Gojira have unveiled the stunning animated music video for the song Sphinx, taken from the band's seventh album Fortitude.
No strangers to high concept music videos, Sphinx sees the prog metal masters playing at the foot of Egypt's titular colossus as a solar eclipse awakens a stone titan on the other side of the earth, who then unleashes his wrath upon humanity in the form of a city-dwarfing tidal wave.
Directed and animated by Zev Deans, the video continues Gojira's trend for exploring environmental activism and the impact of global climate change, albeit in this case in the form of a colossus that has had enough of humanity's failures to take itself into account. Accompanied by some of the most open Morbid Angel worship in Gojira's back catalogue, the song is a typically thunderous effort from the band crowned 'the best band of the decade' in Hammer earlier this year.
Speaking to Hammer about Fortitude's social and environmental themes, singer Joe Duplantier said, “I’ve been talking to people that are wearing bulletproof vests, sending their children away because they’re scared for their lives. So it’s pretty dramatic. We’re hoping to communicate on that and really try to help, because our music represents that. It’s the strength of the forest; the force you find in nature is influencing us. Volcanos, waves and giant trees. So we almost have a responsibility to honour and protect it."
Earlier this year the band also got involved with Operation Amazonia, a philanthropic effort aimed at ending genocide and ecocide in the Amazon. With the digital platform Propeller, Gojira raised over $300K via an auction and raffle of one-of-a-kind items donated by the band and their peers in Metallica, Tool, Slipknot, Slayer, Slash and more. All proceeds are to be donated to the indigenous-owned NGO The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil who advocate for environmental and cultural rights of indigenous tribes in the Amazon.
Gojira are currently out on a US headline tour alongside special guests Knocked Loose and Alien Weaponry. The band are due to return to the US in 2022 as main support for Deftones in April, following a tour of Europe in early 2022 that will see the band headline UK arenas for the first time, supported by Alien Weaponry and Employed To Serve.
Fortitude saw the band achieve some of their highest chart positions yet, landing at #1 in Billboard's 'Top Albums' chart, as well as #12 on the Billboard 200. The band also made Top 10 debuts internationally in countries including France (#2), United Kingdom (#6), Australia (#3), Germany (#8), Belgium (#2), Netherlands (#4), Denmark (#3), Portugal (#4), Finland (#2), and Norway (#10). It's out now via Roadrunner.
