Magma by Gojira

Magma, Gojira's sixth album, came out on Roadrunner on 17 June 2016, and it's the sound of France's heaviest export letting the air in. Joe Duplantier produced it at the band's own studio in New York City, and the death-metal battering of old gives way to something more direct and atmospheric, with Joe singing clean far more often over brother Mario's pummeling drums, Christian Andreu's guitar and Jean-Michel Labadie's bass.

There's grief all over it: the Duplantiers' mother, Patricia, died while they were making it in 2015, and the record is dedicated to her. "Stranded" lurches on a whammy-bent riff that sounds like the floor giving way, and "Silvera" earned a Best Metal Performance Grammy nod while the album itself was up for Best Rock Album. It opened at number 24 on the Billboard 200, their best start until Fortitude, and it became the band's breakthrough.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.