From Mars to Sirius

Who knew it - FRANCE of all places strikes again. Between Yyrkoon, Hypokras, and Gojira, I find myself growing a silly moustache and drinking red wine more than ever. Well, maybe not Hypokras, though they do have some of the funniest band member pictures EVER.

Gojira is a very different beast than the other groups I've mentioned - though I heard they got their start in death metal this is disc seems to be a style unto itself. The closest comparison I can make is Meshuggah, but differences between the Swede masters of weird and Gojira abound. What they have in common is a super-low, bowel scraping guitar tone (think "Nothing"), vocals that are more clean than growls but do sometimes venture into the cookie-monster/gremlin territory, and precision-drill drumming. The atmosphere that each band creates is different, though - Meshuggah are trying to bring about the rise of the machines, whereas Gojira just want to watch some whales fly around in space.

It appears that a hate trend has grown around Gojira simply because they are getting popular. I think that trend may also have developed because many underground metallers don't like some of the things the group incorporates - (relatively) clean vocals and a bit of stop-start, simplistic riffage. I can understand the vocal gripe, though the singer's tone fits the music well. The guitars, though, CHUG - and that ain't a bad thing when the drums are hard at work. It makes a nice, Morbid Angel style sound (Gateways to Annihilation era) to have some low, slow riffage with a double bass barrage tearing shit apart at the same time.

So as you can tell I haven't fallen into the hate trend, in fact I find "From Mars to Sirius" to be a challenging, intelligent, and inventive listen. There are quite a few highlights on here, which have already been mentioned, I'd have to say "From the Sky" is a personal favorite. I just saw them live, and they held their own with Amon Amarth (and easily outshined Children of Scrotum - damn I hate that fucking band). For metalheads who are willing to branch out, Gojira is worth a listen.