Gojira - From Mars to Sirius
Listenable Records – Posh074 - 10th October 2006
By Sam Brokenshaw
The latest release to arrive on my desk from the excellent Listenable Records is from the mighty Gojira, yet another addition to the swelling ranks of shit-hot French metal bands, these crazy Gallic metal heads have not ceased to impress me for the last couple of years! To easily surmise Gojira you could make a shallow comparison with Morbid Angel, this being that Gojira pick up the slack left off when Trey and Co. ran out of decent ideas and started repeating ad lib. This would fail to tell the whole story however. To continue doing an injustice to this band we could also say they include elements first explored by Luc Lemay's genre shattering Gorguts and then liberally sprinkling a progressive tendency into the mix.
Gojira's sophomore album "From Mars to Sirius" literally shatters many long ingrained habits of the death metal genre in general whilst still retaining the ultimate thrust and direction the genre has long established as a mainstay. Gojira eschew the trappings of this brand of metal, ditching the negativity and hate, keeping out and out blasting to a minimum and focusing on a vision of how their music should be. They keep it simple but effective, no overly complex technical indulgences get in the way of the message and unique style which Gojira unleash. This album just has a kind of colour that no death metal album has ever really had before, a certain flavour that is unique to the palette of one used to death metal.
The songs themselves all stand up on their own easily as well as making one complete and continuous whole. "Backbone" is aptly named, it come crashing out of the speakers, threatening serious spinal injury to the listener. Almost as if Gojira have tapped into that holy grail of metal, how to get the head banging without consciously asking for such. "Where Dragons Fall" takes the album on a curious turn, the lyrics initially almost read like power metal, but assuredly the music stays wonderfully free of such a taint. Pinch harmonics resonate off the angles inside of the listener's skull as the main riffs of the song dive in seemingly strange directions, only to reconcile into an enormous thematic conglomeration. "World to Come" gets off to a start with a strangely serene arpeggio, this is then joined by another guitar playing a strangely Hendrix-esque passage, and this is just one example of the diversity of direction on offer here. This songs serves as a moment of light in the flow of the album, again adding to that impression of this record having a very original palette of colour ingrained deeply into it. By the time we get to "Global Warming" the album has been running foir nearly an hour, which could test the patience of some listeners, but I was certainly still interested at this point. One should note that this track is really worth the wait, Gojira save something exceptional for the conclusion of this album. The song revolves around a tapped guitar passage, again simple but effective. The vocals take on a more sung aspect and the lyricism covers the failings of mankind to look after the world in which he has to live. The song is profoundly melancholic which is another illustration of the sheer scope of this album, it's truly an emotional journey from beginning to end, and although Gojira have done away with the traditional themes of death metal, they have managed to fill the gaps with extraordinary emotional content.
This album stands head and shoulders above a lot of releases, as a true classic post millennium metal album; it's heavy, deceptively complex, emotionally adroit and thematicly spectacular. Do not allow yourself to miss out on it.
10/10
Official Gojira Website
Official Prosthetic Records Website
Official Listenable Records Website
Listenable Records – Posh074 - 10th October 2006
By Sam Brokenshaw
The latest release to arrive on my desk from the excellent Listenable Records is from the mighty Gojira, yet another addition to the swelling ranks of shit-hot French metal bands, these crazy Gallic metal heads have not ceased to impress me for the last couple of years! To easily surmise Gojira you could make a shallow comparison with Morbid Angel, this being that Gojira pick up the slack left off when Trey and Co. ran out of decent ideas and started repeating ad lib. This would fail to tell the whole story however. To continue doing an injustice to this band we could also say they include elements first explored by Luc Lemay's genre shattering Gorguts and then liberally sprinkling a progressive tendency into the mix.
Gojira's sophomore album "From Mars to Sirius" literally shatters many long ingrained habits of the death metal genre in general whilst still retaining the ultimate thrust and direction the genre has long established as a mainstay. Gojira eschew the trappings of this brand of metal, ditching the negativity and hate, keeping out and out blasting to a minimum and focusing on a vision of how their music should be. They keep it simple but effective, no overly complex technical indulgences get in the way of the message and unique style which Gojira unleash. This album just has a kind of colour that no death metal album has ever really had before, a certain flavour that is unique to the palette of one used to death metal.
The songs themselves all stand up on their own easily as well as making one complete and continuous whole. "Backbone" is aptly named, it come crashing out of the speakers, threatening serious spinal injury to the listener. Almost as if Gojira have tapped into that holy grail of metal, how to get the head banging without consciously asking for such. "Where Dragons Fall" takes the album on a curious turn, the lyrics initially almost read like power metal, but assuredly the music stays wonderfully free of such a taint. Pinch harmonics resonate off the angles inside of the listener's skull as the main riffs of the song dive in seemingly strange directions, only to reconcile into an enormous thematic conglomeration. "World to Come" gets off to a start with a strangely serene arpeggio, this is then joined by another guitar playing a strangely Hendrix-esque passage, and this is just one example of the diversity of direction on offer here. This songs serves as a moment of light in the flow of the album, again adding to that impression of this record having a very original palette of colour ingrained deeply into it. By the time we get to "Global Warming" the album has been running foir nearly an hour, which could test the patience of some listeners, but I was certainly still interested at this point. One should note that this track is really worth the wait, Gojira save something exceptional for the conclusion of this album. The song revolves around a tapped guitar passage, again simple but effective. The vocals take on a more sung aspect and the lyricism covers the failings of mankind to look after the world in which he has to live. The song is profoundly melancholic which is another illustration of the sheer scope of this album, it's truly an emotional journey from beginning to end, and although Gojira have done away with the traditional themes of death metal, they have managed to fill the gaps with extraordinary emotional content.
This album stands head and shoulders above a lot of releases, as a true classic post millennium metal album; it's heavy, deceptively complex, emotionally adroit and thematicly spectacular. Do not allow yourself to miss out on it.
10/10
Official Gojira Website
Official Prosthetic Records Website
Official Listenable Records Website
