Fortitude Prog find themselves with the world at their feet. Releasing their seventh album, , on the back of 2016’s – their best-selling record to date – and the host of festival headline slots they earned as a result, they have become one of the biggest metal bands on the planet. Yet they didn’t find their success by commercialising their metallic stomp.
They’re still as weird, experimental and avant-garde as ever. “We’re not blind to success; we want to be the next big metal band,” says drummer Mario Duplantier. “We’re very attracted to the catchiness of metal, but we also love the experimental aspect of our music.
So we have this double approach: we want to make the step up and become a bigger band, but we don’t want to lose who we are.” balances on the precipice between their crushing, far-out early work and their matured and more accessible contemporary sound. There’s a yin and yang aspect at play, where jagged prog metal riffs and rhythms interchange with stadium band hooks and moments of beautiful introspection.
It’s no mean feat, but this balancing act has been tipping them towards mastered equilibrium since they first announced themselves onto the world. “The most challenging part of being together for 25 years is finding that fragile and very small area where we all agree on a direction,” Duplantier says. “I knew the other members wanted something very melodic, but I wanted to bring some of the more extreme elements back after .
In .