“The Shooting Star” sets the stage for the rest of the album with a muddy mid-tempo groove, multi-track vocals, minor melody, clear vocals and a real guitar wall. While they've toned down the complexity a bit, the music is still incredibly heavy, and there are even more ideas in this album than most bands can handle in a career.įrom the Middle Eastern solo of "Silvera" to the brutal, syncopated drum tattoo that leads "The Cell" to the almost liturgical, monastic voice of the title song and the incredibly harsh, howling industrial guitar effect that periodically pops up. This shift from complexity to accessibility saw Magma draw comparisons to the black album by Metallica, than Gojira have welcomed. Having already solidified their place as one of the best technical death metal bands in history, here they broaden their horizons considerably, experimenting with melody, groove, shorter songs, simpler structures and actual vocals. This sixth album by metallers from the extreme French will be a daring step forward into new territory.
Long years of touring and occasional recordings - including another live album, Les Enfants Sauvages - were followed by the release of Gojira, Magma, released on Roadrunner in 2016. It won numerous critical acclaim, as well as the Top 40 on the US, Canadian, Swedish and French charts. In 2012, the group passed into the big leagues, signing to the great Roadrunner label for the release of L'Enfant Sauvage, inspired by the Truffaut film of the same name.
Overall, there was just enough variety and noticeable human emotion to expand the creative reach of Gojira but not yet as much as the group will develop on the following albums, starting with the revealing leap forward of 2005 ' , presented with an almost industrial aesthetic and an almost atonal brutality.įor discerning metal aficionados, these songs will primarily be reminiscent of Meshuggah in Sweden, minus the distinctive and exotic rhythmic patterns to neophytes, they will resemble the work of angry machines, creaking eternally in a post-humanist future.īut the aforementioned versatility was also reflected in a few brief shifting interludes ("Connected", "Torii", "Wisdom Comes"), slower songs augmented by evanescent melodies and white noise sound effects (the title track, “Dawn”), and a pair of unusually concise and less oppressive “singles” in “Indians” and “Over the Flows”. This was followed by the 2004 live album The Link Alive and the corresponding video set, the audio component of which was limited to 500 copies.īoth complex and punishing sonic compositions like "Death of Me", "Remembrance" and "Embrace the World" constantly challenged listeners to resist their dizzying array of Cuisinart styles. Yet it took several years (and a curious detour to the music from the 2003 Maciste All Inferno EP soundtrack) for the metal world to gain momentum, and even the second album of Gojira, The Link, had to be released via tiny independent Boycott Records before being reissued by Listenable. Gradually perfecting their sound until 2000, when the members of the Joe Duplantier group (vocals / guitar), Christian Andreu (guitar)), Jean-Michel Labadie (bass) and Mario Duplantier (drums), felt ready to record their first album, Terra Incognita, relying only on their own means.ĭespite his indie status, the aptly named LP made quite a splash with his unpredictable mix of death, thrash, groove, progressive and math metal - reminiscent of bands as diverse as Pantera, Meshuggah, Suffocation and Sepultura. Originally from the town of Bayonne on the south west coast of France, Gojirarecorded the first of a streak of nearly annual demos in 1996.