The First Great Metal Record of 2008

Swedish metal gods Meshuggah come up with album sleeves and titles that would make Neil Peart ralph, and yet they're one of the most exciting, challenging and inventive bands in metal right now. On obZen, their sixth full-length album, Meshuggah are also one of the best metal bands in the world, and the current front-runners for metal album of the year.

obZen has been described as one of Meshuggah's more accessible efforts, which is like calling a Slayer album slow. Being Slayer, it's still going to out-thrash all emulators, and an accessible Meshuggah record absolutely over-brutalizes anything that's been released since the last Dillinger Escape Plan record. Plus, unlike the melodic forays on In Flames' recent A Sense of Purpose, obZen is easier on the ears than Meshuggah's past few releases because it's louder and faster. On the one-track I EP and the concept album Catch-33, Meshuggah shied away from their thrash metal roots in to pursue the wildest tempo changes and song structures that they could think of. They pressed their musicianship and technical skills to the top of a genre that's famous for great chops, but Meshuggah also forfeited some of their capacity for rocking out. On obZen, they've managed to keep the progressive and jazz fusion elements that endeared them to music theory kids everywhere while thrashing out hooks in a way that they haven't since 1995's Destroy Erase Improve.

Within seconds of the opener 'Combustion,' drummer Thomas Haake annihilates his snare with a series of eighth notes that sound like they're going to destroy the kit half a minute into the album. Having used a drum machine on the past few Meshuggah records, Haake sounds stronger and hungrier than ever before, and his heavy bass drum and cymbals action recalls John Henry pummeling the steam drill. Lead guitarist Fredrik Thordendal offers more riffage per song than most bands get out in their entire careers, and even the (usually brief) slowed-down, quieter measures sound like they're about to destroy you. The first single, 'Bleed,' defies it's conventional title with a barrage of polyrhythms and double-bass action that the band will probably be kicking themselves for when they have to play it live every night. Did I mention it's also catchy as hell? Jens Kidman, who screams Haake's dystopian lyrics into a new realm of death-grunt incoherence, doesn't have it any easier, but he screams over some of the most idiosyncratic melodies in metal music without losing his voice or falling off-time. Few can claim to GRAAAAAGGGGGHHH so impeccably.


The overdubs and arena-rock worthy hooks on the title track resemble a death-metal Siamese Dream, and the distorted bass-slaps on 'Lethargica' and 'Pineal Gland Optics' could make for some groovin' stoner rock were they not played at a volume that could drown out a close-range detonation test. But Meshuggah also show focus and restraint, never letting the solos go on too long and never sacrificing a good song for the good of their technical skills. The multi-layed, nearly ten-minute closer, 'Dancers to a Discordant System,' is more infectious and aggressive than anything by American math-metal acts like Fall of Troy and Between the Buried and Me, and it's possibly the album's melodic track. With obZen, Meshuggah bests their contemporaries and makes it seem like a day's work.

Meshuggah - Bleed