Gojira - Silvera

There are only a handful of heavyweight metal bands that can be truly considered essential listening. The likes of your Iron Maidens, your Metallicas, your Smash Mouths; the titans of their respective genres that have topped the food chain basically since their inception. When we start getting into the metal subgenre weeds, the area gets a little greyer – but thankfully, Gojira make becoming the top dog in everything they touch easily by being so bloody good at all of it.

Founded as Godzilla in 1996 before legal proceedings forced them to change their name (giant radioactive lizards are not to be messed with, especially in a court of law), Gojira took the underground French metal scene by the horns and threw the bull through the nearest wall. The blistering talents of the Duplantier brothers, Joe and Mario, accompanied by equally accomplished bandmates Christian Andreau and Jean-Michel Labadie made for a Midas touch. Death metal, tech metal, groove metal – if it was metal, these boys could crack it wide open and turn the insides into a work of art. Their later work retains all of the complex socio-political and environmental messages that made their brand of noise so meaningful and turns the perfection dial all the way up. What we’re saying is, if you somehow have never opened your ears long enough to let a Gojira song in, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

There’s not a song we could have picked from them that would have been a bad choice, but the Grammy nominated (not easy for any band, let alone a death metal one!) Silvera feels like just the right summary of what Gojira are all about. Simultaneously soaring and heavier than the beer fear after a weekend at Download Festival, this is the track that is going to make sure your week ends on a good note. You’ll thank us once your ears have stopped crying tears of joy!