Fortitude is the seventh studio album by French heavy metal band Gojira. The album was released on 30 April 2021 through Roadrunner Records. Recorded at the band's studio in New York City, it was produced by lead vocalist Joe Duplantier, mixed by Andy Wallace and mastered by Ted Jensen.
Gojira's ambition was to write a more cohesive and brighter album than Magma, emphasizing a progressive sound while incorporating guitar solos and classic rock elements with a positive lyrical message. The songwriting began in early 2018 but was put on hold due to the band's touring schedule. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the album's mixing, and its release was postponed to a later date.
Fortitude debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard 200 and sold 27,372 units in its debut week in the US, which surpassed Magmas chart performance. The album topped on both the Billboard Hard Rock Albums and Top Rock Albums charts, as well as the UK Rock & Metal Albums chart. The album ranked high on the charts in Europe and sold 9,900 units in France in its first week of release. It peaked at No. 3 on the ARIA Charts. Fortitude was the best-selling album (pure sales) in the United States in its opening week.
Fortitude was met with critical acclaim. Metal Hammer and Revolver named Fortitude the best album of 2021. The album was placed at number three on Rolling Stones list of "The 10 Best Metal Albums of 2021". At the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, the single "Amazonia" received a nomination for Best Metal Performance. To promote the album, Gojira was scheduled to embark on their first arena-level headlining tour in 2022 in Europe and the UK, but it was postponed due to varying COVID-19 restrictions.
Background The creative process of Gojira's seventh album began sparingly in late 2017. Gojira intended to write a "groovy, aerated album" with a strong theme and focused on sharing with the audience, an album where two energies coexist, "both very masculine and feminine". The album was inspired as an encouragement to self-reinforcement, "to show courage to face up the world, to face tomorrow's problems". Having had sustained requests to tour worldwide in support of Magma, beyond the initial cycle, Gojira declined in order to focus on writing a new album.
Recording and production The album's songwriting officially started in early 2018 at New York's Silver Cord Studio, which would become "the cocoon for a two-year creative odyssey". Mario Duplantier mentioned a slower composition process than before due to musical tastes becoming more diversified over the years. The goal was to focus the music on the "big guitar riff" rather than on the performance, with a band cohesion emphasizing this point. The dynamics tended to go towards an organic sound. They used two different guitar amp heads, depending on the songs, and without post-production treatment for a raw result. While retaining their signature style, Gojira extended their range to a "traditional dimension" and started sliding their sound towards the 1970s and 1980s major chords–progressions of "classic bands", embracing melodies and guitar solos. Mario Duplantier "took a back seat to serve the riff" on Fortitude, although he kept the polyrhythmic drumming on some songs. On Fortitude, the band put forward the use of backing vocals and choirs that were already present on the previous albums but "buried" in the mix.
However, the sessions were interrupted by a tour in Europe, and the writing finished after the 2019 Knotfest Roadshow tour throughout the United States and Canada. Joe Duplantier produced the album, and the band recorded it at Silver Cord Studio in late 2019. Mario Duplantier recorded eleven drum tracks in eight days in one or two takes each.
By January 2020, the vocal recordings were finished, and the album was prepared for the mixing stage scheduled to begin on March 10. Andy Wallace came out of retirement to work on Gojira's album. Wallace mixed three songs before the first COVID-19 lockdowns were imposed, while the album was slated for a June 2020 release. Meanwhile, Joe Duplantier, a New York State resident, was visiting his father in southwest France, which complicated the mixing process. Gojira was then unable to rejoin Wallace in Florida due to the sanitary situation. Then Joe Duplantier spent several months in a cabin in the Landes forest without listening to the new tracks and forsook his cell phone and computer. Finally, in July, the band returned to the mixing process over the internet and phone with Wallace. He would prefer to be left alone in the studio, without assistants, being vulnerable to coronavirus infection due to his age, saying he was "infinitely upset not to be with the band". Wallace retained the desire for a raw rendering and the integrity of the spontaneity of Gojira's compositions while bringing "warmth" to the instrumentation. "I really enjoyed this evaluation of the present moment", said Joe Duplantier. The album's release date was then pushed to September due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then failed afterward, and a further postponement was decided upon.
Composition Music Combining the direct approach of The Way of All Flesh mingled with the atmospheric arrangements of Magma, the structure of the songs provided the album an immediacy and more accessibility while offering a return to heaviness. Reviewing the album in Prog magazine, Jerry Ewing wrote that "French metal pioneers Gojira play big prog hand on Fortitude". Fortitude has been described as a combination of progressive metal with a technical approach, groove metal, post-metal, death metal, alternative metal, incorporating progressive rock, stoner rock, Americana, and blues rock elements. "Amazonia" features a "massive bass groove" from Jean-Michel Labadie along with the interactive playing of guitarists Christian Andreu and Joe Duplantier. The latter exhibits a throat singing vocal delivery on the song, incorporating the jaw harp and woodwind instrument. Kerrang! Sam Law noted a British influence on "Hold On", while AllMusic's Thom Jurek echoed this view and compared it to Black Sabbath. The elements of neo-psychedelia were still noticeable after Magmas stylistic direction. Joe Duplantier's voice on the song ranges from "layered, near-chanted vocal harmonies" to "layered and clean" to "snarling". Law described "The Chant" as "chain-gang blues, bayou gospel, bar-room Americana", while Spin felt that Gojira took "some risks" with the song, which includes jangly guitar sound and clean vocals. The "heaviness" stood out on the album, according to Metal Hammer; "Grind" contains an abundance of Gojira's trademark pick-scrapes, while "Sphinx" features guttural vocals thus correlated to The Way Of All Flesh. The shifting rhythms showcase Mario Duplantier's trademark drumming style throughout Fortitude amid "death metal grooves" and blast beats, while "Grind" was described as "heavy, syncopated, technical, and nuanced in production, with raging vocals". Spin summed up the album's sound as "generally lighter and more accessible, leaning on elements of prog and classic rock" and noted that it was "a far cry from the searing technical death metal that fueled the band a decade ago". Jonathan Horsley of Guitar World wrote that the album's accent was deliberately on prog and post-metal and also nuanced by electronic elements. Fortitude has been likened to Tool, Led Zeppelin, Sepultura, Killing Joke, and Iron Maiden.
Lyrics On Fortitude, Gojira took a different lyrical approach than the one explored on their previous album, Magma. The latter was heavily influenced by the death of Joe and Mario Duplantier's mother and had "a lot of pain and grief attached to it", Joe Duplantier said. This time, the band "had the desire to fill the album with more joy, even if it doesn't come across as joyful music". The album would be emphasized by "more power, and more positivity about life in general." Gojira structured the album thematically around the notion of "urging humanity to imagine a new world − and then make it happen". Reflecting later on his state of mind while writing the lyrics, Joe Duplantier observed: "In an uncertain world, chaotic, I choose optimism by default."
Joe Duplantier had been immersing himself in Tibetan and Thai philosophy, which were a source of inspiration for the lyrics of "Born for One Thing", conveying an anti-consumerist message. He said that "We have to practice detaching ourselves from everything, beginning with actual things ... Own less possessions, and give what you don't need away". "Amazonia", which talks about the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest (and specifically the 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires), was released as part of a month-long fundraiser for a Brazilian indigenous rights charity curated by Gojira. The lyrics to "Amazonia" chronicles the reckless deforestation that has accelerated in Brazil under the reign of Jair Bolsonaro, shown in the lines, "The greatest miracle is burning to the ground". "Amazonia" has been described as a protest song and a climate change song. Gojira launched the charity auction on the Propeller platform through a call for solidarity from metal bands such as Metallica, Tool, Slayer, Slash, Sepultura, Deftones, Lamb of God, among others. The fundraiser quadrupled its initial goal of $75,000 and raised over $300,000. A part of the album is a tribute to indigenous communities. The song "Another World" was described as a visionary apocalyptic piece.
Title and artwork According to Joe Duplantier, the album's title Fortitude "is to inspire people to be the best version of themselves and to be strong no matter what".
The cover art, which represents "the spirit of the album", was designed and painted by Joe Duplantier. His brother Mario brought him various paintings of warriors and knights and showed him Pallas Athena, an 1898 oil-on-canvas painting by Gustav Klimt, and Knights of the Round Table. As he wanted to represent an indigenous person, it ended with his own interpretation of all these elements.
Release On 5 August 2020, the band released a new single called "Another World", their first single in four years.
On 17 February 2021, Gojira announced Fortitude and its release date for 30 April 2021 via Roadrunner Records. On the same day, the band released an official video for its lead single, "Born for One Thing". Fortitude marked the longest gap between two studio albums in the band's career.
Singles The single "Another World" became their first Billboard-charting song, debuting at No. 12 on the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales chart. It peaked at No. 5 in its second week. "Another World" debuted at No. 25 on the Hot Hard Rock Songs chart and peaked at No. 12 in its second week. The single scored 257,000 U.S. streams and sold 1,000 downloads in the tracking week ending 6 August. In its first week of release, "Born for One Thing" peaked at No. 22 on the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales chart. In mid-May 2021, "New Found" peaked at No. 24 on the Hot Hard Rock Songs chart, while "Born for One Thing" and "Amazonia" landed in the top 20.
Critical reception
Fortitude was met with acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, the album has received a score of 80 out of 100 based on nine reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".