100 Greatest Songs of the 20’s So Far #51 Gojira – Sphinx

Released: 2021

It’s easy to be a music snob, isn’t it? Italian reggae. Korean rap. French metal. None of them are likely to be any good, right?

Wrong, mes amis. From the coastal town of Ondres in France’s south west, Gojira’s career momentum was at first stop-start, until their fourth album The Way of All Flesh, from which progress has felt inevitable. Refusing to be nailed to a single method and demonstrably conscious in their subject matter, the band’s activism also showed that despite it’s fearsome persona, the most impenetrable music to outsiders can still be a force for good.

Fortitude was by design a means of becoming more accessible, and the purists railed in the way jilted insiders will typically do when they feel sold out on. It was by any yardstick however a triumph in design and conception, less abrasive but still gut punchingly visceral. Sphinx was one of a number of standouts, but wins because it’s a little darker, operatic and backwards looking than some of it’s compatriots. French metal. C’est vrai.