Gojira, 36 Crazyfists, In Flames, All That Remains

Life can be tricky for metalheads who turn to heavy music to galvanize their conscience. If that sounds like a stereotype, admit it: Plenty of metal bands play into the meathead/douchebag/sociopath thing and do it with pride.

Gojira isn't one of those bands. But Gojira doesn't simply spew pointed political sloganeering either. Instead, the band gets into heady territory and puts its own peculiar, even esoteric, twists on environmentalism and spirituality. For a band to do it within the context of progressive death metal and not be obvious about it should come as nothing short of a revelation to genre aficionados hungering for more than the usual stuff about rotting cadavers.

Don't get the wrong idea: Gojira has bodily obsessions and a preoccupation with mortality too—and indulges them on the new album The Way of All Flesh—but the French quartet elevates its scope far above and beyond the usual treatment offered by their peers. On The Way of All Flesh, Gojira seems to explore death as a way of getting to the life force that runs through everything. Heady—and heavy—indeed.

A bunch of the other type of metal acts open.