Ever since Stranded leaked, something started smelling differently. Mario Duplantier’s new obsession with simple and minimalistic drums, and the band’s declaration how they are going to step further from epic melodies that brought them many comparisons with Metallica was building a lot of tense expectations. It all emerged into the most-anticipated album of the year. Gojira’s reputation lead to the phenomenon known as ‘’impossible to criticize”. Maybe it is not forbidden, but it is definitely not cool.
Suspicion was legit, although the quality is there. What’s lacking is the smell and the atmosphere of the album. Considering the death of Patricia Rosa Duplenter, the mother of the band’s leaders, left a substantial vacancy in their hearts, no wonder there is a plentiful of depression in their new songs on Magma. They wanted to make it terser and less epic.
Great singles, Stranded and Silvera, were going in that direction. Brilliant play on The Cell and Only Pain put Gojira on the throne of modern metal. Sadly, on the second part of the album, someone just turns the light off.
Bass interlude Yellow Stone, tiresome progressive Low Lands, and prolonged intro to Pray did not culminate into an explosion I was expecting (my expectations were built on The Art of Dying). All I got was a scanty mysticism. At the end, as If they were not enough pauses and intros, we get acoustic outro Liberation.
Are obscure, melancholic, atmospheric, hypnotic, depressive and ambiguous big and ugly aspersion words? I am not sure. I guess it depends on what you expect from Gojira. I expected a lot. I expected an album of the century, and not some experimental filling of the space between three powerful metal anthems.
On the other hand, when I hear a lament When you get to the other side, please send a sign, I realize that these boys are grieving. So who I am not to support them through their process of grief…
