Dream Theater wins Best Metal Performance, and Gojira gets to promote their noble cause.

It continues to boggle my mind that metal doesn’t have an album or song category, but new age and even “immersive” (surround dound) do. Why hasn’t this been fixed? As usual, the artists who are nominated grudgingly line up for their chance at the scraps, the booby prize of “Best Metal Performance.” It seems that Dream Theater was simply randomly chosen. I am positive that close to 100% of the voters never even listened to all the songs. I’m not really a fan of that type of polished prog metal, but while Dream Theater are an impressive band, they arguably peaked over two decades ago. When guitarist John Petrucci walked on stage to receive the award, they played an instrumental version of Tomahawk‘s “God Hates A Coward” rather than their song “The Alien.” What was that about? Petrucci gave a congenial speech, and warned that “the song is in 17/8. So don’t try to tap your foot to it.”

Based on creative and artistic merit, Gojira should have won, with their song “Amazonia.” Ever since their first album, Terra Incognita (2001), Gojira has focused their rage on ecological and environmental concerns. Incredibly, the French progressive death metal band have grown to be somewhat of a populist crossover favorite in the past decade. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but it was probably the combination of their consistent righteous messaging and imagery, their amazing musicianship and dedication, and their slightly more accessible sounds on their last three albums. And here we are, Joe getting a fairly long interview where he’s allowed to talk about their fundraiser Operation Amazonia.