VOIVOD frontman Denis "Snake" Bélanger is missing dates on the band's summer 2026 European tour to attend to a family matter, with former VOIVOD vocalist/bassist Eric Forrest stepping in as a temporary replacement. This matters to fans as it keeps the tour running rather than being cancelled outright, and marks a rare reunion with Forrest, who fronted the band's power-trio era from 1994 to 2000 and now leads E-FORCE.

Forrest played his fourth show of the tour on 14 July at Analog Music Hall in Budapest, Hungary, performing a 12-song set including "Nuclear War", "Nanoman" and an encore cover of Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine". The stand-in arrangement, announced on 26 June, covers shows from 10 July to 16 August; it followed news that weighed heavily on Snake, reportedly linked to his partner Christine McDonald's stage four colorectal cancer, for which a GoFundMe has been set up. Forrest himself revealed in February that he is being treated for stage three prostate cancer, but said he was fit enough to join the tour. He is also finishing a new E-FORCE album, "Voivod Revisited", featuring re-recorded VOIVOD tracks from "Negatron" and "Phobos".