Canadian progressive metal legends VOIVOD are deep in the writing process for their next studio album — a full concept record built around the band's iconic cyborg mascot Korgull. Speaking to Robert Cavuoto of Metal Rules, founding drummer Michel "Away" Langevin confirmed the project is tentatively due in late 2027 and described the musical direction in striking terms.
"It's gonna sound a bit like a movie soundtrack," Langevin said. The sessions have been shaped by the band's recent collaboration with the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, documented on the live album "Symphonique," out June 5, 2026. Working alongside a full orchestra pushed VOIVOD toward even more experimental territory, and that influence is bleeding directly into the new material.
"We're trying to be more and more experimental," Langevin explained, highlighting guitarist Daniel Mongrain's jazz background and orchestral sensibility as a key catalyst. Mongrain has previous form here — he arranged string parts for VOIVOD's 2018 album and crafted brass quintet arrangements for a 2020 EP.
A concept album built around Korgull is a natural homecoming for VOIVOD. The skeletal cyborg has haunted the band's artwork since the early 1980s, serving as the visual and thematic anchor of their post-apocalyptic universe. Giving Korgull a full cinematic narrative feels like the logical — if gloriously ambitious — next step.
The new album isn't the only major VOIVOD project in motion. Simultaneously, the band is developing a retro video game called "Nuclear Warrior," finishing a documentary titled "We Are Connected," and preparing a 500-plus-page authorized biography "Always Moving." All of this alongside an active touring schedule.
VOIVOD currently record in focused bursts of three songs at a time, slotting studio sessions between tours supporting their 2023 album "Morgöth Tales." That disciplined, modular approach suits a band that has always moved on its own terms — outside the trends of the genre they helped define.
Founded in Jonquière, Quebec in 1982, VOIVOD remain one of metal's most singular creative forces. Whether fusing thrash with post-punk, kosmische musik, or now orchestral cinema, the destination is always unmistakably their own.