Gojira never seemed like a band built for the mainstream. A cult act, yes, but in this century at least perhaps only Mastodon before them have taken a strand of metal so obviously built for the underground and dragged it kicking and screaming into the sunlight. It’s a long while since Gojira could legitimately be called a death metal band, but they’ve retained an uncompromising sense of self that has not always been the most accessible. Dense, complex and oblique, they’ve nevertheless hammered their way to the forefront of modern metal relying on quality and sheer bloody-mindedness.
Fortitude sounds like the album that could propel them the rest of the way to the top. They’re no strangers to melodies and hooks, but they’ve never crafted anything quite like this before…
Gojira have announced their long-awaited new album, FORTITUDE, which will be released April 30th. FORTITUDE stands out as Gojira’s first album in five years and the follow-up to 2016’s Grammy® nominated LP MAGMA. Recorded and Produced by Joe Duplantier at Silver Cord Studio and mixed by Andy Wallace (Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine), FORTITUDE is a collection of songs urging humanity to imagine a new world—and then make it happen.
Taking their name from the original Japanese pronunciation of Godzilla, French metal quartet Gojira have risen from the utmost obscurity during the first half of their career to widespread global recognition in the second. Combining elements of thrash, death, math, groove, progressive, and post-metal with philosophical and environment-themed lyrics, the band found mainstream favor in 2012 with the release of their fifth long-player L'Enfant Sauvage and doubled-down on that success with 2016's Grammy-nominated Magma and 2021's hard-hitting and versatile Fortitude.