Voivod are coming back to the United States this October, and they are bringing the same road partners they had in the spring.
The Quebec veterans have announced a 10-date run with Richmond metal-punk trio Bat, opening October 8 at Westside Bowl in Youngstown, Ohio and closing October 18 at The Southgate House Revival in Newport, Kentucky. The route cuts down the East Coast and into the South, hitting Liverpool, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Richmond, Orlando, Atlanta, Raleigh and Asheville along the way.
The band kept its announcement brief:
“Voivod returns to the United States this fall with Bat. Ten nights, ten cities, from the Rust Belt to the Deep South. Bring your own dimension.”
The opening night doubles as a festival appearance — the Youngstown date is part of Emissions From The Monolith. It is also the second time this year the two bands have shared a bus: they ran a short Southern and Midwestern leg together in March, starting at Hell’s Heroes VIII in Houston and finishing in Tulsa.
Voivod / Bat – October 2026 Tour Dates:
- Oct 8 – Westside Bowl, Youngstown, OH (Emissions From The Monolith)
- Oct 9 – Sharkey’s Banquets & Events, Liverpool, NY
- Oct 10 – The Brooklyn Monarch, Brooklyn, NY
- Oct 11 – Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA
- Oct 12 – Cobra Cabana, Richmond, VA
- Oct 14 – The Abbey, Orlando, FL
- Oct 15 – 529 EAV, Atlanta, GA
- Oct 16 – Chapel of Bones, Raleigh, NC
- Oct 17 – The Orange Peel, Asheville, NC
- Oct 18 – The Southgate House Revival, Newport, KY
Tickets and further details are available through the band’s official website.
Vocalist Denis “Snake” Bélanger has been absent from the band’s European summer tour, stepping away to attend to what the band described as a family matter.
Covering for him is a familiar face. Eric Forrest, who fronted Voivod in the 1990s and now leads E-Force, took over on July 10 at the Slaughter Club in Paderno Dugnano, just outside Milan. Forrest disclosed publicly in February that he had been diagnosed with stage three prostate cancer in 2024.
As of this announcement, Voivod have not said who will handle vocals on the October dates. Anyone holding a ticket will want to keep an eye on the band’s channels.
Bat are a Richmond, Virginia trio built around two Municipal Waste members — Ryan Waste on bass and vocals and Nick Poulos on guitar — with Chris Marshall on drums. Their sound sits on the grimier end of speed metal, heavy on horror imagery.
Their most recent album, Under The Crooked Claw, arrived May 17, 2024 through Nuclear Blast. It was their first full-length in eight years, following 2016’s Wings Of Chains, and was recorded with Arthur Rizk in Philadelphia before being mixed by Rizk and mastered by Joel Grind.
Voivod formed in Jonquière, Quebec in 1982 and have spent the years since building one of the least imitable catalogs in heavy music. They started in thrash and speed metal and kept mutating, folding in progressive, industrial and outright avant-garde ideas until the result stopped resembling anyone else. The dissonant chord voicings and science-fiction concepts have been picked up by more bands than most listeners realize.
Killing Technology (1987), Dimension Hatröss (1988) and Nothingface (1989) remain the touchstones, though the modern lineup has kept pace. Synchro Anarchy took a Juno Award in 2023, and 2023’s Morgöth Tales marked the band’s 40th anniversary with re-recorded material spanning their history.
The most recent release is Symphonique, a live album cut with the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, out June 5, 2026 on Century Media. It captures a one-off performance from June 4, 2025 at the Grand Théâtre in Québec City — a 12-song, 73-minute run through the catalog with a full orchestra behind them.
