Gojira Drop Hypnotizing Clean-Sung New Song ‘The Chant’

Gojira will release their highly-anticipated new album, Fortitude, on Friday (April 30) and have just dropped “The Chant,” the mesmerizing fifth single from the record which features a pair of surprises — clean singing and a guitar solo.

“The Chant” follows “Another World,” “Born for One Thing,” “Amazonia” and “Into the Storm” and is the most atypical among the bunch, which is a testament to Gojira’s creative vision as the past four singles all offered something fresh among what will now be a seven-album catalog.

Slugging onward at a mid-tempo pace, the latest offering from Gojira is a primal, cleansing track mostly centered around one driving, hypnotic riff and a melodic, droning “Oh-oooh-oh-oh” chant that should sound positively thunderous when Gojira return to the road and thousands of fans lift their voices in unison.

One distinct element of “The Chant” that is quite new to Gojira is a bluesy guitar solo that comes in during the bridge. The band has notably strayed from the use of solos in their music and instead typically lean toward some lead guitar bits or tapping to emphasize a melody as needed, such as in “Silvera.”

Of that change in direction and evolution as a band, vocalist and guitarist Joe Duplantier told Full Metal Jackie, “When we started, we had that ambition to create something that is violent and dissonant and weird and was going to surprise you all the time. And we were really focused on that death metal vibe that we had at the beginning. We were heavily influenced by bands like Death or Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, really all bands from Florida, really [laughs].”

“But we had that rock dimension,” he added, bringing things back to the current.

“That’s more a traditional dimension that comes from Led Zeppelin or Jimi Hendrix or Pink Floyd, growing up and listening to more classic bands,” Duplantier explained, “And I think it’s starting to come out and could come out naturally. Now that we’re older and we have a desire to create something that is more maybe grounded and that takes time to express itself. And it feels really weird because we feel more grown up.”

Listen to the newest Gojira song toward the bottom of the page and read the lyrics (via Original Lyric) below. Pre-order your copy of Fortitude here.

Keep up with each week’s new songs by following Loudwire’s ‘Weekly Wire’ Spotify playlist, featuring 50 tracks with updates each Friday afternoon.

Gojira, “The Chant” Lyrics

You were told to swallow, crawl, and hide
Victims of fear and deception
Get a hold of yourself, rise above
A better part of you, immortal

May this [???] spring flow in your soul
Exhausting all these black holes inside
Wake up to the sound of doom
Let this chant ring in your bones and lift you up

Get strong
Get strong
Get strong
Get strong

You can run me high then climb up the sky
Wake up to the sound of doom
You can run me high then climb up the sky
Wake up to the sound of doom
You can walk me high then climb up the sky
Wake up, wake up
You can walk me high then climb up the sky
Wake up to the sound of doom
You can walk me high then climb up the sky
Wake up to the sound of doom

Gojira, “The Chant”