Label: Roadrunner Records
Released: 30th April 2021
Rating: ★★★★★
Grammy nominations and festival headline slots have sent Gojira soaring into the stratosphere like the ‘Flying Whales’ they’ve been searching for. They’ve been spinning solid gold since ‘Magma,’ and on ‘Fortitude’ they steer their technical death metal further into stadium-metal seas.
With their creative freedom fully at their control; the album recorded and produced by the band themselves at their very own Silver Cord studios; they spiral across the musical spectrum, whether it’s in the pop-structured post-metal odyssey of ‘Grind’, the sing-along stadium-metal of ‘Hold On’ or the tribal attack of ‘Amazonia.’ No matter where they wander, Fortitude truly flourishes on its glistening centrepiece ‘The Chant’ – a dizzying display of melodic metal wrapped around one of this year’s most magical choruses.
If 2016’s ‘Magma’ was their emotional epiphany; born out of the blues of the death of Mario and Joe Duplantier’s mother; then it’s follow-up Fortitude is their salute to strength. ‘Born For One Thing’ bleeds buddhist beliefs and anti-consumerist concepts as a call for change whilst future fan-favourite ‘Amazonia’ strikes a chord with their past antics as environmental activists, doubling up as a fundraiser for Brazil’s indigenous tribes. No matter how much they call for world peace, the paranoia of the pandemic lingers throughout, both positively (‘Hold On’) and negatively (‘Another World’).
Gojira have gone from strength to strength from album to album, and on ‘Fortitude’ they’ve finally climbed the ladder and claimed the championship.
