Meshuggah “Obzen”, ahhh it just flows out so sweetly, well here we go, first of all i would like to say, kind of like a disclaimer that Meshuggah might be my all time favorite band, so please take that into consideration with the review to this piece of shit… wait… maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, i get this very strange vibe, just like with Tool’s 10000 Days, that the hype did not help at all, well lets start from the beginning, Meshuggah hail from Sweden and play “normally” a form of metal i like to describe as math metal (just like there is math rock) even though i like to call it calc metal, but if you want a more precise category i would say progressive death/thrash metal (wikipedia decided to call this avant-garde metal or experimental metal, but well we all know wikipedia is apparently filled with a bunch of crack heads that think that editing a piece of text on a website makes it true, fuck them), and their new album is out and its called Obzen, we have previously reviewed their albums Nothing and Catch 33, so lets get into it, shall we.

Obzen, is a shambled of an album … its not a “this doesn’t make sense” in a good way, its a “what the hell were they thinking”, i always expect new stuff or weird stuff from them, very little is ever normal and as such i find it very refreshing and enticing, but even in all the madness there was always something coherent, something that made sense, they were like Matryoshka Dolls, were each layer was different but it all fitted perfectly and therefore it made sense… now this “album” (if i should call it that) is like me getting tracks from their different albums and making a best of, sure there would be great tracks but it would all sound like shit together.

Well, I wont be talking a great deal about each track, no point really, the first 2 tracks, “Combustion” and “Electric Red” have nothing in common with the rest of the album, they sound like refreshed thrash metal, while “Bleed” (the single by the way… remember what i said about the 10000 Days single…) has nothing to with the rest of the album, its a mind blowing track with Tomas Haake doing a freakish double bass drum work that makes me lack the words to described it, it all sounds like white sound from a television… i would buy the album just for that track … but this inconsistencies go further, also the over abuse of “commercial” sounding ruses like slowing down or stopping a song to build it up again… cause i counted… they used it 7 times (that i noticed) almost in every single track, you know at some point that they will pause for some micro shitty interlude, I’ve got no problem with that, but it has to make sense… but overusing it is like Linkin Park making micro intros for every single shitty track they put out (sorry just went and saw one of their live shows and they sucked a bit).

“Lethargica” is next and the name fits the song, its kinda an OK track, with no big highlights it kinda drags on, now the title track “Obzen” is another beast, much more innovative and a bit of a headbanger with a more stop-goish groove going on with loads of highlights… “This Spiteful Snake” is an intricate groovy track, but still lacking, it doesn’t seem to go anywhere and ultimately it just feels self indulgent (trying to fit every single thing into it), “Pineal Gland Optics” we get a straight back to back speedier groove, again great quality and musicianship but with nothing else to add, “Pravus” is pushing again the silliness, its interesting, but not that audible, its a mishmash of musical techniques than music, we finish with “Dancers To A Discordant System”, that starts pretty mind blowing heavy and groovy (why didn’t they do this on some of the other tracks is beyond me), but then it gets into a certain pattern and although pretty good, it wasn’t nothing to call back home.

I know, maybe i expect too much, but like every Meshuggah album it takes a certain amount of time to really start understanding the music or a album, so i took that time, but after the 100th listen, these things still bug me like hell, i was expecting a lot of different things, i was expecting “Bleed”, but no, i get this best of (when their EP I, was the right way to do a Best Of) and then you join things like the freakishly moronic cover art that looks shitty and reminds me of the endogenous Marilyn Manson of Mechanical Animals, were at least he went over the top with it (in a good way), while with Meshuggah its just silly.

Ahh i wont drag this too long, they said in a interview that this was the first time they really had the time to make a album, and not be in a hurry, well then i hope for the next one, they’ll have to make it over a weekend, for sure we would get a masterpiece, this is above all a disappointment and will rarely fit my Meshuggah everyday playlist, don’t get me wrong, all this ranting should be taken with a touch of salt, the production is pretty much on the mark, and there are some really cool tracks (”Bleed” is Beyond Awesome), but i do expect a lot from this band, and I’m sorry to say but this time it feels, they over promised and under delivered, and that to me is a shame.

Official Site Meshuggah.net | Myspace Meshuggah | Vidcult Bleed Video

Meshuggah - Bleed

// Click Here To Make a Comment

Humm Divine Heresy’s “Bleed The Fifth”, of course i had to talk about Divine Heresy, after i knew that Dino Cazares of Fear Factory fame had a new band and that it was kinda deathmetalish and that it had Tim “The Missile” Yeung on the drums and on the bass Joe Payne from Nile fame (even though he had no part in the making of this album), and some metalcore guy for vocals, well thats a kick ass lineup, but as well we all know sometimes a great team doesn’t play a great game hehehe, so i guess Divine Heresy play above all else Melodic Death Metal, with a lot of touches of Deathcore and Metalcore, sounds good to me… well we will see.

So the album starts with the title track “Bleed The Fifth”, were you get a pretty tight death metal track with tight blasting and a kind of over simplistic guitar work (ahh what do you expect from Dino) and pretty much metalish vocals, still hard hitting and very by the book type of metal, hehehe im complaining just a bit, but overall it is still a pretty catching track, then we get the single “Failed Creation” were you get again a by the book hardcorish melodic death metal track, its ok but in comparison to the rest of the album its a bit too radio friendly and the chorus seems completely out of place like “… play death play death play … ohhh lets stop everything its time for the clean vocal chorus … play death play death play …”, still its not bad, its just not that great, then we get “This Threat Is Real” were you get like a 2 part thrash setup, that is until you enter into the “screaming tech metal part” that is actually pretty kick ass very groovy blasting, “Impossible Is Nothing” seems and feels more like Fear Factory, with tight drumming and guitar combo, ahhh how i missed it, then it goes more into death metal groove, still even when its not excellent its refreshing in their hit on this genre mix, that is until we get into the melodic part… i would cut that… its pretty awful, skip skip.

“Savior Self” ohhh snap hehe tech metal, awesome awesome, blasting away, then it goes into deathcore genre… until again… ahhh the painful melodic part, and then a OH MY FREAKIN HELL a “Body Hammer” hint damn… thats sweet (if you don’t know what i mean… fuck you hehehe) and thats all i have to say, “Rise Of The Scorned” starts out a bit like a melodic interlude, ahh the fuckers attached it to the begging of the song, noo it kind melds pretty well to the death metal track that blasts of screaming away, the rest is ok, i guess more into the metalcore, it ends pretty well merging with the beginning of the track, next up is “False Gospel” with a bit more deathcore meets metalcore with a much better groovy chorus with some in between licks from Dino’s guitar (i complain i know, but i like is over simplistic playing style), next is “Soul Decoded (Now And Forever)” ohh doesn’t that sound like a Fear Factory track name?, and wouldn’t you figure, it kinda sounds tech metalish, muahahah great and even better is the absence of Burton “everytime i get to a chorus i hit the sissy distortion mode” Bell, we even get a bit of a stop-go groovness, fuck it, its not awesome, but its pretty good, “Royal Blood Heresy” ohh a bit more tech metal, still pretty fucking groovy stuff, we even get a strange melodic blasting part that its actually not so bad, good job, then the album finishes up with “Closure” that although sounds like trademark Dino melodic stuff, the guy singing sounds a bit too Nickelback for my frail heart and so i pretend i didn’t listen to it.

Ahhh finished, so what would i expect from a band made of a tech/industrial metal guitar player, a death metal drummer and a hardcorish melodic metal singer… well exactly what i heard, it all seems so divided and broken apart, both trough the album and in the songs, its not a coherent sound in all aspects, its a broken down mess of different genres, hell just listen to the first and last track, its frightening, but in the end what did i think of this album?

In a perfect world Fear Factory wouldn’t have pseudo disbanded and wouldn’t be playing the fucking sissy contrived music they are playing now, hummm? did i called it music? i meant to say playing around with their instruments, but well enough about fear factory, what about divine heresy, well its a new band and as such its normal for the sound to be a work in progress, ill give them that, as well the fact that the bass player didn’t play a part working on this album, that and the fact that in the end this is a pretty nice album, makes me hope for a brighter future for Divine Heresy and as such i recommend everyone to at least give it a listen, hehehe.

Myspace Divine Heresy | Video for Failed Creation

Divine Heresy - Failed Creation
Divine Heresy - Savior Self

// Click Here To Make a Comment