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Track Review: Gojira - "L'Enfant Sauvage"

France’s Gojira debuted a new song via Pitchfork last Friday. The song, “L’Enfant Sauvage,” will be the title track from their upcoming Roadrunner Records debut.

Gojira has beaten the odds, career-wise. Their sound boils down to “artsy technical death metal about the environment”—not exactly a recipe for success, at least on paper. But they released a modern classic in 2005’s From Mars to Sirius, which has become one of my favorite post-2000 death metal albums. Their work ethic and knack for songwriting has won them a sizeable fanbase, which has only grown since 2008’s underwhelming The Way of All Flesh. In 2009, Gojira toured alongside Metallica. Not bad for technical death metal.

“L’Enfant Sauvage” offers an inconclusive preview of Gojira’s next effort. On one hand, it retains some of the structural awkwardness that dogged The Way of All Flesh. It features a memorable verse that isn’t balanced by an equally memorable chorus, and its anticlimactic denouement leaves the song feeling incomplete.

But these flaws share space with Gojira’s more laudable traits. “L’Enfant Sauvage” sports a thoroughly modern production of the sort that would cripple earthier death metal. Here, the modern sheen magnifies the slamming grooves that form the core of Gojira’s sound. The band digs into a series of these grooves halfway through the track—their trademark string-scrape trick makes a welcome appearance. And despite the jump to much-maligned Roadrunner, “L’Enfant Sauvage” bears no pop-success aspirations. Frontman Joe Duplantier delivers his melodies with pleasing grit, correcting for the gauche Cynic-isms of songs like “A Sight to Behold.”

L’Enfant Sauvage drops on June 26.

—Doug Moore