Meshuggah Album: “Nothing”

Every now and then, a band comes along the scene that challenges, confuses, and to some extent, outrages many listeners with their controversial artistic output. When I say controversial, I don't necessarily mean offensive, but, to provoke very strong reactions: whether positive or negative. Meshuggah is a band that fits this description perfectly - at least in the metal community. Come to think of it, I may as well mean to outrage, as Meshuggah has seemed to garner some pretty strong reactions from listeners. The negatives would be along the lines of "this band has no talent, and just make noise like a bunch of children who don't know how to play their instruments," and the positives would be something like "these guys are geniuses."

I'll try to shed some light on Meshuggah's music, though many here have already done an excellent job on explaining what these guys are about. Meshuggah are a math-metal band, and what this means is that they make use of many odd time signatures, and use them in mathematical fashion, which will make the rhythms/tempos (or beats) sound really weird or "abnormal." Not only that, most of their music is atonal, or amelodic, which in sonic terms, seemingly eludes typical (and/or pleasant) melodies. This creates two strong possibilites: (1). Musicians will be the main people who will understand and appreciate this music. (2). Listeners who are only accustomed to standard rhythmic and tonal/melodic music will condemn this as pure "noise."

On 1995's _Destroy Erase Improve_, Meshuggah created a nice balance of standard, aggressive metal, intermingled with polymeters and odd-time signatures. That album was probably the most accessible of these. Their follow-up, 1998's _Chaosphere_ was a fast, monstrous, noisy, suffocating, ultra-heavy, ultra-complex mechanical cyber-grinder, with crazed use of polyrhythms and sonic extremities. So, what did the boys decide to do on 2002's _Nothing_?

Well, for starters, they slowed down the tempos considerably since _Chaosphere_, and the production on here seems much cleaner, as each instrument sounds up close and personal, as opposed to the chaotic, distant, machine-like production on the aforementioned disc. As a result, many of the subtleties are easier to detect, such as Tomas Haake's seemingly octopus-limbed, polymetric drumming. Also, there is use of an 8-string guitar, which produces a thick, beastly, darkly regal, searingly muscular tone full of white-hot passion, and seems like it's coming out of hell, but rising out of the ashes like a phoenix. All of this, combined with the odd rhythms, super-intelligent, enlightening lyrics give this album a strangely alluring, exotic, utter and inexplicable sensuality, which makes the thing not much short of a spiritual experience.

Technically speaking, the tempos on here are slower than usual, and the band uses mostly a 16-quarter beat cycle on the majority of these songs, which allow the band to squeeze in more odd, mathematical rhythms. Also, the band makes large use of what a friend of mine terms "revolving polymeter" (or revolving time signatures), which means that the band plays "time signatures within time signatures." It basically means that two (or more) different time signatures can be present at once, but they both have to "end" or "close" at the exact same time, which in the end (and on the surface), would appear as one time signature all by itself. For example, in the song "Spasm," the opening section seems to play two measures of 7/4, and one of 2/4 (e.g. 7+7+2 = 16 quarter notes/beats) -- or it could be four measures of 7/8, and one measure of 4/8 (7+7+7+7+4 = 32 eighths = 16 quarter notes) depending on how it's notated -- before the 4/4 crash cymbal of Tomas Haake appears. And all along, Tomas Haake is playing a steady 4/4 beat on his hi-hat (32 eighth beats, 4/4 crash on 33rd.) The majority of Tomas Haake's cymbals are in, and end in 4/4 for the duration of the album. This is pretty much how the entire album plays out: odd, mathematical rhythms run rampant throughout. This is pretty much what Meshuggah are about, musically speaking. They don't need to prove how many notes they can shred in five seconds, and they don't need to use blast beats to be brutal.

Elsewhere, "Strengah" is an addictive number with those one or two atonal notes blasting out a super-addictive monster crunch, while Haake, once again is using a 32-eighth beat pattern on the hi-hat, and employing mind-boggling things elsewhere. The ending of "Closed Eye Visuals" features vocalist Jens Kidman letting out what possibly may be his most enraged, ferocious, violent and intimidating growl thus far. And, if you want a slice of melody, check out that melancholic, ponderous, reflective and utterly poignant jazz-like guitar melody at the end of "Straws Pulled at Random."

I have basically lost interest in the majority of metal for the last decade or so, as I found it to become banal, unoriginal and stagnant. Now, that I've found Meshuggah (who are my favorite metal band), my outlook is a bit different. It's quite astonishing and exciting to find metal bands that push boundaries, and employ ideas into metal that others won't, or can't touch. Meshuggah's music is deep, hypnotic, esoteric, complex, cerebral, demanding, emotional and strangely transcendent. Not for everyone, but I highly recommend it to adventurous listeners. Also recommended: Tool and Mudvayne.

Meshuggah did the right thing. Everyone expected another Chaosphere or DEI, but they did the unexpected with a hard left turn towards subltety (for them anyway). I have to admit, when I picked this cd up on the day of it's release and listened to it, I was honestly shocked, and a little dissapointed. I too was expecting the sheer insanity of Chaosphere eleveated to new heights along with classic guitar work of DEI. Now, it is with a better persepective that I review this album. Meshuggah proved their proficiency as artists and musicians by maintaining the disjointed and chaotic nature of their previous albums but with far less playing. They proved they could acheive the same effect and create what is definitely still a Meshuggah album in an entirely different manner than before. I'd call this mastery of the style. How many bands can maintain the essence of what they are all about but radically change the approach.

If you haven't yet heard this album, throw your preconceptions out the window and listen to it with a fresh set of ears. Don't listen for Chaosphere, listen for Meshuggah, and try to pick up on what they're laying down. It's good stuff.

It takes about one minute to recognize "Nothing" as the handiwork of Sweden's one and only Meshuggah. All of the elements that made "Destroy Erase Improve" and "Chaosphere" such triumphant albums are present once again in Meshuggah's latest effort. Vocalist Jens Kidman still wraps his fearsome growl around the thunderous, stuttering guitar riffs of Fredrik Thordendal and Marten Hagstrom. Tomas Haake still brings the intricacy and precision of a jazz drummer to the kit. And the music is as jarring and irregular as ever, with time signatures that Nostradamus would have trouble predicting. Despite the fact that "Nothing" doesn't mark much of an evolution for Meshuggah, and despite the occasional negative comments this album has inspired, I find it to be a step up from its predecessors. Rather than changing their sound for "Nothing," Meshuggah have tweaked and refined their precision metal assault, trimming all excess to create a sound that is leaner and meaner than ever before. Aiding them is a crystal-clear production that enables the listener to hear every pounding riff, every nuance of the drumming, and even (gasp!) some bass. Meshuggah have long been at the vanguard of metal, so there was little room for improvement following "DEI" and "Chaosphere." However, they still managed to make some advancements on "Nothing," and that's truly impressive. This album should only serve to cement Meshuggah's place on the short list of the planet's best heavy bands.

Metal and bland should be something of an oxymoron, yet as I've got older I've found myself increasingly bored with a lot of the scene. Perhaps it's my aging, or that I have honed my tastes...whatever reason, a lot has just become insipid. Thank f**k for Meshuggah then. Along with a small bunch of contemporaries these guys blow the field out of the water, and "Nothing" might just be my favourite of theirs.

"Nothing" has everything I want from a metal album. I won't go through song by song as the album is very consistent in approach; instead I will talk about the overall sound. Firstly, there's a wonderful sense of groove throughout (as a side not, notably slower than earlier releases), thanks to the sublime relationship between Thomas Haake's drumming and Fredrik Thordendal's leads. They carve huge grooves throughout, inter-twining through vast polyrhythmic shapes and syncopated rhythms- the sound is brutally heavy yet oddly hypnotic and trance-inducing. Thordendal's soloing is even more mesmerising, often a wild flurry of seemingly a-tonal tapping, or a jazzy rhythmic attack, or simple eerie atmospheric tones, whatever it may be it is always fresh and compelling. Jens Kidman's vocals are quite behind in the mix, and their short, sharp and gutteral delivery tends to forge more of a rythmic attribute than melodic, further emphasising the wondrous grooves.

While this unique sound requires an extremely refined technical proficiency, one can never accuse Meshuggah of self-indulging. This is a special thing in metal - far too many bands fashion leads who can shred at lightning pace, or drummers who sound multi-limbed etc etc, but it can easily sound pretentious and w**k. Meshuggah tread the fine line brilliantly, simultaneously keeping me in the groove and feel of the song while stunning me with technical precision.

"Nothing" is one of Meshuggah's slowest and heaviest releases, so for those new to the band I would think about what sound you would tend to prefer - "Chaosphere" would be my pick from the more up-tempo releases. For fans of the metal scene that want something wonderfully unique and brutally heavy. A must-have.

The people who have written reviews of this album saying that "Nothing" doesn't constitute anything new for Meshuggah need to listen more closely. Meshuggah's rhythmic approach on "Nothing" attains an unprecedented level of complexity. In fact, the record is so sophisticated and subtle that the complexity is easy to overlook, for a casual listener. The band has started to experiment with expanding and contracting the length of a basic riff over the course of a 16 or 32-beat pattern, so that there are several different versions of a given riff that are stated over a particular cycle--many of the riffs are not symmetrical, rhythmically speaking (see the solo section in "Organic Shadows", among other examples). This technique is easy to miss at first, but it is really shocking once you hear it. In addition, they are stretching the phrases of riffs across consecutive 16-beat cycles in a way that they haven't done before (see "Closed Eye Visuals")...

"Nothing" stands as a strong indication of how deep these guys really are. In this kind of music, most bands only progress in terms of getting louder/faster/heavier/more technical solo-wise, etc., but Meshuggah defies expectations with "Nothing". Fans who are expecting them simply to go further in the directions that they explored on albums like DEI and Chaosphere are going to be dissapointed. "Nothing", like all of their other albums, constitutes a new direction, and a complete world unto itself. For those reviewers (who are also musicians) who think that "Nothing" is nothing new, I would encourage you to do a rhythmic analysis of some of the songs--you'll be in for a BIG surprise. "Nothing" is brilliant--I highly recommend it.