Gojira‘s latest album was gladly accepted by its fans, but also the people who didn’t know who Gojira is. “Magma” got them two Grammy nominations and a lot of press coverage (for our review go here), even in mainstream press. And of course there’s a tour that comes with a new album. This was that tour and with them they brought Car Bomb and label mates Code Orange, the show in Brussels was sold out and we saw that it was good…

We got there rather late, so didn’t catch enough of the highly experimental and aggressive mathcore of Car Bomb to properly say something about it. But they seem like a band to look into if you’re into complex music and knowing that Gojira has produced their latest album, there must be something interesting there… Second act, Code Orange (***1/2) we actually got to see properly. Throughout the set they switched between harder and more melodic songs, which was very pleasant to listen to and the different singers’ voices complemented each other very nicely as well. Some parts in the songs were very similar to older Gojira songs but with a lot more hardcore influences reminiscent of Cataract. A lot of sound effects were used during their set as well and the noise they used in one of the songs seemed a completely unique combination. The songs seemed to all differ in style from one another and that’s one of their biggest advantages in my opinion.

Setlist
Forever
Kill the Creator
My World
Bleeding in the Blue
The New Reality
I Am King
Slowburn
Ugly
Spy
The Mud

The room was completely dark and when Gojira (*****) started playing the intro of Only Pain it gave many people goosebumps. They continued with The Heaviest Matter of The Universe from the record From Sirius To Mars. After that they continued with a healthy mix from their old albums and the new one. They continued with Silvera and Stranded from their latest album. This is when the pits and walls started opening up and clashing again.

Then, one of the fan’s favourites: Flying Whales. The crowd was very energetic in the beginning, but now nearly the whole hall turned into 50% pit and 50% headbanging and a sea of hair. Literally nobody was standing still at this point. After this, they played something a bit more special: Backbone, but with the outro of Remembrance. Next up: Terra Inc., ‘l Enfant Sauvage and an amazing drum solo courtesy of Mario Duplantier, of course. Right after that, the opening track of Magma, The Shooting Star. Followed by Toxic Garbage Island and the last track they played off of Magma: Pray. They started their encore with an amazing guitar solo, continued with Oroborus and ended the show with Vacuity. Their performance was amazing as expected. The crowd put just as much energy in the show as the band and everyone seemed to be enjoying it together.

Setlist
Only Pain
The Heaviest Matter of The Universe
Silvera
Stranded
Flying Whales
The Cell
Backbone (with Remembrance outro)
Terra Inc.
l’Enfant Sauvage
Drum Solo
The Shooting Star
Toxic Garbage Island
Pray
Guitar Solo
Oroborus
Vacuity

For more pictures of the gig by our photographer Ilse Van Looy, go see our photo coverage here.