Vidar Landa of Kvelertak and Mario Duplantier of Gojira have a conversation about shared bills, wild audiences, impressions of America, and more. Kverlertak’s new album, Meir, is set for release on March 26 and the band have a massive upcoming North American headline tour (see dates below). Gojira are hitting the road in Europe (for info, visit Gojira-Music.com/Tour) in support of their latest release, L’Enfant Sauvage.

APRIL

21            Chicago, IL                                               Bottom Lounge**

22            Detroit, MI                                               Shelter @ St. Andrews

23            Millvale, PA                                             Mr. Small’s**

24            Cleveland, OH                                        The Grog Shop

25            Columbus, OH                                       Ace of Cups

27            Minneapolis, MN                                  7^th Street Entry**

28            Lawrence, KS                                         Granada Theatre

30            Denver, CO                                               Larimer Lounge

MAY

1               Salt Lake City, UT                                In The Venue

3               Portland, OR                                           Hawthorne Theatre**

4               Seattle, WA                                              El Corazon**

5               Vancouver, BC                                      Rickshaw Theatre**

7               San Francisco, CA                                Slim’s**

8               West Hollywood, CA                        The Roxy**

9               Phoenix, AZ                                             Joe’s Grotto**

11            Houston, TX                                           Fitzgerald’s (Downstairs)

12            Dallas, TX                                                  Club Dada

13            Austin, TX                                                Red 7

15            Nashville, TN                                          Exit/In

17            New York, NY                                         The Studio at Webster Hall**

18            Philadelphia, PA                                   Underground Arts

19            Washington, DC                                    Rock & Roll Hotel**

20            Allston, MA                                             Great Scott**

21            Montreal, QC                                          Les Katacombes *

22            Toronto, ON                                           The Wreck Room *

1. Nachtmystium, “No Funeral”
“I remember a lot of people hating on this song when it debuted, but it’s probably my favorite on Addicts, amidst all the blast beats, trem-picking, and post-punk. With synths up front, drums so distorted they might as well be programmed, and monotone barking, this song sounds closer to dance goth like Electric Hellfire Club or even The Faint than USBM. And at the risk of sounding totally un-kvlt, ‘No Funeral’ is also the most memorable song on Addicts, boasting the album’s catchiest riff–played on a synth! Good luck finding a live clip of this one.”

2. Torche, “King Beef”
“Yes, this is one of those lava-slow Torche jams, but it’s the inclusion of what sounds like a 16-bit steel drum from a Dr. Rhythm that really makes Torche’s debt to Godflesh stand out. Instead of ‘doom pop,’ you get some seriously repetitive and unwelcoming shit, with minimalist drum patterns, zero guitar heroics, and a plodding second half that devolves into downtuned sludge. If you like this, check out the noisier, more organic industrial of Pigface, Young Gods, and, of course, Godflesh.”

3. Gojira, “A Sight to Behold”
“A synth, vocoder, and basic rock beat set ‘Sight to Behold’ off from the rest of The Way of All Flesh. It might sound like the least industrial song on this list, but given Gojira’s penchant for precise, tactical, mechanized chops, they have arguably learned the most from industrial. The verse starts with a slinky Sister Machine Gun-style groove before giving way to the guitar hammer-ons, punishing double kicks, and syncopated curveballs that are Gojira’s trademarks.”

4. The Dillinger Escape Plan, “Phone Home”
“After DEP’s EP with Mike Patton, there were signs that new singer Greg Puciato would continue putting spazzy vocals over the band’s spazzy mathcore. Cool. But for fans who were 43% burnt out on mosh jazz, he didn’t just bring Patton’s vocal range. He brought some mainstream tendencies, like good-cop choruses and Nine Inch Nails worship. This started on Miss Machine, especially with ‘Phone Home,’ a glitchy, sinister tune with a trip-hop beat, lurching choruses, and more dynamics than any other track on this list. It also kills live. Later songs like ‘Parasitic Twins’ and ‘Widower’ could’ve come right off The Fragile.”

5. Blut Aus Nord, “Epitome XVII”
“This is a hard band to pin down, literally and musically. Over 10 albums, Blut Aus Nord have mixed black metal, industrial, darkwave, and more into something very ‘other.’ Which is why Cosmosophy took me by surprise, adding shoegaze to their minor chords, programmed drums, and howls. ‘Epitome XVII,’ the fourth song, takes the French band into shimmering, epic territory, sounding something like an uptempo Jesu or Bathory covering Tears for Fears. If this showed up on a Cleopatra Records comp in the early 90s, a lot of black eye makeup would’ve run for the chins.”

Honorable Mention: Harm’s Way, “Becoming”
“They might come from Chicago’s hardcore scene, but the production on Isolation is metal as fuck. ‘Becoming’ takes Harm’s Way to another extreme, adding industrial flourishes to an already slammed mix of kick, snare, dirty bass, and buzzsaw guitars. Now throw some echo on the vocals? Delay on a couple drums? Gain and gates on the others? “Special hi-hat programming”? Is that a synth towards the end? You could put this song on Filth Pig and no one would notice. Sold.”

By Andrew Bansal

French extreme metal band Gojira carved out a niche for themselves with their unique, atmospheric, environmentally themed early albums, including 2001′s Terra
Incognita and 2003′s The Link.

The band’s fanbase and reputation grew with subsequent releases, such as 2005′s From Mars to Sirius and 2008′s The Way of All Flesh. But it was their most recent release, 2012′s L’Enfant Sauvage, that catapulted them to worldwide success.

I recently caught up with vocalist/guitarist Joe Duplantier to talk about the band’s current North American headline tour, the new album, their recent India gig and more. Read the conversation below and check out the band’s official website.

REVOLVER: You’ve come to the last few shows of your North American tour with Devin Townsend and The Atlas Moth. How has everything been going for you guys?

Everything has been fantastic! We’re living the dream right now, you know [futureusgallerylaughs]. We worked so hard for many years with this band, on this music, and now finally it’s getting to a point where we feel we’re comfortable with the size of the venues we’re playing, the reaction of the crowds and fantastic openers like Devin Townsend and Atlas Moth.

I mean, this configuration right now is really, really good for us. Of course, we had these crazy dreams when we were younger, like one day we will be like Metallica. But we didn’t really know what we were talking about. Where we are at now is really good for us. We don’t wish something bigger than that. We feel comfortable in this configuration.

You were supposed to tour as openers for Lamb of God last year, but that got cancelled and you ended up doing this tour. Did you have to rearrange the set list when you shifted from openers to headliners?

Yeah, when it happened it was a pain in the ass for us. When the album came out, we needed to be on a high-profile tour and do something special. Our first thought was, “We need to headline right away,” because we felt it was time for us to headline. But then Lamb of God came to us with an offer that we couldn’t turn down, so we postponed the headline tour to now, actually, and thought that Lamb of God would be the starting point for this album cycle. And when Randy went to jail, of course it was cancelled and we were mostly worried for him, but it was hard to react to that. So we did a small run on the US East Coast, but nothing more than that. So this is a very important tour right now because it’s the first time for this album cycle we’re doing the West Coast, Texas, Florida and all that.

And I’m sure people must be more familiar with the new songs as compared to when the album just came out.

Yes, that’s true! Absolutely. It’s funny that people in the business tend to push us to play more and more, which I understand, because we have a common goal to grow and promote the band. We talk a lot and they tell us, “If you guys don’t play enough, people are going to forget about you.” And we always thought the opposite. If we stay quiet for two to three years, people will get more excited. That’s what happened for us, because last time we toured in California, for example, was in 2009. We would have 400 people at the shows and this time we have three times more without touring at all. So I think it’s not bad sometimes to take time between tours. So yeah, it’s good timing for us now.

I’ve seen the set list and I think you’ve been playing three new songs. How are they blending with the older songs? Does the whole set flow together?

It’s going pretty well, you know. There’s something very smooth, actually. We were a little worried, before we even started touring, about how we were going to put these songs together. The new album is very different, very atmospheric. Finally it was just a matter of picking the right songs from the old albums and the new album and we have something that’s very homogeneous in this set list. But we’re going to have to reinvent for the next tour and mix other songs from the new album with other songs from the old albums. Because we would like to come back to the States before the end of the year, so we would like to come with a different set list.

Purely in terms of the guitar, how do you compare this album to previous ones?

I remember back a couple of years ago when I was recording the album, I was mostly worried about the type of amps I would use and the type of microphone. But soon I started to understand that it’s the guitar that’s really the core of the sound. If you have a good guitar, it makes a huge difference on the album. We used a number of guitars. Of course, we used Jackson guitars, but we also used Gibsons for some parts to have something with a very tight low end and for the rhythm section. And I really love the Fender Telecaster, which is almost like a signature for our band now.

The Link, which is 48 minutes long, was your shortest album — until L’Enfant Sauvage. Why is that? Has your songwriting became more compact over the years?

We did this on purpose. We wanted a shorter album because our albums are most of the time very epic and draining. You cannot go through the entire album intact, you know [futureusgallerylaughs]. So I wanted to keep it short because I have an experience as a listener of albums like Metallica’s Master Of Puppets. It’s so short, it’s just eight songs. And other albums like Death’s Human also has eight songs.

When I listen to these albums, it’s so good, so intense and short that you want to listen to it and experience it again right away. I wanted people to have the same kind of feeling with our new album. Sometimes when it’s too long, you get turned off. So it helps the identity of a record to have something that is a little shorter with more impact. So this was done on purpose. We had a lot of material, and we could have done this epic, long album like we do usually, but we made it short on purpose.

Do you think you will continue with this same approach in the future?

You know, it depends on the mood. Maybe the next album will be completely epic and experimental and super-long [futureusgallerylaughs]. I really don’t know, but for now I kind of like the short albums.

You talked about Gibson guitars. Other than that, did you make any changes to your setup?

I’m not even sure if I’m allowed to talk about this because I don’t have a written contract with Jackson. But since it’s the same house, I don’t think it’s a big problem. But yeah, I made a very important move. I’m playing with Charvel now, and I’m working on a custom guitar for me to use on stage. But Jackson, Fender and Charvel are under the same company, so it was not a painful move. But I’m moving to Charvel because I really love these guitars and there’s more possibilities to make custom shop models and stuff like that. It’s interesting for me.

You guys recently did something unique. Not a lot of bands get to play in India, and you did that on December 15 at the Indian Metal Festival in Bangalore. What was that like?

It was completely amazing. Playing in India was something we didn’t even dream of, you know [futureusgallerylaughs]. India is so exotic, I wanted to go to India just for myself. At least once in my life I wanted to go there. But I never found the time or the money or the energy. It was a nice feeling to go there to perform and to play in front of people who are so excited. It was very, very incredible. Everything is so different there; I could talk about this for hours. We came back richer, and we feel like we learned a lot just from the experience of being there.

I believe your Wikipedia page says that you’re involved with an environmental organization called Sea Shepherd. Do you still do any work for them?

Technically I’m not part of that organization. The only thing I do is wear their shirts that I buy or the ones they give me, and I promote them and talk about them. Also, I make a donation every month. That’s how I’m part of the organization, because I give them a little something every month. It’s a very small donation, but I feel it’s very important. I do promote them in interviews, through just wearing a shirt on stage and stuff like that, and I think it makes a small difference. I’d like to think it does.

Andrew Bansal is a writer who has been running his own website, Metal Assault, since early 2010, and has been prolific in covering the hard rock and heavy metal scene by posting interviews, news, reviews and pictures on his website — with the help of a small group of people. Up till February 2012 he was based in Los Angeles. After that, he had to move to India, but is still carrying on his heavy metal endeavors with the same intensity.

5. Soundgarden, King Animal
“Most refreshing record of the last few years. I’m very glad they are back and sound like nothing else but Soundgarden!”

4. Jack White, Blunderbuss
“Jack White as a songwriter and a guitarist is incredible. I have a ton of respect for his entire career, even as a producer. This is one of his best records to date.”

3. Gojira, L’Enfant Sauvage
“From the first note of this record, I was entranced and hypnotized. Their use of dynamics and syncopation keep me involved all the way from front to back. Also, some of the drum patterns are the catchiest things I’ve ever heard in metal.”

2. High on Fire, De Vermis Mysteriis
“Matt Pike = ferocious, snarling metal god! Love this record and the way it captures the bands unparalleled live power.”

1. Deftones, Koi No Yokan
“With all of the tragedy that has beset the Deftones, I am in awe of the brutal beauty that this record holds. The tones are by far the best of any record they have done and Chino Moreno’s voice has never been stronger. Chi Cheng must be proud of his brothers.”

5. The Night Flight Orchestra, Internal Affairs
“Nice record. Catchy songs with a cool ’70 vibe.”

4. The Faceless, Autotheism
“This album definitely shows an interesting evolution of this band. I like what they are doing.”

3. Kiko Loureiro, Sounds of Innocence
“This is a really cool instrumental record. Kiko has always been one of my main guitar influences and he keeps playing guitar like no one else does.”

2. Storm Corrosion, Storm Corrosion
“Mikael Akerfeldt and Steven Wilson writing music together…”

1. Gojira, L’ Enfaunt Savage
“They managed to better themselves once again. An amazing record in its entirety.”

In the meantime, we’re asking you to choose 2012′s Song of the Year. We’ve put together a list of the biggest and baddest songs in hard rock and heavy metal below; all you have to do is pick the best. And feel free to vote as many times as you want–until the poll ends on January 1.

UPDATE: The poll is closed. For the results, click right here.

5. Deftones, Koi No Yokan
“You either love ‘em or hate ‘em, but for me they always have some depth in their songs. Not for everyone but always classy.”

 
4. Gojira, L’Enfant Sauvage
“A breath of fresh air for extreme music just like Opeth a few years ago. Definitely a unique sound.”

 
3. Stone Sour, House of Gold & Bones Part 1
“Interesting concept and catchy tunes.”

 
2. Lamb of God, Resolution
“A solid metal album. Lamb of God never disappoint me.”

 
1. Soundgarden, King Animal
“A great comeback from one of the best rock bands of their era.”

5. Jim Florentine, Awful Jokes From My First Comedy Notebook
“Every comic’s first stab at jokes are awful. Not many put them out on an album! What makes it cringe-worthy makes it brilliant.”

4. Derketa, In Death We Meet
“All female death-metal doom. Nuff said.”

3. Six Feet Under, Undead
“Chris Barnes does death better than anyone. Period. Blood.”

2. Gypsyhawk, Revelry & Resilience
“Kick ass Thin Lizzy-flavored hard rock with a fresh vocal approach.”

1. Gojira, L’Enfant Sauvage
“Look at what all the other lists say. I’m sure this is on all of them!”

5. Spawn of Possession, Incurso
“This is one of the most technical death-metal albums you’ll ever hear. The bass performance alone makes it a worthy purchase for any tech-death fan.”

4. Meshuggah, Koloss
“Each song on this album has its own character. Lots of variety–fast thrash parts, interesting mid-paced grooves, sludgy slow riffs–but it’s all tied together by the album’s overall dark vibe.”

3. Gojira, L’Enfant Sauvage
“More great, innovative metal from Gojira. Definitely not a run-of-the-mill extreme-metal album. Nobody sounds quite like these guys.”

2. Aeon, Aeons Black
“Pure death-metal hell from one of my favorite bands. Brutal, memorable songs with killer musicianship.”

1. Overkill, The Electric Age
“These guys are at the top of their game right now, and that’s no small feat for a band with such a history. This album is heavy as fuck, catchy, and precisely executed.”