#meshugga

Francesco Cossu

Self Portrait

2019

permanent markers, correction fluid on watercolor paper

Gojira: Magma (2016)

I don’t know about you, but I was ready for Gojira to rethink, revise, all around reinvent their sound -- for purely selfish reasons.

I’m simply too old and impatient to put in the extensive listening hours that were required to absorb their first five albums, of which 2005’s From Mars to Sirius was the last I actually made time for.

So you’d think I’d be entirely positive about the French quartet’s self-motivated sonic deconstruction and vocal cleansing (by which I mean clean vocals, not roars, now dominate) for their sixth LP, Magma. 

But NOOOOO ...

Now, as I listen, I can hardly stop myself thinking about Gojira beyond the sum of their influences -- namely Voivod (“The Shooting Star”), Meshuggah (“The Cell”), and everyone from Korn to Cult of Luna to In Flames (on “Stranded,” “Pray,” the awful “Only Pain”).

But you know what? 

I fucking love Voivod, at least, and with stunning, spacey, trippy tracks like “Silvera,” “Low Lands” and the title track, Gojira have arguably surpassed their masters, or certainly bettered anything the venerated Canucks have come up with in decades.

Now I hope Gojira will pick one of these directions (selfishly, again, the one I like -- ha!) and explore it to the hilt on their next LP, whenever that may come.

Get it? The tickets