Twenty years later, the whole Metal world awaits Gojira’s return.
Created in 1996 under the name of Godzilla, Joe Duplantier (vocals/guitar, ex-Cavalera Conspiracy), Mario Duplantier (drums), Christian Andreu (guitar) and Jean-Michel Labadie (bass) change their name in 2001 after several demos. Today, after thousands of shows and six critically acclaimed albums, the band offers us Fortitude, its seventh album, recorded and mixed at the Silver Cord Studio.
The album begins on the heavy Born For One Thing, a both committed and violent track, which is the very essence of Gojira. Technicality meets airy and heady parts, offering a very effective Prog melting, while this dissonant and disturbing final part drops us on Amazonia. The rhythmic accompanied by folkloric tones perfectly fit to the song’s theme without forgetting raw strength, groove and jowlings, sometimes accompanied by sharp sonorities and clean vocals. The catchy break welcomes some voices, then Another World comes back on the previous album’s tones for a hopeful message. The introduction of Hold On will surprise a lot of people with its soaring backing vocals and soft groove, then the rhythmic heavily strikes, and wears a seizing tapping in the background, letting the band explore its several influences, including a Post-Metal with effects on vocals, while New Found offers raw energy. An airy sound comes to cover a basis that we can think borrowed to Nu Metal for an original sound, allowing musicians, and mainly the singer, to push their limits back before a mammoth final.
Short break with Fortitude, an acoustic transition made of soaring choirs that will finally drive us to The Chant, some similar to a religious ambience song, taking advantage of the singer’s voice. Intensity will progressively increase while staying in a Rock style, breaking the rhythm before Sphinx, a song that reconnects with heaviness and shrilling harmonics. The vocalist’s howlings are more visceral than ever, and we notice the great creativity fix on drums and dissonant leads while the rhythmic relentlessly strikes, then the sound lets place to the epic Into the Storm. The song is heavy, groovy and alternates between simple but effective and intense sonorities before a vindictive furor explosion. Some kind of pessimistic blackness settles in for The Trails, a song of which heady and worrying tones melt themselves to this soaring and soft sound before a wild assault on Grind. Blast, fast riffs and pure rage, reminding the band’s first albums melt to perfectly mastered howlings to close this album with abilities, groove, and above all this incredible intensity.
Gojira’s ascent is not a hazardous thing. Whether we like or not their sound, coming from quite technical Death Metal to a one of a kind Progressive Death Metal, the band is still growing without forgetting their beliefs and their message. Fortitude is an album that will probably reconciliate the early fans with the band’s sound while proving Gojira’s firepower is nearly endless.
90/100