Gojira – L’enfant Sauvage

Review by Jason Guest

Technique is a strange beast. While every musician must succumb to the urge to develop their skills and push beyond the physical limitations of just ten digits and attain pure musical expression, it’s easy for musicians to become enamoured of individual and collective technical dexterity and bash out an album that’s as complicated and difficult to get through as a call centre’s automated telephone system. But as technique improves, so must expression, and vice versa. Since their inception, Gojira has been battling with this beast and thus far have managed to keep it under their control and produce album after album that has plotted a distinct arc of improvement in both style and substance.

Since 2008’s ambitious The Way of All Flesh, Gojira have tightened up their song-writing with their structural, technical, and melodic experimentation receiving much in the way of attention. Instead of stringing together as many prog elements as they can churn out – which would be countless given Gojira’s abilities as musicians – L’enfant Sauvage is more tightly focussed with solid structures around which both technique and songcraft are unified. If you’re anticipating an album abundant in time-signature changes, riffs that run the gamut of the fretboard at lightning speeds, and a lesson in technical virtuosity, then prepare to be let down. If, however, you’ve been awaiting a prog metal album that has industrial strength rhythms and technically precise riffs which reinforce rather than overshadow the tracks, then this is it. There’s little to fault here as both production and performance are outstanding. By refining their approach, Gojira’s technical-yet-organic playing is indulgent without being ostentatious. With chugging riffs, deep grooves, atmospheric passages and a controlled and incredibly effective approach to structure and dynamics, Gojira have matured significantly and produced not only their best album to date but a serious contender for album of the year.

9 out of 10

• www.gojira-music.com

Track Listing:

1. Explosia
2. L’enfant Sauvage
3. The Axe
4. Liquid Fire
5. The Wild Healer
6. Planned Obsolescence
7. Mouth Of Kala
8. The Gift Of Guilt
9. Pain Is A Master
10. Born In Winter
11. The Fall