GOJIRA: “SILVERA”

I haven’t heard Gojira’s new album Magma, but my comrade Andy Synn has. And last night he alerted me to the fact that Gojira would begin streaming a new song today — a song he described as “one of the really good ones” on Magma. And so they have. And so it is — really good, I mean.

The name of the song is “Silvera”, and it’s presented through a video directed by Drew Cox. The music is powerful and jolting, with a swirling Eastern-influenced melody that’s urgent and intense. It’s unmistakably a Gojira song, bursting with passion and displaying many of the band’s hallmark ingredients — yet it also differs from their past output, featuring more clean vocals (which will evidently be a hallmark of this new album) and coming to a close in a way that might seem premature in comparison with the band’s older work.

On that last point, the song presents the kind of framework that at an earlier time might have provided the launching point for a much more extended instrumental excursion. But although I would have been even happier if Gojira had pulled us into space on a more protracted journey, “Silvera” really is damned good exactly as it is.

I confess that I have no good idea what’s happening in the video or how it connects to the song, but it’s a fascinating thing to watch anyway.

Magma will be released by Roadrunner Records on June 17.

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