The sixth album by the French metal band "Gojira" was released on June 17, 2016, the album named "Magma" is a milestone for the band and an innovative and refreshing album in our humble opinion. We're not surprised if this is the band's first album you know...
The name of the album describes with incredible precision what is going on inside, a molten rock composed of dynamics that are spreading and changing. It is sometimes a boiling and dynamic liquid that flows and moves slowly like a powerful river and sometimes it erupts and becomes a violent and destructive explosion. This is exactly how the four Gojira members created the album, it is sometimes fast and aggressive and sometimes slow and gentle.
This time the band members approached the album differently. On previous albums, they would prepare the songs in advance, rehearse and sharpen them and only then come to the studio to record the tracks.
For this album, the band members decided to work on everything from scratch together and record while creating. They built a new studio in Queens, New York, and immediately after construction in 2015, they went in to start working on the album. Each one brought with him different demos, riffs, rhythms, and texts all from everything, and threw them inside into a large bowl. From that, they built 10 strong and powerful tracks for a great album!
A tragic incident affected the recordings that were stopped in the middle. The mother of guitarist, singer, and bandleader Joe Duplantier and his drumming brother Mario Duplantier, died of cancer during the recordings. The difficult experience greatly influenced Joe's writing and the lyrics of the songs. His brother said that the recording process was a kind of outlet for their sadness and longing every time he reads his brother's lyrics he bursts into tears.
(Photo: Jimmy Fontaine)
This album is also a turning point in the band's style. The comparison is a little too big but we can not help but see the similarities. As in "Metallica's" "Black Album", here too the members decided to downshift, creating shorter, less complex songs with more melody and dynamics of clean singing. If in previous albums you would find songs that range from 5 to 9 minutes with strong elements of rock and progressive metal, accompanied by vast growling, here you will find a more focused album with songs ranging from 3 to 6 minutes and a combination of growling with clean vocals, riffs, and rhythms that will make your heart to feel like a concrete brick that just drops you to the floor.
The song that opens the album "The Shooting Star" already lowers your jaw to the floor and you feel all your muscles in your body become heavy until the first part of the song enters, and then suddenly you fill up in the air and start hovering above the ground with a completely surprised facial expression.
It's not exactly a typical opening song, it's heavy and slow and even carried at times, but it's exactly what these guys want you to feel before they drop "Silvera" on you. A violent volcanic eruption throws boiling lava at you and calls for you to wake up from conformism and norms.
The boiling lava stream comes in the next song to the edge of the cliff and creates a merciless waterfall and we are only in the third song "The Cell". A crazy rhythm of drums and guitars is stopped at once and alternately just to allow Joe to roar his soul and unload his pains and anguish over his mother's death. He wrote this song right after her death.
The goal here was to let you have a little taste of what is happening on this album, like in a good movie we do not want to continue to spoil you, so we will stop here and let you continue on your own...
Just to mention, as we mentioned before... "Gojira" is an important band in our landscape and has an impact on the artists and bands of today as well (see Myles Kennedy and Trent Reznor). They were nominated for two Grammy Awards with this album and were an opening show for "Alter Bridge", "Slipknot" and more...
Listen to the album on: Spotify, Apple Music