In every genre, there are bands that I suppose the elitists gravitate to because of their skill, technicality and overall craft. These are the bands that people flood message boards with as to show of their “impeccable musical taste” and to undercut anyone that typically listens to anything remotely popular.
For metal heads, that band is Meshuggah.
My first brush with these ridiculous Swedes was a few years ago when I downloaded their I E.P. I marveled at their technicality as well as how they seemed to beat listeners into submission with their gigantic riffs and manic vocals, everything that the music elitists told me I’d love about Meshuggah.
So, does their latest release obZen follow in the same suite? Well, yes and no.
The first thing that’s immediately clear with obZen is that the elongated song experimentation left over from the I E.P. and Catch 33 is gone and done away with. Instead, the album hearkens back a time where the band explored tighter and more compact songs, with clear beginnings and ends.
If this scares you, it shouldn’t. The average song time is 4-5 minutes so it’s not like they’re striving for radio exposure with 2 minute pop diddles. And in true form, the band starts right off the bat with “Combustion,” a track that begins with a nimble guitar line and cymbal work in a completely different time than the rest of the rhythm section. It’s here that it all breaks in an explosion of sound, with Jens Kidman’s death howl showcased in a crushingly beautiful fashion. It’s capped off by an incredibly flavorful and melodic solo by Fredrik Thordendal’s jazzy lead guitar work.
“Combustion” serves as a reminder that the band that has been at the forefront of progressive metal is still here to bring brutality, but the there is something distinctly different about the overall sound from here on out.
For starters, the band welcomes back drummer Thomas Haake after they implemented the use of a drum machine on Catch 33. With Haake, behind the skins once again, the album’s drumming feels far more fluid that the endlessly sequenced machine-gun drumming found on their last release.
That’s not to say its softer, but the obZen benefits from a human player rather than some mechanized apparatus keeping time. The album’s title track benefits from Haake’s innovative cymbal use and his deft ability to keep multiple time signatures going at the same time.
Still, not everything is perfect on obZen. As a whole, the record is very clean sounding for as detuned as the guitars are, and it’s probably the most shocking change for the band. The grit that has pervaded most Meshuggah releases has all but been done away with, so songs like “This Spiteful Snake” lack staying power. Had the guitars seemed less compressed as a whole, and the band had allowed a tad more feedback to seep through in the recordings, the album might have been a tad more urgent and immediate.
And with Meshuggah streamlining their sound from their last album’s ruthless experimentation, listeners can’t help but feel like the material on obZen is a tad regressive. It’s not that the songs are sloppy, but there is no evolution in their sound, nothing that’s truly carried over from Catch 33. In fact, the album reminds me of what plagued Tool’s last release: it was almost too listenable and failed to really challenge its listeners. And while listening to tracks like, “Pineal Gland Optics” you almost feel like these thunderous riffs have been down before, and that the band is capable of pushing themselves even more.
obZen’s crown jewel however is “Bleed.” It’s the one spot on the album where it feels like a nod to their past as well as push forward and it's perhaps one of the most dynamic songs on the album. The main thrash riff feels like it never ends, but merely swells and descends as the pummeling drumming rolls alongside it. “Bleed” also features seamless transitions between those odd time signatures that really peak you’re interest.
The track expertly displays how good these men have become at shifting the churning directions of their songs. And the ambient midsection shows off their versatility and fascination with atmospherics. It’s shame though, because if the album had more tracks in the vein of “Bleed,” it would have really felt like another masterpiece from these bizarre Swedes.
As it is, musical elitist will have to settle for average from their darling favorites, showing that even the best of us can’t be perfect all the time.
Sounds Like: Nothing (Meshuggah), Bless The Martyr, Kiss The Child (Norma Jean),
Key Cuts: Combustion, Bleed, Dancers To A Discordant System
0 comments:
Post a Comment