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4[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gojirabandpic.png]]
5[[caption-width-right:350:L - R: Christian Andreu, Mario Duplantier, Joe Duplantier, Jean-Michel Labadie]]
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7Gojira is a HeavyMetal band from Ondres, south-western France. Originally called "Godzilla", they changed their name to Gojira (which is the franchise's original title in Japanese) for legal reasons regarding the ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' franchise.
8
9Gojira plays a technical and rhythmic style of heavy metal with precision drumming, unusual rhythm patterns, and start-and-stop riffs. Gojira has also been known to incorporate textured atmospheric elements and instrumental songs into their music, whilst employing progressive and uncommon song structures rather than standard verse, chorus, verse songwriting. The vocal style is varied, ranging from the screamed style often employed in extreme metal, with the death growl style predominantly used in death metal, in addition to clean vocals and higher screams. At times, death metal growls and clean vocals are mixed to create an aggressive but melodic effect. Lyrically, they have a strong environmental theme, centred on man's reckless disregard for nature and its potentially apocalyptic consequences, as well as a rather spiritual approach of death.
10
11Their style has gradually evolved from TechnicalDeathMetal to an increasingly melodic and atmospheric approach, [[GenreBusting creating their own distinct brand of extreme metal that's pretty hard to classify.]]
12
13They also delve into political causes outside of their music, such as supporting the NGO Sea Shepherd against whaling or raising funds for the indigenous people of Amazonia; Joe himself is a proud vegan.
14
15The Duplantier brothers also had a more wacky side project called Empalot in the late nineties and early noughties, with Joe singing in French.
16----
17!!Current lineup:
18* Joe Duplantier (vocals, rhythm guitar)
19* Mario Duplantier (drums)
20* Christian Andreu (lead guitar)
21* Jean-Michel Labadie (bass)
22
23!!Discography:
24* ''Terra Incognita'' (2001)
25* ''The Link'' (2003)
26* ''Maciste All’Inferno'' (2003)[[note]]Instrumental, recorded live during a screening of the 1925 Italian movie ''Maciste in Hell'' in Bordeaux[[/note]]
27* ''The Link Alive'' (2004; LiveAlbum)
28* ''From Mars to Sirius'' (2005)
29* ''The Way of All Flesh'' (2008)
30* ''L'Enfant Sauvage'' (2012)
31* ''Les Enfants Sauvages (2012; live album)
32* ''Magma'' (2016)
33* ''Fortitude'' (2021)
34* "Our Time is Now" (2022; non-album single)
35
36----
37!!Tropes For One Thing:
38* AlbumTitleDrop: ''The Way of All Flesh'' has one within the first 40 seconds of "Adoration for None."
39--> "Destined to rule my life, and go ''the way of all flesh.''"
40* AnimatedMusicVideo: "All the Tears", "Born in Winter" and "Another World."
41* BilingualBonus: The first verse of "Low Lands."
42--> "Tell me what you see / In the afterlife / ''Par-delà le ciel'' / ''Par-delà le soleil'' ("Beyond the sky / Beyond the sun")
43* ButNotTooForeign: While they were born and grew up in France, Mario and Joe's mother was American, and they both have double nationality.
44* TheCameo:
45** Music/DevinTownsend and [[Music/{{Meshuggah}} Fredrik Thordendal]] had guest appearances on the track "Of Blood and Salt."
46** [[Music/LambOfGod Randy Blythe]] did vocals on "Adoration for None" off ''The Way of All Flesh''.
47** The entire band did guest vocals on The Atlas Moth's "Blood Will Tell."
48** Joe has also done guest work with bands like Music/{{Apocalyptica}} and Trepalium.
49* ChronologicalAlbumTitle: The fourth track of ''Terra Incognita'' is an interlude (which serves as an introduction to "Blow Me Away You(niverse)") titled "04".
50%%* ConceptAlbum: ''From Mars to Sirius'' and ''Magma'' to some extent.
51* DeathMetal
52** [[ProgressiveMetal Progressive]] [[TechnicalDeathMetal Death Metal]]
53* DudeLooksLikeALady: Mario, back in the band's early days, looked quite feminine.
54* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: ''Terra Incognita'' is noticeably heavier and more based on traditional death metal than the rest of their works. The ''Godzilla'' demos are even stranger, as they have little to no prog influence and consist of death metal à la Music/{{Death}}.
55* EpicRocking: Though most of their songs sit somewhere between four to six minutes, their first four studio albums each have at least one track that breaks seven minutes: "In the Forest" from ''Terra Incognita'' is 12 minutes and 16 seconds long, "Dawn" on ''The Link'' is 8 minutes 39 seconds, and "Flying Whales" on ''From Mars to Sirius'' is 7:44. ''The Way of All Flesh'', meanwhile has "The Art of Dying" is 9:53, while the titular track is technically 17:03[[note]]the actual song is "only" 7 minutes long, followed by 6 minutes of silence and 4 minutes of ominus droning guitars.[[/note]]
56* FourTemperamentEnsemble:
57** Phlegmatic: Joe
58** Choleric: Mario
59** Sanguine: Jean-Michel
60** Melancholic: Christian
61* GenreBusting: While leaning towards tech death, they have been associated with thrash metal, progressive metal and groove metal. The progressive elements have generally increased on each album they have released, to the point where ''L'Enfant Sauvage'' is probably more prog than tech. ''Magma'' throws in some ambient elements too.
62* GreenAesop: Their main lyrical focus.
63* {{Instrumentals}}: At least one per album.
64** "04" and "5988 Trillions de Tonnes" from ''Terra Incognita''
65** "Torii," "Connected," and "Dawn" from ''The Link''
66** "Unicorn" from ''From Mars to Sirius''
67** "The Silver Cord" from ''The Way of All Flesh''
68** "The Wild Healer" from ''L'Enfant Sauvage''
69** "Liberation" and "The Yellow Stone" from ''Magma''
70** The title track from ''Fortitude'', which serves as an introduction to "The Chant". While it features vocals, it has no lyrics.
71* LighterAndSofter: ''Magma''. See NewSoundAlbum below.
72* LongestSongGoesFirst: ''L'Enfant Sauvage'' opens with the 6:39 "Explosia", the only song on the album to surpass the 6-minute mark.
73* LongestSongGoesLast:
74** The closing track of ''Terra Incognita'', the 8:51 "In the Forest", is the album's only track to be longer than 6 minutes.
75** The same goes with the closer of ''The Link'', the 8:39 "Dawn".
76* LongRunnerLineup: The band's lineup hasn't changed at all ever since they took the name "Gojira", with only the bassist Alex Cornillon being replaced just before they recorded ''Terra Incognita''.
77* LoudnessWar: It's modern death metal. This is pretty much expected. It's far from the worst example of the trope in modern death metal, but ''The Way of All Flesh'' comes in at [=DR6=] and is somewhat clipped, for example. The vinyl edition of at least ''The Way of All Flesh'' is better, apparently being separately mastered and not suffering from very much, if any, clipping.
78* MetalScream: Joe is keen on doing Type 1's and 2's, although he uses almost exclusively Type 1's in later albums.
79* NewSoundAlbum: ''Magma'', while keeping death metal elements, is generally less aggressive and more accessible (though still quite heavy), has more clean vocals, and even has an ''acoustic'' instrumental as the final track. Also, most songs have choruses, which were almost non-existent in their previous albums. Both Mario and Joe have clearly said in interviews that they were no longer a death metal band.
80* PowerBallad: "Born in Winter," "The Shooting Star," "Low Lands" and "The Chant" are these compared to the rest of Gojira's work. The last one particularly stands out, as it is the only song in their catalogue to feature a guitar solo.
81* PrecisionFStrike: In a strange deviation from the rest of their work, "Blow Me Away You(niverse)" from ''Terra Incognita'' has one, making it the only song in the band's catalog to have any instance of a profanity.
82--> "Watch out! Hang out! Fuck off!"
83* TheQuietOne: Christian is the most discreet band member and interviews of him are very few.
84* RealLifeWritesThePlot: ''Magma'' was inspired by the death of Joe and Mario's mother, and so has a much more somber and personal sound than past records.
85* SiblingTeam: Joe and Mario Duplantier are brothers.
86* SignatureStyle: Rhythmic TechnicalDeathMetal songs featuring heavy use tremolo picking, NuMetal influences, liberal use of open-string chords and pick scraping, and double-kick triplets that sing about [[GreenAesop various ecological themes]].
87* SpaceWhale: "Flying Whales" from ''From Mars to Sirius'' is about these, and the album features one on the cover.
88** The [[ConceptAlbum entire album]] deals with a quest to find the Space Whales who inhabit Sirius and get them to help revive the biologically dead Earth, long since destroyed by ecological damage dealt by humanity. Whether or not this qualifies as a SpaceWhaleAesop is another question.
89* SurprisinglyGentleSong: "Liberation" is a quiet acoustic lullaby that's as different as can be from their usual sound.
90* SurrealMusicVideo: "Born in Winter" and "Silvera," due to its bizarre imagery.
91* ThoseTwoGuys: Everyone knows Mario and Joe. Jean-Michel and Christian are just "the other two". Understandable considering the brothers handle pretty much all of the songwriting.

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