Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	79/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Exclaim!	7/10
The Guardian
Kerrang!	A
Metal Hammer
MetalSucks
Pitchfork	7.6/10
PopMatters
Rolling Stone
Spin	8/10

Magma is the sixth studio album from French metal band Gojira. The album was released on 17 June 2016 through Roadrunner Records. The album was recorded at the band's studio in New York City, and was produced by Joe Duplantier, mixed by Johann Meyer, and mastered by Ted Jensen. The album sold almost 17,000 copies in its first week of release in the United States, charting at number 24 on the Billboard 200, making Magma the band's highest sales and chart debut to date. The album has been noted as a stylistic departure from the band's previous albums, featuring a more accessible atmospheric sound and more prominent use of clean vocals. The album was nominated for Best Rock Album and the single "Silvera" was nominated for Best Metal Performance at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards.

In November 2014, Gojira relocated to New York City and construction began on their own music studio in Queens. By April 2015, the studio was complete and the band began recording music. However, recording of the album was put on hold when Joe Duplantier and Mario Duplantier's mother fell ill and died. The band spent some time touring before returning to studio to continue recording. Mixing of the album was completed in February 2016.

Mario Duplantier stated about the lyrical aspect of the album: "When you read Joe's lyrics, for me, I cry right away. They're very deep and to the point. No bullshit. We recycle our sadness and depression in the music."

Joe Duplantier stated about the album's general direction: "We want a short album. Something less epic than what we usually do. People's attentions are shorter now. So a lot of the songs are four minutes." He also stated: "We have some Pantera-ish kind of riffs, which is kind of new for us. But [...] we want riffs to be a little punchier sometimes."

He also explained that the writing process for Magma differed from previous albums, saying that "We do things a little differently. We dump songs, we dump riffs, which we never did before. [In the past] we would prepare 12 songs, get in the studio and record them just exactly as they are on the demos. We decided to do it differently this time."

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Wikipedia