivod kept the line-up of “The Wake” for a second album and reached the top ten in Germany. Released by Century Media in February 2022, the band’s fifteenth studio album won the Juno Award for Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year in 2023.

The short version

“Synchro Anarchy” is the fifteenth studio album by Voivod, released on 11 February 2022 by Century Media; the Canadian CD carries the catalogue number 19439967872. The sleeve credits Snake on voice, Chewy on guitar, Rocky on bass and Away on drums and artwork: Denis Bélanger, Daniel Mongrain, Dominique Laroche and Michel Langevin. The band produced it, Francis Perron recorded and mixed it at Radicart Studio, and Maor Appelbaum mastered it.

The same four, a second time

It is the first time since “Infini” that Voivod made two albums in a row with the same line-up. The team behind it also stayed the same: Perron, who had recorded “The Wake”, worked at the same studio again.

Away drew the cover, as he has for every Voivod album since 1984. Four songs were released as singles around the album: “Planet Eaters”, “Paranormalium”, “Synchro Anarchy” and “Sleeves Off”.

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The songs

There are nine tracks: “Paranormalium”, the title track “Synchro Anarchy”, “Planet Eaters”, “Mind Clock”, which at 6:45 is the longest, “Sleeves Off”, “Holographic Thinking”, “The World Today”, “Quest for Nothing” and “Memory Failure”. Snake sings lead.

Reception and legacy

In Germany the album entered the official album chart at No. 7 in the week of 18 February 2022. In the UK it reached No. 7 on the Official Rock & Metal Albums Chart, No. 44 on the Official Scottish Albums Chart and No. 22 on the Official Progressive Albums Chart. In 2023 it won Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year at the Juno Awards, four years after “The Wake” had won the same category.

For AllMusic, Thom Jurek finds the band’s angular sound still instantly recognisable after four decades, praises Mongrain’s guitar and songwriting that is complex but accessible, and describes a maximalist, everything-in approach.

Where it fits

“Synchro Anarchy” follows “The Wake” (2018) and is, for now, the most recent studio album in my guide to Voivod. The 2023 set “Morgöth Tales”, made of re-recorded older songs, is not part of this list.

It is the best place to hear the current line-up, and a natural follow-up for anyone who started with “The Wake”.

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