Welcome my HeadBangers from Bayonne, France:
GOJIRA
“Inferno Live”
“Stranded”
Ok my HeadBangers I’m told that Gojira’s sound mixes several different styles of metal together. They are a heavy metal band that are unpredictable with their blends of technical death metal, death, thrash, groove, progressive and math metal. Ok WTH is math metal you ask, hey I didn’t know either so here are the technical meaning of each:
Technical Death Metal
Technical death metal, also referred to as tech-death and sometimes synonymous with progressive death metal, is a musical subgenre of death metal that began in the early- to mid-1990s, with particular focus on challenging, demanding instrumental skill and complex songwriting.
Death Metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking, deep growl vocals, aggressive, powerful drumming featuring double kick and blast beat techniques, minor keys or atonality, abrupt tempo, key, and time signature changes, and chromatic chord progressions. The lyrical themes of death metal may include slasher film-style violence, political conflict, religion, nature, philosophy, and science fiction.
Really HeadBangers, who come up with this shit!
Progressive Metal
Progressive metal, aka as prog metal is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud “aggression” and amplified guitar-driven sound of the former with the more experimental, cerebral or “pseudo-classical” compositions of the latter. One of these experimental examples introduced to modern metal was djent. The music typically showcases the extreme technical proficiency of the performers and uses unorthodox harmonies as well as complex rhythms with frequent meter changes and intense syncopation.
Grove Metal
Groove metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music that began in the early 1990s. The genre achieved mainstream success in the 1990s and continued having some more success in the 2000s. Inspired by thrash metal and traditional heavy metal, groove metal features raspy singing and screaming, down-tuned guitars, heavy guitar riffs, and syncopated rhythms. Unlike thrash metal, groove metal is usually slower and also uses elements of traditional heavy metal. Pantera is often considered the pioneers of groove metal, and groove metal expanded in the 1990s with bands like White Zombie, Machine Head and Sepultura.
Thrash
Thrash metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its overall aggression and often fast tempo. The songs usually use fast percussive beats and low-register guitar riffs, with a shredding-style lead guitar work. The lyrical subject matter often deals with criticisms of The Establishment and concern over the destruction of the environment, and at times shares a disdain for Christian dogma resembling that of their black metal counterparts. The language is typically quite direct and denunciatory, an approach borrowed from hardcore punk.
Math Metal or Mathcore
Mathcore is a subgenre of hardcore punk and metalcore influenced by post-harcore, extreme metal and math rock that developed during the 1990s. Bands in the genre emphasize complex and fluctuant rhythms through the use of irregular time signatures, polymeters, syncopations and tempo changes. Early mathcore lyrics were addressed from a realistic worldview and with a pessimistic, defiant, resentful or sarcastic point of view.
Ok I’m so glad that I’m not a musician. Good grief I can’t begin to figure out how to put all of them together. But the sound that comes from it all, I really like it. So I’ll just listen while the guys do the work.
Let’s look at some bio on this band:
Gojira are a French heavy metal band from Bayonne. Originally formed as Godzilla in 1996, they changed their name to Gojira in 2001. The band’s lineup, consisting of brothers Joe Duplantier (lead vocals, rhythm guitar) and Mario Duplantier (drums, backing vocals), Christian Andreu (lead guitar), and Jean-Michel Labadie (bass), has been the same since the band’s name change.
They have released six studio albums and three live DVDs. They have been known for their environment-themed lyrics and have gone from “utmost obscurity” to being placed “amongst (death metal)’s leading new millennium upstarts”. Gojira have received Grammy nominations for Best Rock Album for their latest album Magma (2016) and Best Metal Performance for their single “Silvera”.
“Silvera”
Formed in 1996 by Joe and Mario Duplantier, Christian Andreu, and Alexandre Cornillon in their hometown of Ondres. Cornillon left the band in January 1998, and was replaced by Jean-Michel Labadie. The band started touring and recording under the name Godzilla and released their demos Victim, Possessed, Saturate, and Wisdom Comes in 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2000. After touring, supporting Cannibal Corpse, Edge of Sanity, Impaled Nazarene and Immortal in September 1999, legal problems forced Godzilla to change their name. They changed their name to Gojira, the rōmaji spelling of the fictional monster Godzilla. Their debut album Terra Incognita was released under the new name in 2001.
On 4 January 2016, the band posted a video on their YouTube page announcing the new album would be out in spring. That same month, Rolling Stone named the album their sixth-most anticipated album of 2016. On 13 April 2016, the band released a thirty-second video teaser confirming that the album will be titled Magma and would be released 17 June 2016 through Roadrunner Records. They followed this with the release of the first song from Magma, titled “Stranded”, on 22 April. The single’s music video was directed by Vincent Caldoni. On 20 May 2016, a second song, “Silvera”, was released, accompanied by a music video directed by Drew Cox.
Magma was officially released through Roadrunner Records to a generally favorable critical reception, scoring a 79 on Metacritic. The album marked a change in style for the band, with Joe Duplantier experimenting with clean vocals, and with Mario commenting that “this time, we just felt all together that we wanted something straight to the point more. We wanted to change the dynamic.” The band toured North America with Tesseract from mid-July through October 2016 in support of the album. In 2016, the band toured the United Kingdom with Alter Bridge, Volbeat and Like A Storm.
I love Volbeat and Like A Storm was just on the blog last week. I swear my HeadBangers, metal is all just one big family.
Gojira were nominated for two Grammy awards in 2016. Magma was nominated for Best Rock Album, and its second single “Silvera” was nominated for Best Metal Performance.
The band played as a supporting act on Metallica’s U.S. WorldWired Tour in summer 2017, along with Avenged Sevenfold and Volbeat. Gojira did a United States headliner throughout the fall of 2017, Converge, Code Orange, Pallbearer, Oni and Torche supported them on selected dates. In the summer of 2019, Gojira toured the United States to support Slipknot on their Knotfest Roadshow Tour. Behemoth and Volbeat joined in as supporting acts.
On 5 August 2020, the band released a new single called “Another World”, their first single in four years. It became their first Billboard-charting song, debuting at number 12 on Hard Rock Digital Song Sales and at number 25 on the Hot Hard Rock Songs chart.
Let’s meet the band:
Joe Duplantier – rhythm guitar, lead vocals (1996-present)
Mario Duplantier – drums, backing vocals (1996-present)
Christian Andreu – lead guitar (1996-present)
Jean-Michel Labadie – bass (1998-present)
“Low Lands”
This song gets right to me, listen to the words and look at the video. These guys really get right to the heart of the matter. I believe this is one of my favorites. You can hear that darkness in the sound and the words.
My Thoughts:
HeadBangers like I always say Metal is a constant evolving beast and I think you can see why I say that “Math Metal”. Metal has and is still going in so many directions, some I like and some I don’t, but that’s how music is. What speaks to me may not speak to you, but we are still the metal family and always will be.
The thing about Gojira is they mix issues of the day and time in history with their music. There are a lot of bands doing this today. We need it, we hope people will hear the message they bring. The environment is one issue that we all need to hear. It’s our lives and everyone on this planets life we are talking about. What effects one will eventually effect all as we are seeing now with this Covid. It will only get worse if we do not accept our own responsibility for our conduct during this time. If we do not the planet will reject us as it is starting to do now and just eliminate the parasites (us) that are bleeding it dry. And yes it is a harsh statement, but face it, our bands have, they sing about it right in front of you. Are you listening to them, there are many. When you are at a gig or festival, be responsible for yourself. Trash has a place to be it’s not on the ground or in the water. Gojira is trying to reach you and has been since 1996, that’s quite awhile. Have you heard them?? If not I suggest strongly that you listen to their dark songs and ask yourself, why so dark, because my HeadBangers, the future is dark, very dark if we do not make some changes, we can only hope that it is not to late already. Listen to our bands they are trying to reach us.
As you may have noticed all of my opinions and thoughts are now going to be typed in blue, just letting you know. And with that said that’s it for this week. Join me next week for another band and another song. Until then don’t stand to close to the fire is you can’t handle the burn…..
Please feel free to leave me a comment or question, I appreciate it HeadBangers: