BRAIN-WRESTLING WITH GOJIRA

I know this semi-intentionally hilarious guy from Australia who's all into body-building and shit. He wears a singlet (above) at the gym and never I mean never misses an opportunity to drop outrageous Aussie sex slang. To get a boner is to "bar up." Tits are "knocks." A super hard-on can be described as "blue steel" whatever the fuck that means. I love the guy, but yeah he's a walking penis. Once he yelled at me for neglecting to invite him to an impromptu sausage party, at which we watched the DeNiro-Pacino classic Heat. In consolation, I lent him director Michael Mann's follow-up, The Insider. He later returned it to me with a scrunched-up face, saying "this is proper garbage this one. Heat shits on this." I opened my mouth to reply when a co-worker, also Australian, blurted out "Probably because enjoying The Insider requires half a brain, wanker." 

I wish I could let loose both of those fiesty Aussies on silly Cosmo Lee of the pretty cool Invisible Oranges blog, who reviewed Gojira's The Way Of All Flesh for asswipe Pitchfork last week. No offense, but the "requires half a brain" theory applies here. 

The performances are flawless, but overly so. Everything is polished to a gleaming sheen. When the band tries to swing, like in "A Sight to Behold", it comes off as, well, white. Heaviness is in no short supply; "Vacuity" is a single-minded stomp, while the title track pounds chugging riffs into the ground. Without edges, heat, or blood, though, such punishment is joyless. To their credit, Gojira avoid metal's tonal clichés in favor of open-ended abstraction. But it's cold and distant, unbefitting of the passionate lyrics. Undoubtedly, this material is better live, where the band has a fearsome reputation. There, the images are of raised fists and flying hair. Here, the images are of plastic discs and 1's and 0's.

Yeah this is like paragraph six, capping off a thousand words of "I don't get Gojira" whining. It's a weak angle, and readers can see the doubt creeping into Lee's blathering that perhaps The Way Of All Flesh isn't open-ended in the name of abstraction, but in reluctance to draw musical conclusions where lyrical ones abound. Not to get all sanctimonious but the issue is that Gojira leaves some dots unconnected, like Michael Mann. But it's too late; Lee has committed to his cop-out. I know this is 'Merica and everyone is entitled to his or her opinion but... Ok I don't know how to finish that sentence.