Gojira - From Mars to Sirius 2LP

Although their first two efforts, 2000's Terra Incognita and 2003's The Link, had been quite impressive in their own ways, Gojira's third album, 2005's From Mars to Sirius, was the one that really stamped the French quartet's all-pro credentials, gaining them access into the exclusive top echelon of the world's progressive metal elite. Meticulously conceived from the inside out, the record radiated a newfound confidence to match both the unprecedented diversity of its musical palette, and the evocative cover art (featuring a whale adrift amongst mystery planets) representative of its often otherworldly qualities. Yes, the band's primary influences -- Pantera's heavy grooves, Meshuggah's icy technicality, Neurosis' post-metal atmospherics -- were still very evident in complex new musical excursions like "Ocean Planet," "From the Sky," and "The Heaviest Matter in the Universe" (listen for their shared, Dimebag-inspired, jarring guitar-squeal effect). But the way in which Gojira were deco