Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage [Orange]

L'Enfant Sauvage was Gojira's major label debut and the first record they made after moving to New York. Released in 2012, it trades some of the wide-open eco-mysticism of the earlier albums for something tighter and more personal, built around the idea of the wild child and what it costs to stay free.

The title track is the record in miniature: a hammering, syncopated main riff, a chorus that opens up without softening, and a lyric about refusing to be domesticated. "Explosia" opens the album with nearly a minute of feedback before the drums arrive. "The Gift Of Guilt" builds slowly across six minutes into the most emotionally direct thing the band had written to that point, and "Born In Winter" is the closest Gojira have come to a ballad without giving up any weight.

Josh Wilbur co-produced and mixed with Joe Duplantier at Spin Studios in Long Island City, and the difference in clarity from the earlier albums is immediate. Every layer of Christian Andreu and Duplantier's guitars is separated, and Mario Duplantier's kit sounds enormous without being compressed into mush.

This Roadrunner repress presents the album across two 45 RPM 12-inch records on semi-translucent orange vinyl, cut for extra headroom. The best-sounding pressing of the album available.