Metal Reviews

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I'm quite ashamed to admit I don't actually own any Meshuggah albums, but I've heard a track from this and it's great! Maybe its repetitive nature would get me bored, but I am quite patient, so this is definately on the list!

Metal needs more bands like Meshuggah.

Cool review man.. don't let the score put you off, the 74 is accurate, but increases with the amount of patience you give it and depending on how good your ear is for technicality. The way they take the starting riff and make it evolve almost imperceptably into something completely different is worthy of some sort of music nobel prize.

The quieter moments with just the jazz-toned guitar probably put off a lot of people who wanted this to crush bones all the way through, but again, give 'em time and they're more rewarding than a CD that just slays uniformly.. the atmospherics involved when it's Thordendal alone are absolutely amazing.

I'm a total Meshuggah fanboy, I guess, but when I heard this I felt totally justified. 8)

This album was ok, and deseved exactly what it was given. Some of their songs sounded some what the same, but this is the kind of album you have to really listen to. Im not a big fan of Meshuggah but i liked this album, but i hear that their old albums are pretty sick.

I expect it to be one of my favorites of the year, but it'll take some time and maybe eight or nine more listens.

This one has been discussed very controversly over the internet and review scores range from 0% to 100%. Plus the descriptions are so different that it is hard to imagine that all reviers have heard the same album. Well, at least this is promising something interesting.
And for sure it is. I can not comprehend that this should be overdone, math-like, complicated or whatever. It just kicks plain ass. Another proof, that you can hardly do justice to music by talking about it.
I have no idea how to score this. It's a Masterpiece (90) for serious fans only (40).

I agree with the low rating, it is a good album but not for normal musical reasons. Theres basically no energy/melody/emotion in here, it is more just hypnotic and bleak - 2 things they do perfectly.

Do reviewers on this site have an aversion to Meshuggah? No ratings above 80 for any of their albums?!

After a number of listens, I basically agree with Open Mind's two scores.

If you know what to expect, and actually want to hear it, the album is masterful. But if you don't want to hear what Meshuggah is offering nowadays, it probably isn't going to grab you. Catch 33 was perfect for me, because it's the exact representation of what it is I want to hear when I want something that travels the road Meshuggah is right now. 'I' was cool, but I'm glad they left that alone and went somewhere else on this. You have to be in the right state of mind for it, but if you are, then it's an excellent album.

Also, the production is effing great. Holy shit, I was a bit muddled, but this is perfect, vibrant and crystal clear with a balanced mix. Makes my ears happy just thinking about it.

This was the second time I tried these guys, Contradictions/Colapse being the other album and you know what? I dont get it. I dont play a guitar so maybee I just can not really appreciate all the odd time signatures and stuff but this album just bored me to tears.
Whats the big deal about these guys?

It's cold, bleak, dark, hypnotic, mechanistic...it just happens to be exactly what some people want to hear some of the time. To others it's the complete opposite of what they would want to listen to. Their thing just isn't your thing.

I'm not impressed with this band. The drummer is great, and I know it is difficult to play in though screwed up times, but the all the instruments seem to be bass. I mean just all going along on modulating staccato cadences. I hear no sense of melody or cool chord progressions. Maybe I'm missing the boat, but it sounds like hardcore/metalcore to me, granted with far more technical tempos and time signatures.

Well, I get the feeling that it's meant to be totally unmelodic.. as for chord progressions, the final track "Shed" from this CD has a very interesting sequence of four chords. Personally I think this is far more disciplined and mature music than any metalcore, but you're not the only person to have accused them of such, haha..

I think they achieve what they set out to do, which is create songs that sound and feel like a dystopian, post-apocalyptic future, reminding me a lot of that "a boot stamping on a human face, forever" quote by George Orwell.

with skepticism I note that a lot of the metal/hardcore accusations have surfaced since they got popular.. they've been going since '88. but, haha, I can see that they have a total absence of melodic hooks, followable solos and emotional vocals, which has to be offputting for many people, even metalheads.

I think that is pretty acurate of my feelings on the band. I really require a sense of melody. It can be very very heavy but I still want some sense of flow. Even the best death and black metal bands have a strong sense of melody. I don't mean melodic necessarily, I just rebel against the totally rythm based genres bulit on a chug chug cadence no matter how clever the time signatures and tempos, it just ends up sounding like noise to me. I just can't seem to appreciate bands like Mesuggah, Dillinger Escape Plan, and others of this type. Nevermore seems to have alot of the sycopatic rythms also but always with a strong sense of melody and varies it with cool chord progressions and flow. I guess too much of anything gets old, needs to be varied and layered for it to have significate depth even if it is fairly simple. Anyway, probably a taste thing more or less.

Same problem here... gotta hate chuggah chuggah

i heard the song War and it kicks ass! i mean it fucking RULES!

i heard a few tracks likeglints collide though and i didn't like it at all.

is War in any of their albums? did they go through a stage when they did more stuff like that or is that song an exception?

It's not from an official album, just the "Rare Trax" comp..

They usually don't blast like that, though.. the only other place I can think of where there's that much snaring is during the intro of "I". Their early stuff is more thrashy and less experimental but none of it reaches the aggression of War.

bah. g.a.y

what a shame :/ that song rules imo