Voivod - Morgöth Invasion (1984) - Authentic and straight - 70% (06/10/10)

This live recording has a really bad demo quality (sometimes, you can't even distinguish the instruments in the middle of the recording) but is very authentic and straight.

There is much more energy on this recording than on the future live albums and DVDs of the band and singer Snake is still in the search of his own personal style and sounds very diversified here which is sometimes a stunning and positive, sometimes a rather weak result. Snake has a really intense connection to the crowd. The only weird thing is that he decides sometimes to talk in French and then suddenly in English. Well, I guess he was just young and very nervous. That's what I call charming and authentic.

The set list of this concert is really interesting as it features songs from the first two studio albums and two well done cover version of the band's idols. The songs are heavy and take no prisoners but they sound sometimes too similar. The live recordings do not yet show the talent and uniqueness of the band but they already rock like hell. From a technical point of view, the product is quite horrible and listening to this stuff could be a heavy shock for those fans who have known and adored the band in their progressive era.

All in all, this is a really interesting live document of the band's roots and first steps and I'm quite glad that this stuff is included on the anniversary package of the "War and pain" album. I think that it is a good thing that they haven't changed anything on those recordings to keep their old charm alive.