ROCKET REVIEW: GOJIRA – “Magma” (CD)

French metal band GOJIRA have unleasheda new studio album entitled “Magma” in 2016. It is being touted as the best release of the year by many critics. I wanted to make sure and have give it a spin so I could see if all the hype is indeed warranted. To be blunt, it didn’t take long for me after listening to the first song to realize that this was going to be a very boring experience and not at all what I was expecting. The mood of the album is just depressing and not up-tempo in its delivery, which is what I have always come to expect from this band.

I really enjoy their earlier material. Go back and listen to that stuff because that is where they sound heaviest. They were actually first called Godzilla and began releasing albums at the end of the 90’s but due to legal problems with the band name they changed it. Well let me state for the record that this collection of melancholy and lackluster songs are about as low on my scoring system as it goes. I have no clue what the hell they were thinking when they wrote this album and then entered the studio to produce it. Didn’t they see what a turkey they were making?

This is a band that has only recently gained major fame in the industry by opening for METALLICA on tour – so you would think they would have definitely brought their A-game. Instead Joe Duplantier on lead vocals and rhythm guitar apparently decided to make a more slowed down, subdued and introspective snore fest. It sounds like they are trying way too hard here to sound like TOOL and PINK FLOYD. I think it sucks. They have fallen so far off the radar with me now that unless they pull their heads out of their asses and get back to doing what they do best, which is slamming technical groove metal with hints of death, I don’t see their future getting much brighter in the metal world.

ROCKET REVIEW:

GOJIRA – “Magma” (CD)
(Roadrunner Records/2016)

1. The Shooting Star
2. Silvera
3. The Cell
4. Stranded
5. Yellow Stone
6. Magma
7. Pray
8. Only Pain
9. Low Lands
10. Liberation

https://www.facebook.com/GojiraMusic/