Band:	Gojira
Album:	Fortitude
Style:	Alternative metal
Release date:	April 2021

01. Born For One Thing
02. Amazonia
03. Another World
04. Hold On!
05. New Found
06. Fortitude
07. The Chant
08. Sphinx
09. Into The Storm
10. The Trails
11. Grind

Reviewing a divisive album by a major metal band? I'm sure this will be a rewarding experience for me.

It's been five years since Gojira, a band that became famous for their intensely heavy and complex music, released Magma, an album that dialled down both the heaviness and the complexity in favour of more straightforward/accessible ("Stranded") and atmospheric ("Magma", "Pray") songs. Unsurprisingly, Magma was a somewhat divisive album in the Gojira fanbase; however, the record was almost universally acclaimed by the mainstream metal media and brought in a whole new audience for the band, so it was expected that its eventual follow-up album would remain on a similar course. Ultimately, Fortitude is a continuation of the direction Gojira have been on since L'enfant Sauvage, with a few call-backs to their earlier material and new ideas as well.

With five songs pre-released as advance singles, there was plenty of opportunity to adjust expectations for Fortitude as each new track was made available. These songs featured examples of more simplistic and melodic tracks in the vein of "Stranded" ("Another World", "Into The Storm"), gnarlier material that leant closer to L'enfant Sauvage ("Born For One Thing"), and a couple of surprises in the forms of "Amazonia" and "The Chant". As someone who holds From Mars To Sirius and The Way Of All Flesh as the pinnacle of Gojira, but who has gotten a good degree of satisfaction out of Magma, I was open to Gojira going in any or all of these directions, but ultimately, after a dozen spins, I'm still not entirely convinced by Fortitude.

My feelings towards the advance singles had been muted, so I was a bit concerned when two of the standout tracks on the first couple of full album playthroughs were singles, suggesting either that with familiarity I had grown to appreciate them more, or that they only stood out compared to the rest of the album. In the case of "Born For One Thing" and "Another World", I believe it's more of the former, as they are both solid tracks. "Born For One Thing" is one of the more dynamic songs on Fortitude, deftly chopping between different riffs to deliver both power and tension. "Another World" is far more one-minded in terms of tempo and intensity, but it has a nice central guitar motif, as well as compelling atmospheric bridge section that serves as one of the best moments on the album.

The point about "Born For One Thing" switching between riffs relates to one of the things I'm less enthusiastic about on Fortitude. On their pre-Magma albums, Gojira wrote a number of songs that would quickly jump between sections, regularly shifting gears in terms of tempo and barely allowing listeners to familiarize themselves with one great riff before moving onto another one; think of the likes of "The Heaviest Matter In The Universe", "In The Wilderness" and "Adoration For None". On the most recent couple of albums, they've been more content to dwell on a riff for longer, perhaps an inevitable consequence of committing to more conventional song structures, whilst also staying at the same speed. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, particularly if you previously wished they'd ride a particular section within a song for longer, but I also don't find many of the new riffs to be as engaging as the best of what they wrote before, so instead of an overload of great riffs, we get to enjoy slightly less great riffs for longer. One of the songs to which this is less applicable, "Hold On", has turned out to be my favourite track on Fortitude; after the overlong acapella intro is out of the way, it features some powerful atmospheric grooves, ear-grabbing guitar leads and gnarly complex riffing, all of which are delivered wonderfully.

On the flip side, I've found my enjoyment of "Amazonia" and "The Chant", two of the more 'experimental', as it were, tracks on Fortitude (and two that particularly highlight the album's lyrical focus on the Earth and the environment), to be slightly curtailed by this. "The Chant" is a departure for Gojira, serving as something of an extension of "The Shooting Star" from Magma in terms of focusing on slow melody whilst also progressing the band's use of clean singing (a regular feature on the album). I generally like this song, particularly some of the guitar work, but it runs for 5 minutes, plus the two-minute title track that serves as an introduction to "The Chant", and there is no change of pace and relatively little song progression. When you consider the type of journey a 7-minute Gojira song used to take you on ("Flying Whales", "In The Wilderness"), it's a bit underwhelming to sit through 7 minutes and feel like you've hardly moved.

Outside of this main point, my feelings towards Fortitude are of general enjoyment, albeit enjoyment punctuated with minor niggles. The prioritization of arena-friendly choruses in Gojira's sound is understandable, but whilst I generally don't mind them, the one in "New Found" has a cheesiness to it that doesn't really fit will with Gojira for me. Later on in the album, "Into The Storm" reminds me of "The Cell" and "Esoteric Surgery" in the introduction and verse, respectively, but neither section feels like an improvement on their counterparts in the previous tracks. "The Trails", in contrast, feels like this album's version of "Born In Winter" in terms of being a predominantly muted penultimate song on the tracklist, but by not undergoing the same evolution as it progresses, "The Trails" doesn't make the same kind of impact as "Born In Winter".

Despite all these minor points that detracted from my experience listening to Fortitude, I do still ultimately think it's a good album. In addition to the highlights I previously mentioned, I think "Sphinx" and "Grind" generally do a good job of reprising the intensity of their pre-Magma material, and I enjoy the shift to a more melodic approach in the second half of "Grind". Additionally, I think that overall, Gojira have done a respectable job of taking the core elements of their acclaimed albums and converting them into a more widely accessible style. Ultimately, if Magma was Gojira's Black Album, then Fortitude isn't their Load; the record should consolidate new fans, and whilst older fans unconvinced by Magma are less likely to be won over by Fortitude, it shouldn't lose those fans that were on board with the shift on Magma. As far as I'm concerned, I generally like the record, and I can see myself giving it the occasional listen down the line that I do with Magma, but despite giving it ample opportunity to persuade me, I'm still not completely sold on it.