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Originally known as Godzilla, Gojira has long established themselves as one of the best death metal bands. It took a while for them to get the recognition they deserve but 2012’s L’Enfant Sauvage was a game-changer.
With so many great tracks, trying to pick the best Gojira songs was a very tough task. In the end, I came up with 20 that are simply incredible.
Read on to find out what they are!
List of the 20 Best Gojira Songs
1. Flying Whales
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-XaaTqOICU
“Flying Whales” is one of the most prominent tracks from their third album From Mars to Sirius. It starts slowly with a simple guitar intro and a chilled vibe. This song is slow-building, featuring some beautiful whale sounds in the background. At around two minutes, the song then bursts into life.
Gojira seems to have the art of making deep heavy metal, but giving you a sense of calm at the same time. They do that here around six minutes into the song where you hear the deep drop. This track is groundbreaking for its environmentalist lyrics which you don’t often get from other bands in this genre.
2. Stranded
Starting with a hardcore drop, you know this song is about to be epic. This is a perfect example of how powerful and beautiful metal music can be at the same time. Stranded is the first single released in their album Magma in 2016 and instantly became one of the best Gojira songs.
Joe and Mario were losing their mother during the writing process which is where the lyrics “Don’t lock the door on me, you’d kill me, face down, dead another part of me falls for you” come from. We assume that Joe’s mother is not letting him see her. This song has a deep meaning, as many of the songs from Magma do.
3. Silvera
Silvera is another epic track from the Magma album. Starting with heavy guitar riffs, we soon hear the epic drums stand out. Mario Duplantier is an underrated drummer and he shows it here as the intricacies of his parts of the song tie the whole thing together.
The guitar riff by Christian, featured in the majority of the song, adds to the masterpiece. I think my favorite part of the song is the end. “You’re receiving the gold of a better life. When you change yourself, you change the world.” Another example of their brilliant lyrics.
4. The Art of Dying
“The Art of Dying” was part of Gojira’s 2012 Album The Way of All Flesh. It’s an epically long song at nearly 10 minutes. It starts slow, you hear what sounds like a clock ticking as you’re waiting for it to explode. Then erupts a drum solo from Mario.
Joe’s vocals are absolutely brilliant and make the song even better. The lyrics in this song are very deep, you have to listen to the song a couple of times to understand the meaning. This song is pure poetry, with its deep heavy lyrics, and shows why Gojira are so loved by their fans.
5. Oroborus
Oroborus was released in 2014 for the album “The Way of All Flesh”. The opening riff by Christian Andreu provides an amazing beginning to this song which is almost space-like. The pacing, the style, the vocals, the composition, and the incredible drumming by Mario equal one of the best Gojira songs.
If you listen to the lyrics, you will instantly fall in love with its philosophy. The Oroborus is a symbol of eternal life with the snake eating its own tail, the song also mentions the Phoenix rising from the ashes. As the last line of the chorus says, “Death is just an illusion”.
6. Born in Winter
“Born in Winter” was a part of their breakout album L’Enfant Sauvage which helped spread their music to a much wider audience. The beginning of this song starts out slow, so when the explosion of noise happens, it is very pleasantly unexpected.
When you first listen to the song, you don’t expect the meaning to be so deep. It gives hope to people suffering from anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses. The band has never been afraid to tackle difficult subjects and do so with fantastic lyrics.
7. New Found
“New Found” is a brilliant track on their latest album, Fortitude. The pick scrape patterns and jab chords in this song are wonderful. The riffs are, as always, excellent. The drop at 5 minutes in, is what makes the song so great.
This track is all of their best bits from each album rolled into one. It was their highest-charting album which is evidence of their increasing popularity. It reached the top 10 in France, UK, and Australia among others while hitting a peak of 12 in the US charts.
8. Another World
Another World is one of the best Gojira songs from their latest album Fortitude and is the third track from it. Gojira has some of the most hypnotic riffs in metal and this song is the perfect world. The song is about trying to escape to another world but not quite finding it.
You only have one planet and cannot escape from it, nor the consequences of your actions. It carries a very strong message that we can all resonate with. It’s another one of their tracks that shows off their incredible musicianship.
9. Only Pain
“Only Pain” is one of Gojira’s less popular songs commercially but I love it and it’s also a fan favorite of many. As you listen to the blast beats and repetitive breakdowns, it leads you to have even more appreciation for this incredible band.
The moment you hear Mario’s drums open up the track, you just knew the song was going to be awesome. They make the song sound enormous and it’s a hidden highlight from their truly brilliant Magma album.
10. Born for One Thing
“Born For One Thing” was the lead single from the album Fortitude and it’s easy to see why they chose it. Jean Michael has not received enough appreciation for his amazing talent, so to hear his work as a bass player shine here is brilliant.
With each and every album, Gojira improves and gets better, always taking it to the next level. It’s no wonder they’re seen as a technical death metal band as their playing here is faultless. This shows their musical proficiency while showing that they can still write a phenomenal song.
11. Grind
That’s an appropriate title for a song if I’ve ever seen one. The beginning of this song makes it feel like a chainsaw is grinding in your brain but in a good way. It’s so disorienting and chaotic and one of those songs that demand headphones for the full effect.
After assaulting our ears like that, the French quartet drops the song into something a little more melodic. Their reflective instrumental section with a backing chorus is genius. It’s their last song on their latest album which shows that the best Gojira songs may be yet to come.
12. The Cell
People like Mario Duplantier make me question what’s possible. I don’t think if I spent 10 years learning the drums I could play this song. It sounds like he has four arms and two drum kits, each operating on different sides so that he can play two grooves at the same time.
From 2017’s Magma, this song has a disquieting video, featuring negative footage of the band playing and touring, along with some odd imagery. There’s nothing inherently disturbing about the video, but the negative filter makes it feel like we’re seeing into a different dimension. Also, I have photosensitive eyes which makes it even more jarring!
13. Into the Storm
“Into the Storm” is an anthemic song. The death metal legends always try to call out attention to some of the issues in modern times, but in this song, they actually call for the audience to rise up and fight. Here it feels like they are gathering troops for a revolution.
Off their latest album, Fortitude, the song feels like the band is trying to create a closing track for all their future concerts. This sounds like the last song from a setlist to leave your audience craving for more, maybe to come back a couple of minutes later for an encore.
14. Amazonia
The main riff that carries the song along feels like a slinky moving back and forth, taking you on a wild ride for just under five minutes of bouncing rhythms. The musicianship here is just breathtakingly good. It’s hard to see how anyone who loves music couldn’t appreciate this song.
The Duplantier brothers have always been ones to spread the word on environmental topics, and this song is one of the hardest and most relevant to our world today. It touches on the ravaging wildfires that have destroyed the Amazon rainforest in recent years.
15. Pray
This song is heavy almost to the point of being guttural. That’s probably due to the emotions that brothers were going through at the time due to the loss of their mother. If ever grief had an anthem, it would probably be “Prey”.
Listening to the song is a melodic and ambient experience. This song has a little bit of everything despite not having many lyrics. You can sense that they poured their heart and soul into the Magma album and it resulted in epic tracks like this, which remains one of the best Gojira songs.
16. Sphinx
I just love it when Joe goes all demonic with his vocals, and he thankfully gives us a taste of that at the beginning and near the end of this song. The song is about how the sphinx in Egypt has seen civilizations rise and fall, and will continue to do so.
It’s an example of how Joe Duplantier sees the world a little differently. The song itself has more of an old-school death metal feel and an intro that sounds like an homage to Metallica. We also hear some legendary pick scraping.
17. Hold On
The beginning of this song sounds like a contorted country song, which catches you completely off-guard for a second. That opening vocal belt leads into a short instrumental section that slowly transcends into Gojira’s galloping riff.
This is a track that may be the best Gojira song for anyone who’s never heard of the band but is interested in their work. It features the usual grooves sprinkled throughout some of the most melodically satisfying music they’ve crafted to date. It’s brilliant songwriting.
18. The Shooting Star
Something that can’t be said about Gojira very often is that their songs are catchy. Here’s an example of disruption to that notion, featuring clean vocals and a relatively simple rhythm that, though heavy, still manages to be easy to follow and groove to.
It perhaps wasn’t what the hardcore and purist Gojira fans wanted to hear following The Way of All Flesh and From Mars to Sirius but all bands evolve. “The Shooting Star” is an undeniably good song and the band has shown since that the heavy songs will still be there.
19. Low Lands
This song starts chilled out and mysterious, reminiscent of “Flying Whales”. When the classic Gojira sound drops later in the song, it hits amazingly hard. Once the euphoria of groovy guitars wears off and you focus on what Joe is saying, the meaning of the song hits.
As with other songs from Magma, it’s about the Duplantiers’ mother. Mario and Joe’s mother has inspired their music since the very inception of the band, and she remained to be a very prominent figure in their careers. This song is about her, and her death, and how the brothers were affected.
20. Vacuity
Gojira can be very abrasive, especially in their earlier years, and this song, from the first second, hits you with a wall of violent sound. For those of us that love when music does that, this song is just too good and may well be the best Gojira song.
Taken from the underrated The Way of All Flesh, the song also features the irresistible head-bouncing rhythm we all know and love. It has a great video too! Many purists see this as their best album and with songs as good as “Vacuity”, it’s hard to disagree,
Justin is an audio engineer with years of experience in the field. He has been creating and playing music his entire life, but he really found his passion for engineering when he was introduced to Logic Pro at age 10. Justin has spent countless hours perfecting his craft and now works as a freelance engineer out of Boston, MA.