From Mars to Sirius

If anyone could have anticipated Gojira's third full-length, they would probably have made a healthy sum at the bookmaker's and then bought themselves a whole load of Gojira concert tickets as a reward. When From Mars to Sirius crashed down onto stereos in 2005 it was with all the impact of the flying whale on the cover. In a similar story to Mastodon a year or two earlier, the critics fairly lapped it up, new fans started appearing from all over the place, and a bunch of French longhairs suddenly became the plat du jour. Quite how they transformed from The Link to the finished product in two years is quite beyond me, but this album was a great showcase for a new kind of metal that surprised a lot of people at the time and has influenced plenty of bands since.

Pinning down Gojira's sound is difficult, not least because this is the only album that equally combines those three elements that make up the key ingredients of their music - death, groove, and prog metal. Naturally, it seems like a strange mix at first, but if one can imagine '00s Meshuggah attacking '90s Opeth and somehow making the resulting brawl cinematic and memorable, that would be close. The brunt of death metal guitars and Joe Duplantier's howling vocals form the driving force of many of the songs, while the band are just as happy to break into a tidal wave of surging groove or a spaz of time signatures and shards of guitar noise, including that now famous "whale cry" from 'Ocean Planet' and several other songs. There aren't any guttural vocals, there aren't consistent blastbeats, and there aren't any guitar solos, although there are lots of riffs and a few melodies, so true death metal fans might feel rather confused, yet the formula still sounds fresh in 2016 and the mixed traits provide enough variety for a fairly long album. The band would later shift their sound around, but that trinity of styles is the basis for most of the music on From Mars to Sirius, with the exception of 'World to Come' and the calmer interludes.

Maybe it's the fact that Gojira came from Bayonne in France (e.g. nowhere in metal terms), but almost all the songs seem genuinely innovative and are covered by barely a shadow from other bands. One could point fingers at Amon Amarth for some of the fat rolling tremolos or at Meshuggah for the disjointed stabs of guitar and juddering drums or even at Strapping Young Lad for the way some of the riffs take off with searing, sandblasted vocals behind them, but these songs constantly change from point to point and avoid specific association with any of those bands, though work as a single unit. The shallow rock pool that is 'From Mars' erupts into the spray and crashing percussion of 'To Sirius' near the end of the album and those two songs (or, more accurately, the title track and its intro) just about hit every corner of heavy music in eight minutes and the whole experience is one of constant progress. The tranquility of the first piece is also a perfect match for its reflective lyrics, while 'To Sirius' explodes with its own scorn and also possesses an appropriate balance considering the themes within. That kind of progress and apposite synthesis of musical and lyrical content is what pushes the album towards progressive metal, since Gojira rarely write choruses, preferring to use the catchier riffs as repeating parts; thus, nothing is too simple even though there are still hooks.

The songs cover a rather large area of different metal disciplines, but I will spare myself the trouble of enumerating everything in detail. According to popular opinion, 'Ocean Planet' is the real killer here and - while it does seem to encapsulate the album - I can't agree that its lurching heaviness is a match for the comet-trail momentum of 'To Sirius', the enormous grooves of 'Flying Whales', or the majestic climax of 'From the Sky'. Perhaps 'Ocean Planet' does a good job of showing what a hero Mario Duplantier is on the drumkit, yet 'Backbone' is unquestionably the song to go to for pure heaviness and skill, the middle section pissing on almost any death metal band that has walked the earth. 'Where Dragons Dwell' takes a slower and less direct route to heaviness, while 'World to Come' dispenses with most of the metal traits for a lope through clanging semi-clean melodies in a manner that reminds one of southern rock until the conclusion gets doomy and prophetic. The closer 'Global Warning' is also a variation from the noise of the other songs, winding hammer-on melodies propping up Joe Duplantier's clean vocals as he melds himself into the fate of the world, eventually settling for a message of caution and hope.

What made From Mars to Sirius such a revelation in 2005 still endears it to metal fans over a decade later and ensures its place as a pivotal release in the 21st century development of the genre. The freshness of many of the ideas and the integration of disparate elements into a united whole remains its greatest feature, while the evident skill and passion of the musicians is met by their wise restraint and organic structuring. Minor problems occur with the lack of a lead instrument and relatively few hooks, both of which become slightly more serious in view of the running time that - at 67 minutes - would seem to be excessive and detrimental to the overall effect of the songs. However, this is a must listen for any fan of modern metal and a diverting album from start to finish.