15th April 2020

Under The Influence #42: Raze on “L’Enfant Sauvage” by Gojira!

Originally formed as Godzilla in 1996 and changing their name five years later to Gojira, brothers Joe Duplantier (lead vocals, guitar) and Mario Duplantier (drums, backing vocals), guitarist Christian Andreu, and bassist Jean-Michel Labadie are well known to most. They hail from the city of Bayonne in France and are known for Environmental themed lyrics while also receiving Grammy nominations for 2016’s “Magma“. Five albums into their career they were picked up by major label Roadrunner Records and made their debut with them in “L’Enfant Sauvage” back in 2012, which sold almost over 11,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release.

Guitarist and Vocalist Akbar Nicholas of Indonesian Metalcore act Raze comments: “L’Enfant Sauvage AKA The wild child, is the most influential album for me personally so far. In fact, the single “L’enfant sauvage” was the first Gojira song that i heard back in 2012, the time the album was released. Since then, i start to look back all stuffs that Gojira made, follow their tracks. In my opinion “L’enfant sauvage”, “The axe”, “The Gift of Guilt”, and “Born in Winter” are the best example of how to write and compose some heavy technical materials, yet these songs still have an outstanding the beauty of dynamic that leads into a new form of metal. Not to mentioned every single messages were vocalized in such a good combination, which implies the perfect blend of rasp and clean vocal. Thus, the more i looked into Gojira manifesto, the more i really respect these French quartet. Their messages, environmentalism, self empowerment and all philosophical writings that written and vocalized by Joe are really set a parameter for me as a writer. The way Gojira composed their music also effect me as a composer“