Gojira
The 50 Best Rock Bands Right Now
First, let’s take care of the obvious. Despite the still-persistent narrative that such music is “dead,” there are way more than 50 excellent rock bands out there. And there’s no exact science to scooping the cream of the crop. Our list includes arena-packing veterans but also semi-obscure indie acts who’ve barely escaped their basements. There are no hard rules here. Our methodology was simple: ask our writers and staff which rock bands feel worthy of recognition right now. But we did aim for a wide scope — throughout, you’ll find flavors of psych, post-punk, hardcore, metal, even country. If it feels like rock, it’s on the table. Consider SPIN‘s 2021 roundup — just like last year’s — a thermometer, taking the temperature of modern rock in all its various mutations. Altın Gün Ho...
Metallica, Nine Inch Nails and KORN Headline Louder Than Life Fest
Festivals are coming back in a big way. Events like Life Is Beautiful, Governors Ball, Outside Lands and Ohana Festival all announced lineups and are slated to return at the end of the summer and early fall and now, we can add Louder Than Life to this growing list. Metallica will play two nights – and two unique sets — along with Nine Inch Nails, KORN, Judas Priest, Snoop Dogg, Jane’s Addiction and more at Louisville-based festival on Sept. 23- 26. It takes place at the Highland Festival Grounds at KY Expo Center. Also performing are Staind, Rise Against, Mudvayne, Cypress Hill, Machine Gun Kelly, Anthrax, Gojira, Ghostemane, Seether, Pennywise, Beartooth, The Distillers, Killswitch Engage and more. “‘Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting ov...
Gojira on New LP Fortitude, Escaping Our ‘Collective Coma’
“We’re all drawn into ourselves — in a collective coma,” Joe Duplantier sings on “Born for One Thing,” the punishing centerpiece of Gojira’s seventh LP. That lyric is crucial to Fortitude, as the French prog/death metal band gaze outward (and occasionally inward) to critique the evils of consumerism and the world’s zombie-like apathy toward watching nature crumble. “Things are happening around us on a big scale: the [destruction of] the Amazon rainforest, the oceans getting drained, the ice caps melting,” the frontman tells SPIN. “All this stuff is pretty alarming. And also on a small scale: Sometimes you don’t know the name of your freaking neighbors. If you live in New York, you get on the subway and everybody’s on their phones. What’s happening? If you took somebody from 100 years ...
Gojira Share ‘Born for One Thing’ Single Ahead of Fortitude Album
French-born, New York City-dwelling metallers Gojira have shared the single “Born For One Thing” from their upcoming album, Fortitude. The LP, the band’s seventh and first in five years, arrives April 30th via Roadrunner Records. “We have to practice detaching ourselves from everything, beginning with actual things,” vocalist/guitarist Joe Duplantier said in a statement about the song’s anti-consumerist message. “Own less possessions, and give what you don’t need away, because one day we’ll have to let everything go, and if we don’t, we’ll just become ghosts stuck between dimensions.” Fortitude follows the quartet’s 2016 Magma album, which earned Grammy nods for Best Metal Performance and Best Rock Album. Produced by Duplantier at the band’s own Silver Cord Studio in Ridgewood, Q...
