Gojira

L’Enfant Sauvage (Roadrunner)

Song, the universal tongue, camouflages most accents, but not always that of Joseph Duplantier, this French quartet’s monarch. With co-everything/drummer Mario Duplantier and second shredder Christian Andreu, the titular Wild Child produces a tight-knit tonal palette on Gojira’s fifth album, the titanic propeller riff of the title track tomahawking back on both “Mouth of Kala” and the melted bends on “The Gift of Guilt.” Clean vox dilute the finale, with its hints of fellow Gauls Alcest (“Born in Winter”), but L’Enfant Sauvage, like almost five-hour DVD/CD combo The Flesh Alive, is the merde. ***.5

This article appears in August 10 • 2012.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.