Magma is Hot
Seriously, the new Gojira album is good
On 17 June 2016, Gojira released their newest album, Magma, and you can just stop reading now because it is awesome. If you have Spotify, I urge you to check it out as soon as possible, but I will still lend my words to describe this album in the best way possible. These are the words I used to describe it to a friend of mine: “It’s much more progressive, little no death metal. As usual, they do a lot of unique stuff with the guitars. Very emotional lyrics, the general tone is pretty morose as usual, with their “love the world” attitude that you find on every album. A lot of clean vocals. A very different album but still very good and very much Gojira.”
I’m not going to waste any more time here, time for song by song analysis.
“The Shooting Star” begins the album off with some really heavy, kind of djenty riffing, but also in the vein of a stoner rock sound which ends up actually pretty present fairly often in this album. This was the third song released prior to the album’s release. This song also gives us a preview to what Joe’s clean vocals will be like.
“Silvera” was the second single released for the album and is arguably the heaviest and most like their previous work of any song on this album. This song, in particular, talks about the various forms of genocide happening in the world and how change is most accomplished in the world by taking action ourselves. The song also features the coolest guitar solo they have ever done.
“The Cell” features some pretty technical drumming and some pretty harsh vocals early on. It does feature one of the more catchier choruses despite being absent of clean vocals. “Stranded” was the very first single to be released from this album. I wasn’t completely sold on the song at first but within the context of the rest of the album I found myself coming to enjoy it. The guitar effects happening in this song are present in other songs later on and it seems to be a recurring motif.
“Yellow Stone” is one of their little interludes that feature in each album. This one is real fuzzy and feels almost like a Truckfighters or Fu Machu opener. “Magma”, the title track begins in a way that is similar to a later track, “Low Lands”. It’s almost like a hybrid between that song and “The Shooting Star”. This song is probably my second favorite song on the entire album. It is also the longest song on the album.
“Pray” has a bit of an older feel to it. It has the essence of a mixture between the mellower songs on From Mars to Sirius and the mellower songs on L’enfant Sauvage. “Only Pain” is another one of those songs that features the crazy guitar effects. The bass line is really cool in this track. “Low Lands” is my favorite song on the album. It has a slow and epic build to it as well as this kind of ominous feel to it, like things are about to conclude. In fact, they are. “Liberation” is the final song. An instrumental, a slow and mellow song that is both tribal and seemingly post-apocalyptic in nature.
That’s the album, I hope you enjoy it!
More exciting stuff to come in the weeks on tap.
-Ryan