Band:	Kozoria
Album:	The Source
Style:	Alternative metal, Melodic death metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	October 11, 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. Pandora's Box
02. Demonize Them
03. Leviathan
04. Division
05. Dawn
06. Reborn
07. We're Wolves
08. Fading Embers
09. The Source

After a decade of existence, France’s Kozoria have finally got around to releasing their debut album, and in the wake of Gojira’s breakthrough performance at the Olympics, it might not be the worst time ever for a Gojira-inspired French band to be announcing themselves to the world at large.

It’s not immediately apparent what Kozoria have been up to in the years leading to this point; there’s an EP titled K from 2016 that seems to have been wiped from streaming services, but that’s about it. The fact that everyone (apart from guitarist/vocalist Julien Perdereau) that was in the band’s original line-up ended up leaving between then and 2020 might have something to do with it; a recent interview states that new record The Source has been slowly assembled in the 4 years since guitarist Kevin Delcourt and drummer Pierre Gelinotte rounded out the current line-up. With plenty of live experience alongside this (including reaching the final of Wacken Metal Battle France in 2023) and a place on the Black Lion Records roster, Kozoria are as best placed as possible for their grand debut on record.

Most promotional materials and reviews for this album (including the band’s Bandcamp bio) have leaned upon similarities to Gojira, and it is a very applicable comparison, but perhaps more so in overarching style than glaring sonic overlaps. When listening to The Source, I don’t find myself specifically thinking of any of Gojira’s songs or albums, but Kozoria’s style inspires similar genre classifications. I find this record to draw from both alternative and progressive metal, including groove elements bordering on death metal extremity; however, less so Magma or Fortitude, the more accessible side of Kozoria’s songwriting instead seems closer to American alternative metal acts. There’s grooves, choruses, and heavy-sounding clean vocal sections that give me slight vibes of acts such as Lamb Of God or modern Trivium.

It's a relatively effective niche to find oneself in; for the most part, the writing on The Source strikes a good balance between heaviness, accessibility and complexity. What’s more, there’s also fairly frequently used symphonic elements (particularly choirs) to further bolster the depth of these songs. Opening song “Pandora’s Box” initially keeps these in the locker for its onslaught of muscular riffs and mixed vocals, but the chorus is given a dramatic boost of choirs; going in the other direction, the song is rounded off with a meaty downtuned polyrhythmic breakdown that does make the Gojira parallels more blatant.

One weapon in Kozoria’s arsenal compared with Gojira is the clean vocal range of Perdereau, which is demonstrated amply during “Demonize Them”. Chuggy riffs and tapping guitar passages heft up portions of the song, but the verses are very melodic, and Perdereau’s singing delivers effective vocal melodies; oddly enough, the vocal lines in the chorus remind me of some of The Dear Hunter’s darker songs than anything from a more metallic band. From a rhythmic standpoint, “Demonize Them” can still be quite a complex track, but other songs have more accessible grooves and structures, notably “Leviathan” and “Reborn” (the latter has moments that feel like they could have popped up in an early 2010s Avenged Sevenfold song, particularly with the vocal phrasing). These moments are all well and good, but I’m a bit more engaged by the gnarlier riffing in a track such as “Division”.

There is a reasonable amount of range on The Source; on top of the examples already provided, there’s a fairly sudden shift into alt-thrash territory with “We’re Wolves”. Because of this, the record might end up being a ‘different strokes for different folks’ release that has something to offer for a wide audience. On the flip side, it may struggle to keep all those people engaged the whole way through. For me, the streak from “Reborn” through to “Fading Embers”, which lean more heavily into the kinds of alt-metal sounds that I generally veer away from, does cause my enthusiasm for the record to waver. Having said that, they win me back over at the death with the 9-minute closing title track, an ambitious and well-rounded effort that has a similar ‘mature, sophisticated catchiness’, as it were, as has made the most recent Trivium albums so surprisingly impressive, from the evocative vocals and hooky lead guitars to some of the pummeling riffs and percussion.

Even if it has been a long time in the making, The Source is still but a first completed effort at writing and recording music for this incarnation of Kozoria, so there’s plenty of scope for future growth and refinement. As a starting point, it’s an accomplished effort that has the capacity to appeal to both more mainstream listeners and proggier audiences.