Gojira
Photo: Prosthetic Records

If you're not exactly sure how to pronounce "Gojira," don't fret — neither does Joe Duplantier, who fronts the French death-metal outfit of the same name.

"I don't know, myself, how to pronounce it correctly," he confessed with a slightly embarrassed chuckle to Metal File last week, in between tracking vocals for the band's upcoming fourth LP, The Way of All Flesh, which is slated for a Stateside release October 14. "In France, people say Go-gee-rah, and some say Ga-jeer-uh, but I think the right way is the Japanese way: Go-jeer-ah. That's the one I always go with."

You say to-may-toe, I say to-mah-toe — let's call the whole darned thing off. After all, Gojira have a lot going on these days. In addition to self-producing The Way of All Flesh ("We have many loans," Duplantier said), their much-anticipated follow-up to 2005's From Mars to Sirius, the guys are planning out their fall tour plans, working on ideas for album number five, and working on their broken English. Duplantier said he'd like to move to New York — his "favorite place on Earth" — for a year "to improve my English."

But first, let's talk about the new record. According to Duplantier, Flesh is a conceptual work, focusing on the morbid topic of death.

"That's the theme — it's about death itself," he explained. "It's also about the immortality of the soul. That's the main subject for us. Since we started to play and release albums, we've always talked about the same thing: the soul.

"This album's got a more dramatic feel to it, and some of the lyrics are almost cynical," continued Duplantier, who worked with the Cavalera Conspiracy on their latest LP. "Usually, with my lyrics, I'm always positive. But on this album, I'm so pissed off with the situation on Earth right now, how we're abusing so much, and we take everything that we can take from the ocean, and we kill off endangered species. So in some of the songs, it's almost like a requiem for the Earth. This record is a lot darker — like, a lot darker, I would say. The music is darker and more violent."

At times, he said, the mostly midtempo material — including the tracks "The Art of Dying," "Esoteric Surgery" and "Yama's Messengers" — bears an almost old-school thrash sound, like Slayer's earliest material, while other tracks incorporate elements of hardcore. When the album drops (or leaks — whichever comes first), fans will discover that some tracks boast unusual atmospherics, while others are punctuated by their tortured melodies, all backed by pig-on-fire vocals, compliments of Duplantier. Machine Head's Logan Mader will be mixing the effort.

"I think that, probably, some people will be disappointed by some things we did on this album, but there is also a very logical evolution of our music since From Mars to Sirius," Duplantier said. "It's pretty much what we want to hear from a band, and that's been our goal since the beginning — to play music we could enjoy. And for the first time, we are happy with the sound we've achieved by being our own producers for all these years. We've never had an external person telling us what to do, and for the first time, we're very happy with the sound, because it's just so powerful"

Duplantier also promises a surprise cameo on the effort by someone he claims will be well-known to the band's U.S. fans. He wouldn't discuss the collaboration any further, "because I'm not allowed to. You'll just have to wait."

And even though the band is still recording The Way of All Flesh, the singer said he's already looking to the future. "Some of the songs we wrote didn't fit with the rest of this album, so we're holding them over for later," he said. "And we have tons of riffs. ... The fifth album's already on our minds."

While Gojira have no immediate U.S. touring plans, Duplantier said they will be crossing the pond in October for an American trek. They're also hoping to acquire the rights to the 1926 Italian silent film "Maciste all'Inferno," he said.

"In 2003, we were invited to play this big festival in the south of France, but they wanted us to compose an hour and a half of material to play live, during the projection of this movie," he said. "We watched the movie for a week and worked on brand-new music, just for this movie. Now, we want to put it on a record or release it as a DVD with the movie. We want to do it now. We want to record it, but we have to promote the new album for the next two years."

The rest of the week's metal news:

Right now, you can head over to the Roadrunner Records Web site and download the title track from All Hope Is Gone, Slipknot's forthcoming LP, for free. And starting July 1, you'll be able to hear more material from the disc, which won't be in stores until sometime later this summer, when the record's first single, "Psychosocial," will be added to iTunes and other digital-download retailers. ...

Last week's column promised that this week, we'd be brining you a feature on Judas Priest and their new album, Nostradamus. Well, that story actually popped up on MTV News' site on Thursday. You can check it out here. ...

According to guitarist Kerry King, Slayer's upcoming album could be out before the year's up. In an interview with writer Joel McIver, excerpts from which can be found here, King said, "We're supposed to have [an album] ready at the end of the year. There's been talk of all kinds of odd things, because the record industry changes every day. We've talked about maybe putting out a couple of songs from an upcoming record through iTunes, so we can play something new on the Unholy Alliance III tour. You know, that's not so far outside the realm of possibility. As far as how much we're gonna get done by the end of the year? I have no idea." Hey, fellas — please, just take your time with this one. ...

The Deftones are hard at work on their next album, which one source close to the band told Metal File "sounds nothing like what they've done in the past." Eros, which could be out before 2008 expires, will, according to bassist Chi Cheng, be "heavy as f--- with a sh--load of groove. ... I always say this sh--, but I truly believe this album to be well worth the wait and appreciate all your support and kind loyalty." ...

Unearth have begun work on the follow-up to 2006's III: In the Eyes of Fire. The yet-untitled effort is being eyed for an October release. Produced by Killswitch Engage's Adam Dutkiewicz, the record, according to a press release, will feature the band's "most dynamic material to date." ...

Walls of Jericho, 36 Crazyfists, It Dies Today, Sea of Treachery and Flatline will be hitting the road together in August for a string of live gigs. That trek commences August 20 in Syracuse, New York, and dates are booked through August 31 in beautiful Mokena, Illinois. ...

Iced Earth's forthcoming album, The Crucible of Man (Something Wicked Part II), has been scheduled for a September 9 release. Look for it to include the tracks "The Sacred Flames," "Crown of the Fallen" and "I Walk Alone." ...

Darkane's forthcoming CD, Demonic Art, is currently in the mixing phase. While no release date has been etched in stone yet, it's looking like the disc will contain 11 tracks, including "Variations of an Eye Crush," "The Killing of I" and "Wrath Connection." ...

Cattle Decapitation plan to return to the studio in August with producer Billy Anderson to finish tracking their next LP, which has yet to be christened. Expect the disc to feature more macabre material from these kings of deathgrind, including "Tooth Enamel & Concrete," "We Are Horrible People" and "The Body Farm."

• Deftones
• Slipknot
• Gojira

Arch Enemy's Angela Gossow and Michael Amott
Photo: Century Media

Last fall, Michael Amott, guitarist for Swedish melodic death-metallers Arch Enemy, confirmed in an interview with Metal File that Carcass, the legendary British grindcore band he played in during the early '90s, would be re-forming for a spate of live gigs. But while the band has booked a ton of festival appearances overseas, Carcass have yet to announce a single U.S. date.

The File spoke to Arch Enemy frontwoman Angela Gossow (and Ammott's fiancee) last week, just before the band played the final date on the sold-out Tyranny and Bloodshred Tour, with support acts Dark Tranquillity, Divine Heresy and Firewind. Gossow told us that while nothing has been made official, "there is something in the works for the States."

According to Gossow, Carcass have been approached about a possible U.S. headlining run, but the right offer hasn't come to the table yet. "There's obviously huge interest in a Carcass tour," she said. "I'm sure you guys will get it, but nothing has been confirmed or anything."

Gossow and Amott have been engaged "forever," but she says they haven't "found the time to get married yet." If the tour does come to fruition, Gossow said her fiance's life is going to get more hectic than it already is. The guitarist will be pulling double duty with both Arch Enemy and Carcass, because, at the moment, both bands have impossibly full plates.

Arch Enemy, who continue to tour in support of last year's Rise of the Tyrant, have already started working on material for the follow-up, Gossow said. And just six months ago, they hit the studio to re-record some of the band's earliest material.

"We started re-recording the old stuff because, for most people, Arch Enemy started to exist with [2001's] Wages of Sin, because the band got big after I joined," she explained. "Obviously, the band released three albums before that (1996's Black Earth, 1998's Stigmata and 1999's Burning Bridges), and we've been trying on and off to play old songs live. Most of the time, we just get this stare from the crowd, and people think it's a new song or a demo. A lot of young kids haven't heard these tracks, so we just figured we'd re-record them, give them new exposure, and it's going to give us the chance to play them live.

"These songs are 10 years old at this point, and it's going to sound killer," she continued. "Razor-sharp sound — and we'll up the production. The songs will have a little bit of a twist to them; they're going to sound new, even though they're old."

Arch Enemy plan to issue the re-recorded cuts in early 2009, after the release of their forthcoming live DVD, which was shot in Japan in March at a sold-out gig before an audience of 2,500. The footage was captured with 10 cameras, and the DVD will feature tons of backstage footage and interviews, Gossow said.

"We had the Fuji [Pacific] crew doing this, because the boss of Fuji is a huge fan," she said, with a laugh. "Basically, they did it for free, and brought in a crane. You'd never know this guy would like our band, but there are a lot of metal fans out there, and you would never know it, because they look so official, and they're wearing suits. But we're like a metal factory, at the moment. It's so great, because we actually have the motivation and we're just really hungry right now."

The rest of the week's metal news:

The growing beef between Disturbed and the Dillinger Escape Plan got even more interesting this week. It all started when DEP guitarist Ben Weinman claimed in an interview that he'd watched Disturbed practice all their onstage moves during a sound check. Guitarist Dan Donegan fired back, claiming DEP had no idea what it takes to put on as massive a show as Disturbed put on, dismissing the remarks as jealousy. Dillinger fired back on June 2 in a post on their MySpace page, saying Donegan has "little-peen complex" and slamming the band for "sucking." Disturbed frontman David Draiman later said in a radio interview that he respects Dillinger, but that he doesn't "understand what the hell they think they saw with us. ...This is what the big boys do who play stadium shows — they want to worry about how the lights look that they spend so much money on." ...

DragonForce have dubbed their forthcoming LP, which hits stores August 26, Ultra Beatdown. The disc will feature eight tracks, including "The Fire Still Burns," "Heartbreak Armageddon" and "The Warrior Inside." ...

What has drummer David Silveria been up to since taking a "hiatus" from Korn? Starting a new band, that's what. A MySpace page for Satellite Syndrome popped up earlier this week — and has since been pulled down — which stated the band should be releasing its debut album early next year. The group is currently in the studio, recording material for that effort. ...

French progressive-extreme metallers Gojira will issue The Way of All Flesh on October 14. The LP is in the process of being tracked in Los Angeles with producer and ex-Machine Head guitarist Logan Mader. ...

Eerik Purdon has parted ways with Omnium Gatherum. It isn't the first time the bassist has split, and the band still isn't sure why he bolted. "We ain't got a clue really what the hell happened here," the band said in a statement. Omnium are currently on the hunt for a replacement. The band's forthcoming album, The Redshift, will feature 11 tracks, including "Chameleon Skin," "Shapes and Shades," and "Song for December." ...

Walls of Jericho have set The American Dream as the title of their new album, which lands in stores this summer. In other album news, Motörhead will release their next record, Motörize, before the end of the year. ...

Arsis have parted ways with drummer Darren Cesca, and they've already replaced him with Alex Tomlin. Cesca's departure, the band claimed, was due to "differences in personalities and an overall difference in direction."

• Arch Enemy
• Carcass
• Disturbed
• Gojira

Kirk Windstein and Jamey Jasta of Kingdom of Sorrow
Photo: Relapse Records

During late, drunken nights, musicians from different bands often talk about working together on a side project someday. Hatebreed singer Jamey Jasta and Crowbar frontman and Down guitarist Kirk Windstein are no exception. The two became good friends over the years, partying and hanging out on Ozzfest in 2002 and at European festivals in 2003, all the while talking about how cool it would be to get in the studio with one another. Then, during a U.K. tour for Hatebreed's The Rise of Brutality, Jasta and Windstein started taking the idea more seriously. They even bragged about it to the press, which meant by the time they got back to the U.S., news of their collaboration was all over the Internet.

"We kind of had to do it at that point," Jasta told Metal File. "So we decided, 'Dude, let's make this something really cool that's not like what we do in our other bands.' "

At first, that was easier said than done. Windstein flew to Connecticut, and during a studio session filled with heavy, heavy drinking, Jasta, Windstein and a couple of other musician friends recorded a batch of tunes initially intended to be their debut record. Then, after sobering up, they listened back to the tracks and decided that, while there were some good ideas and heavy riffs, the songs sounded too much like a hybrid of Hatebreed and Crowbar. So, they scrapped them, cobbled together some new songs and re-entered the studio with drummer Derek Kerswill and producer Zeuss, who redirected them when things got too familiar.

"Derek was great because he really brought this drum-heavy groovin', rockin' sound to it that really helped us rearrange the ideas and make the songs more cohesive," Jasta said. "The second time around, we spent a lot more time and methodically labored over them, and they really took on a life of their own."

While Kingdom of Sorrow (which came out February 19) features the hellacious howls of Hatebreed, the down-tuned sludge-riffs of Down and the insistent pound of Crowbar, the album also features elements foreign to all three bands. "It's a little of everything," Jasta said. "We have some straight choruses and singing parts, and then we have really slow, sludgy, doomy riffs and some fast, real hardcore songs like 'Lead the Ghost Astray' and 'Begging for the Truth.' "

As refreshing as the project is musically, Kingdom of Sorrow are even more of a reinvention lyrically for Jasta. In Hatebreed, he often writes about self-empowerment, betrayal and rage, never letting down his guard or getting too vulnerable; with Kingdom, he focuses more on loss, personal pain and, yes, sorrow.

"A lot of the songs are about coping with grief and moving on," he said. "I thought about losing different friends and family members that had committed suicide, and I really tapped into these feelings that I had always put a wall in front of. As a musician, you have to try to go to new places — otherwise you stagnate. It felt right. I didn't feel like anyone would say either of us were cheesing out. It's real, and as long as it's real, people will respect it."

One song he's especially proud of is "Screaming Into the Sky," which veers from clean guitar arpeggios and weary, melodic vocals to trudging rhythms, barbed, sludgy riffs and contemptuous screams. In addition to being a welcome diversion for Jasta, it provided an opportunity to finally put some closure on a painful situation.

"It's about losing someone and not having that chance to make amends," Jasta said. "I wrote it mostly about my Uncle Bobby, my mother's brother, who committed suicide many years ago. It's still a painful thing for a lot of people in my family. And I just thought, 'How can we learn from this? How can we move on, as a people, from suicide, and not place blame and not just see all the negativity in it?' It's a hard thing for people to try to see something positive in a very hurtful, negative, tragic situation, but if you can get one bit of positivity from it, you're in a better place mentally and you'll live a better life."

The rest of the week's metal news:

Between the Buried and Me, Giant and Lye by Mistake will be teaming up for a brief of run of shows starting March 30 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. That trek runs through April 11 in Charlotte, North Carolina. ... After releasing what was arguably one of the best records of 2005, From Mars to Sirius, French progressive metallers Gojira have announced that they'll soon begin recording their yet untitled new album. The band is eyeing a fall release for the effort. ...

All Shall Perish have revealed they'll be entering the studio in April to begin tracking their forthcoming LP; the album will be released on Nuclear Blast Records. According to a statement from the guys, they've been writing material for the last three months and have "probably created enough music and riffs to fill up two CDs." The band continued: "These new tracks are super-intense, crazy, melodic at times and are all played with extreme passion from our hearts." ... Legendary New York hardcore outfit H20 have finished tracking their upcoming, yet untitled record, which was produced by Chad Gilbert, formerly of Shai Hulud and currently the frontman for New Found Glory. The disc will feature a number of guest appearances, including those by Civ, Sick of It All's Lou Koller and Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba. Look for it in stores May 27. ...

Ozzfest '07 vets Daath have a new frontman in Sean Z; he replaces Sean Faber, who left the band following its Ozzfest run. Now Daath plan to hit the studio — this weekend, in fact — to record The Concealers, their sophomore effort for Roadrunner Records, with producer Jason Suecof (Trivium, Chimaira). ... Terror have wrapped the recording of their next LP, which should be in stores before year's end. According to bassist Jonathan Buske, "It's without a doubt the best and hardest Terror record to date." ... In other studio news, Cult of Luna are at it again, having entered Tonteknik Studios in Umea, Sweden, where they'll track their fifth full-length. According to the guys, they've assembled eight songs so far, and the yet untitled release should be available this June. ...

How's this for a lineup? Arch Enemy, Dark Tranquillity, Divine Heresy and Firewind, all on the same stage — well, it's happening in May. Starting in Philadelphia on May 9, the tour will coast across North America, at least through May 30 in West Hollywood, California. More dates will be revealed shortly. ... Starting April 24, one of the most hilariously named tours will get under way in Cleveland, Georgia. The Bring Your Own Beard Tour, featuring Becoming the Archetype, Inhale Exhale, Once Nothing and A Plea for Purging, runs through May 12 in Jacksonville, Florida. ... In honor of Carcass' forthcoming reunion gigs, Earache is reissuing the legendary metal band's back catalog May 27; each album will include a DVD containing 30 minutes of a total of two and a half hours of interviews dubbed "The Pathologist's Report." The first album to see re-release will be 1991's Necroticism — Descanting the Insalubrious. ...

Death-metal menaces Cryptopsy are putting the finishing touches on their sixth full-length studio release, which they've named The Unspoken King. Expect the disc to boast the tracks "Anoint the Dead," "Worship Your Demons" and "Bemoan the Martyr." ... Black-metal collective Sulphur continue to write material for their next album. According to the band's label, Osmose Productions, the band is "preparing to record pre-production [demos] of all [the] new songs. You can expect a pretty different album this time, more of those crazy synths and samples, much heavier, intense guitars and a more powerful production." Look for the disc to surface late this summer. ... New York metalcore band Merauder have been writing new stuff for their upcoming set. According to kitman Walter "Monsta" Ryan, the record won't be called Gangsta, as has been rumored. "It's just one track off the CD and may change," he wrote in an update. "When we are all finished with the music and the artwork, we will release it to you as soon as it's ready. We're working hard to make it real heavy for you."

• Kingdom of Sorrow
• Carcass
• Gojira