The Way of All Flesh is the fourth studio album by French progressive death metal band Gojira. The album was released on October 13, 2008 in Europe via Listenable Records and on October 14 in the US through Prosthetic Records. It sold around 4,200 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at number 138 on the Billboard 200 chart. It also reached no. 1 on the Top Heatseekers chart and no. 21 on the Top Independent Albums chart. The album was recorded at the band's home studio while Joe Duplantier produced it. The drums were recorded in Los Angeles and engineered by Logan Mader, who also mixed and mastered the album. The cover features artwork created by vocalist Joe Duplantier, who was responsible for the artwork on past albums.
Writing and composition
Joe Duplantier revealed to Total Guitar magazine that the album deals with their vision about life and death. "The Way Of All Flesh is everything we have to go through until death. I’m 30 years old now and it’s the first time as a human being that I’ve thought about my own death philosophically, and the time that I have to spend here on Earth. It’s something that we’re all concerned about. But it’s almost taboo. You don’t go to a party and talk about death, right?” Duplantier also references the bands that Gojira have toured with as well as the environment and landscape of the band's hometown Bayonne as influences on the writing of this album. Randy Blythe from the American band Lamb of God appeared as a guest vocalist on the song "Adoration for None." At the end of the song "The Art of Dying", there is a small part that is played backwards. If backmasked, the section would bear a resemblance to the song "Esoteric Surgery", which is then repeated at the end of that very next track. A similar technique is used at the end of "Wolf Down the Earth."
Release and promotion
On 6 October 2008, a music video was released for the song "Vacuity", produced by Julien Mokrani and Samuel Bodin. The video was shot near the band's hometown in France, and starred the Duplantiers' cousin, actress Claire Theodoly. On 11 January 2009, Gojira released a second music video from the album, an animated video for "All the Tears", illustrated by Jossie Malis. In March 2013, Listenable Records made a double vinyl format of the album available for pre-order, with the official release date listed as 29 April 2013; 250 copies each of blue and white vinyl were manufactured.
Reception
Critical reception
The Way of All Flesh was met with generally favorable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, based on 7 critics, the album has received a score of 67/100, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic wrote that "by the time it finally emerged in late 2008, Gojira's fourth full-length successfully met most all of the understandably heightened expectations head on". Writing for Blabbermouth, Keith Bergman described the album was "more opaque than anything — oppressive and suffocating in its world-enveloping tone, massive and clanking in rhythm, giving up its dynamic secrets only after hard, painful slogs through the frozen mire of its glowering groan. But once you've broken through, it's quite a new landscape these madmen have blasted out of the tundra for the rest of us." Pitchfork's Cosmo Lee wrote a more lukewarm review of the album, praising the strong performances as well as the subject-matter and "humanity" of the album's ecological lyrical themes, but argued that "this humanity doesn't translate to the music. The performances are flawless, but overly so. Everything is polished to a gleaming sheen. Without edges, heat, or blood, though, such punishment is joyless. To their credit, Gojira avoid metal's tonal clichés in favor of open-ended abstraction. But it's cold and distant, unbefitting of the passionate lyrics. Undoubtedly, this material is better live, where the band has a fearsome reputation. There, the images are of raised fists and flying hair. Here, the images are of plastic discs and 1's and 0's."
Accolades
Track listing
Track listing adapted from liner notes. ;Hidden track The final song and title track of the album, "The Way of All Flesh," contains a hidden instrumental song. The main piece of the track ends at 6:51 and the hidden songs starts in at 12:33 giving the song a period of silence lasting 5:42. The song contains complex layers of ambient guitar sounds with various echo and reverb effects. This song ends promptly at 17:03 and closes the album. A similar tactic was first used by the band in their debut album, Terra Incognita. The original vinyl version does not contain this track; it ends at 6:51. The 2013 vinyl release contains the hidden track.
Personnel
;Gojira
Joe Duplantier − vocals, guitar, producer, cover artwork
