Most of the songs on ‘The Link’ start of with a mid-tempo section that builds op gradually to a faster typical death metal tempo. The refreshing part of this is that you only get a small bit of the full up-tempo action. Most death-metal acts exploit this speeding pace from beginning to the end which makes it less original listening to. In between a few tracks you get the time to relax with a few musical journeys from other cultures. My favorite songs of the record are ‘Remembrance’ and ‘Embrace the World’ in which groovy blast beats get substituted with higher pitched vocals. Speaking about vocals, the singer really impresses me because of his capability of using different styles. On the first track ‘The Link’ I hear a ‘Derrick Greene’(Sepultura) sounding voice from the time of ‘Against’. On other occasions I recall the voices of ‘Jonathan Davis’(Korn) and Serj Tankian (System Of A Down) but I doubt that they contributed to this album. Nevertheless this just shows what ‘Joe’ from Gojira can do with his vocal chords and doesn’t mean that the music has anything in common with the above mentioned bands. But you do come across some tribal influences from Sepultura’s period of ‘Roots’ from time to time.

As a whole this record is very original and shows a high quality performance. This being the second release of the band could make it possible for new doors to open.

written by Andrej Van Berlo

Playing time: 47.08