French progressive metallers Gojira’s new album, Magma, will be released on 17 June 2016 via Roadrunner Records. It’s the follow-up to 2012’s critically acclaimed L’Enfant Sauvage. You can check out the title track teaser below. The album was recorded at frontman Joseph Duplantier‘s Silver Cord Studio in Queens, New York.
Duplantier told RollingStone.com in a new interview that Gojira had originally worked on twelve songs for the album before ultimately deciding on ten. “We want a short album,” he said. “Something less epic than what we usually do. People’s attentions are shorter now. So a lot of the songs are four minutes.”
In what promises to be a rather sombre album, Joseph spoke about the illness of his mother and her eventual passing being a driving force behind the album: “I felt physically, mentally exhausted,” Joseph told RollingStone.com. “At the same time, though, the way it happened was beautiful. We were all around her. We had to cancel a few shows when she died, but it was very enriching at the same time. We learned a lot about death.”
“Mario (Joseph’s brother and songwriting partner) was recording drums, and I was playing guitar with him, just trying to help him know where he’s at in the song, and both of us would start crying at the same time,” Joseph added.
“The songs were half-written while she was sick,” he said. “After she died, I still had to finish them. So one song was like, ‘You’re going to make it,’ but the second verse is ‘You didn’t make it.'”
Goijira’s fifth album, L’Enfant Sauvage, debuted at No. 34 on The Billboard Top 200 chart.
