Gojira: Terra Incognita (2LP) [LISTENABLE]

Why you'll love it

This Listenable 2LP set adds live versions of "Clone," "Love" and "Space Time" from Antwerp in 2006 on Side D. It's where the French band's crushing, spiritual brand of death metal began, years before the arenas came calling.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Three live bonus tracks from Antwerp, 2006

About the album

The title is Latin for unknown land, and the album inlay explains it as the place inside each of us where, in Hindu legend, Brahma hid humanity's divinity. Heavy going for a debut, but Gojira have never done small. Joe Duplantier wrote much of it after spending two years living in a cabin he'd built in the forest, with no electricity and no income, an experience you can see in the video for "Love."

Joe and his brother Mario Duplantier, guitarist Christian Andreu (the man on the cover) and bassist Jean-Michel Labadie recorded it with Stephan Kraemer, and the tracks already carry the band's signature mix of pummelling riffs, tribal drumming and huge, open space. "Clone" and "Satan Is a Lawyer" are relentless, "Space Time" and "Deliverance" stretch out, and "In the Forest" ends the main album with a hidden ambient piece drifting in after the silence.

Collectors chased early copies at silly prices for years before this reissue came along. "04" began as Joe and Mario's present for their mother's 50th birthday, complete with their uncle's voicemail; most of us just manage a card.

Also at Kops: more Gojira on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Listenable (cat# POSH325), a reissue of the 2001 album.