“Well, I always find that the prospect of death contracts the mind wonderfully.” That line from The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy might ring in your head upon your first listens to Voivod’s sixteenth album, Target Earth (Century Media). After all, the period following 2009’s underrated but unspectacular Infini must’ve been spent by the band pondering its demise: Two straight albums were completed after the death of founding guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour, the spine and soul of Voivod. So with Piggy’s leftovers exhausted, they’d have to endeavor to create a Voivod record with a different guitar player for the first time in a thirty-year career.

That’s a tall task, but as it turns out, Voivod has fresh resources, namely the return of awesome bassist Jean-Yves Theriault, the working-out-better-than-anyone-could-imagine new axeman Daniel Mongrain (Martyr), and a powerhouse label; plus, I bet they’d been itching to test their meddle (lol) even while honoring Piggy’s last works, and, as aging musicians, eager to battle the laws of diminishing returns — especially once their amazing chemistry with Mongrain was established on tour. So it’s our glorious, joyous, bonerous duty to report that the Voivod mind contracted wonderfully to smite mortality and make an album not just worthy of Piggy and Voivod’s peaks, but an odyssey weird and wild and winding in fresh, fantastical ways. Target Earth is an instant classic, a clarion call for the band’s perpetuity, and lol a contender for Best Metal Album Of 2013.

U read that last part correctly: The very exciting record is not out til January 22, but right here right now u jam this exclusive MetalSucks premiere of Target Earth‘s title track. We fucking love the jam! Turn it up! Then pre-order the album here.