Canadian metal innovators VOIVOD have drafted a familiar face to cover their summer 2026 European tour: ERIC FORREST, the band's vocalist and bassist from 1994 to 2000, will stand in for Denis "Snake" Bélanger across the run, which stretches from July 10 to August 16.
Bélanger is stepping back to attend to pressing family matters. Earlier this year it emerged that his partner, Christine McDonald, is battling stage-four colorectal cancer, prompting a GoFundMe campaign toward her medical costs. VOIVOD's Rocky, Chewy and Away said they will be thinking of Snake throughout the tour even as they relish the reunion with their former bandmate.
FORREST appeared on two VOIVOD studio albums — 1995's "Negatron" and 1997's "Phobos" — before leaving in 2000 to form E-FORCE in Montreal. Now based in Toulouse, France, the singer went public in February 2026 about his own stage-three prostate cancer diagnosis from 2024, though he reports his health is currently stable.
"I am honored and blessed to be asked to fill in for Snake this summer, to keep the VOIVOD fans, band, legacy in motion!!" FORREST said of the call-up.
The 26-date trek takes in a string of major festivals, among them Masters Of Rock, Headbangers Open Air, Rockstadt Extreme and Motocultor. FORREST, meanwhile, is finishing "Voivod Revisited," an E-FORCE album of re-recordings from his VOIVOD era plus new material, due later this year through Mighty Music; current VOIVOD guitarist Daniel Mongrain guests with a solo on the track "Nanoman."
It is a poignant changing of the guard — two singers bound by the same band and, separately, by their own health battles — as VOIVOD keep their long, strange voyage moving.