The fact that Gojira has arguably become France's most important metal band really is quite surreal when you think about it, especially given how unconventional and challenging even its breakthrough album, 2005's From Mars To Sirius, was. Since then, Gojira has developed into one of metal's most respected entities, the group having followed up From Mars To Sirius with the esoteric-yet-damn-listenable The Way Of All Flesh and L’Enfant Sauvage. With Magma, Gojira has taken everything further into the red -- the riffs are bigger and more obscure, the palette is wider, and the record is holistic and vibrant in so many entangled, and then un-entangled, ways. It's an alluring proposition, no doubt.

And yet at its heart, Magma is a profoundly sad ('triste', in French) album that deals with the death of Gojira members Joe and Mario Duplantier's mother. The Duplantier brothers have said that some lyrics express hope that she would recover, while others deal with the unimaginable fact that she didn't. The record's theme is a deeply moving one, and the lyrics on record opener "The Shooting Star" illustrate how courageously personal the brothers were willing to get with their art and their audience: "On the first light of the day you march on, departure has arrived... avoid the darkness, stay away, stay out of sight / You are in the sky... When you get to the other side please send a sign / Everlasting love is ever dying...". 

Musically, where L'Enfant Sauvage was bold and menacing (which was aided by impeccable production), Magma is dynamic but at times very slippery. Which makes sense, given the context the record was recorded within. Magma sees Gojira's projection of itself modified in a more unpredictable way than previous works: vocalist and guitar player Joe Duplantier displays a full range instead of just harsh or growled vocals, while at times the guitars do unexpected things but with less heft than we've heard previously from the band. Which all combines to make Magma Gojira's most interesting album to listen to, the group continuously leading the listener through mazes that disorient rather than frustrate. Case in point: that jarring intro followed up by glassy, grasping bass lines on "Only Pain", or the (very) latter day Enslaved moments found in "Low Lands". Magma's highlight, however, is "The Cell", the song an apt display of what Gojira accomplishes at its summit moments (weirdly, The Way Of All Flesh's "A Sight To Behold" also provoked that sort of response, even if the two songs are nothing alike).

Magma is probably not what Gojira's fanbase was expecting, especially after the strength on strength of L'Enfant Sauvage. But perhaps Magma shows us a different kind of strength, the kind it takes to stare down and overcome life's most dreaded experiences. In 2008, this scribe described The Way Of All Flesh as the moment where the abyss stares back at you; however, almost a decade later, Gojira has shown us that Magma is the sound of the abyss not just staring back, but almost swallowing you entirely. And maybe Magma also tells us that the strength to fight off that abyss somehow perseveres under the worst, most unimaginable duress. 

Repose en paix, maman Duplantier