Gojira
From Mars To Sirius

Well aware of the existence of a previous review of the album in question, I am about to provide an explanation for this duplication.

Firstly, to reignite the attention of the DeBaserian audience on the French band Gojira, considering that the last studio album dates back to 2008 and the work reviewed on this page even five years ago, motivated by the immense artistic depth that, in my personal opinion, the French are able to infuse into their compositions.

Secondly, because while reading the previous review of "From Mars to Sirius", I seemed to sense, especially coming from the comments of some DeBaserian users, a certain dissatisfaction in the description of the musical component. We hope to be able, on this page, to fill some gaps if there have ever been any, stating beforehand that the concepts expressed by Hibrys are largely shared by me.

Okay, enough chit-chat.....

As already mentioned, "From Mars to Sirius" was released by Listenable Records on September 27, 2005, and marks a remarkable qualitative leap compared to the already enjoyable predecessor "The Link".

Giving credit where it's due, we are in the presence of a masterpiece of furious muscularity, distorted passion, and rhythmic/compositional asymmetry. Sincerely, I have not found a better term to define the proposal of our band: while reading some reviews and posts on the web, I came across the term "Whalecore", and indeed, considering the strongly environmentalist themes of the lyrics (always of high quality and never trivial or pedantic) and the gravitational heaviness that the French are able to imprint into their songs, I don't believe there is a better one-word description for this particularly unique musical entity.

The album itself is truly challenging, of long duration (about 1 hour and ten minutes, which is an abyss for this type of proposal), heavy and immensely powerful, with a clear sensation of being crushed to the ground by an unstoppable centripetal force, dictated by the general average slowness of the pieces that are only sporadically allowed to express themselves in grindcore progressions (see "Backbone") that are truly mighty and devastating. Dissonant guitar melodies (looking at the guitar tabs, you won't see a simple power chord even if you pay for it), by the duo Joe Duplantier/Andreu, support a musical structure enhanced and profoundly marked by Mario Duplantier's drumming, finely syncopated and elaborated, extremely precise and surgical even in the thousands of variations present, all supported by the voice of Joe Duplantier himself, of clear scream/death style but absolutely personal and recognizable as well as intelligible, where the passion and emotion for the lyrics expressed can clearly be heard, such is the pathos poured out. The bass lines executed by Michel Labadie (with a beautifully distorted but absolutely distinguishable sound) have the fundamental role of bridging and facilitating the guitar dissonances to make the final product more accessible to the listener (as in the terminal part of the devastating and immensely heavy opener "Ocean Planet", a raw diamond), in short, they give a point of reference to those approaching the Gojira world for the first time.

At this point, some of those who have kindly stumbled upon this review might be wondering what artistic references these devastating Frenchmen adhere to... Well, it’s not that simple: first of all, we are in the presence of a group with a strong autochthonous personality, but if we must give an idea, however approximate, to a neophyte, then we can define them as a highly original mixture drawing from primary ingredients like the Fear Factory (but only those of "Soul of ....."), some elements from Godflesh's "Pure", from Neurosis/Isis (for the latter, I'd say "Ocean"), some reverberations from Meshuggah (more in the intricacy of the structures than in the type and execution of riffing), and a classically death base (I would say Morbid Angel from "Domination" onwards). Shake well and serve hot... like magma...

It should be noted how these guys are also capable of significantly mitigating their combative artistic inclinations by strategically inserting songs like the instrumental "Unicorn" (characterized by a repetitive yet delicate and dreamy sequence of harmonics), the vaguely seventies "World to Come" (basic arpeggio to die for, simple but extremely effective), the ever-changing "Flying Whales" that initially captivates the listener once again with soft yet incisive guitar arpeggios (overlaid with a sample of whale songs) before transforming into a very rocky song full of harmonized dissonances, and the semi title track "From Mars" (in this case, the arpeggio is performed by the bass with whispered clean vocals leading the dance). Such tracks have the ability to slightly relieve the pressure exerted by furious and muscular tracks such as "From the Sky" (I would say the most classically death track of the album), "The Heaviest Matter of the Universe" (and the title already says it all about its real musical heaviness), or the already mentioned "Ocean Planet" (a very fitting choice as the opener of the album) and "Backbone". In the final analysis, one can also see the seeds of what will happen with the subsequent discographic chapter of theirs, namely "The Way of All Flesh" (my personal album of the year 2008), in the concluding "Global Warming", characterized by a prolonged use of tapping technique as the rhythm of the song itself (something we can find in their latest work in songs like "Oroborus" and "A Sight to Behold"), as well as a greater amount of clean vocals than usual.

Ultimately, a wonderful dissonant album, absolutely recommended for your collection if you love experimentation applied to extreme metal: this is the future. And it is terrifying.