Gojira “Still Working” on Sea Shepherd EP, Should Be Released Around the Same Time as the New Tool Album

It’s been so long since Gojira announced that they were making an EP to benefit Sea Shepherd that one could be forgiven for not even remembering that there ever was such an announcement. But it was a really big deal at the time, because a) anything Gojira do is a big deal, b) Sea Shepherd is considered controversial in some circles, and c) it was set to feature guest appearances by Max Cavalera, Devin Townsend, Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal, Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe, and In Flames’ Anders Fridén. But as of May 2011, only one track, “Of Blood and Salt” — featuring Thordendal and Townsend — had surfaced…

…and when I asked Joe and Mario Duplantier about the EP later that same year, while they were recording L’Enfant Sauvage, Joe told me this:

“We’re almost done; we just have to add a couple of things.  When we were almost finished, we had a computer crash, and lost the hard drive.  We’re still trying to get some stuff off of it.  We have vocals that people sent, and some bass that we recorded.  We arranged a lot of stuff after Los Angeles, because we had to hurry when we were there.  Back in France, we recorded some stuff, and then we lost that.  We still need to re-record some stuff and maybe hopefully we’ll get the vocals out of this hard drive that crashed… We sent [the crashed hard drive] to a guy in France who took forever to come back to us.  We had to chase him, and at the same time, prepare the new album.  When it’s a nonprofit thing and people do things for free, everything takes more time, which is normal.  Everybody has to work and do their stuff to feed their families.  You cannot push people and go, ‘Do that and that.’”

Which is all fair enough! But that was almost six years ago, and as you may have noticed, there is still no Sea Shepherd EP. By the time Magma came out last year, I think most Gojira fans had made their peace with the loss of the EP; I mean, Gojira have released two full-lengths since they announced the EP, so, y’know, it’s not like we’ve been hurting for new music.

I say “had made their peace” because now Mulatschag has conducted a new interview with Mario about the EP, and Mario seems to think it will still come out some day:

“We just wanted to put a spotlight on them, so Joe had this idea of doing an EP and selling the EP and all the money goes to them, to help them. Finally, we started working in the EP, but the hard drive crashed. We couldn’t [finish] the project, but we’re still working on it. The goal was to talk about them. They work, they fight for something very important, we feel. We respect them so much, so that was a goal.”

So now the scab has been ripped off. Good luck not scratching it. I love Gojira, but few things are more painful in life than a little bit of hope in a hopeless situation. The silver lining is that there will probably be five to ten more Gojira albums and a Necrophagist reunion by the time the EP actually does come out, so, again, at least we won’t be hurting for new music.

[via Metal Injection]