Meshuggah - Catch Thirty-Three
Since the first time I posted about the latest Meshuggah I learned that the band decided to go with electronic drums for this album, apparently due to the lack of time they had for recording. Maybe it’s the style of music, with a lot of extreme metal the drumming can be gated, electronic, clicky or whatever and I guess I tend to be more forgiving of it, especially when the extremist of the extremers are creating music beyond the ability of the drummer to play. While that’s not the case here, Meshuggah have always been about polyrhythms, which has always made their music of interest to me through the years, just to see how they stretch the riffing and combine rhythms. Every Meshuggah album strikes me as a little different in tone and the last full-length, Nothing, and Chaosphere, its predecessor both seemed to be getting full into the chilly industrial tones and I’d almost gotten to the point where I was done with the music. Then came the inventive “I” EP and this new album, both more in the warmer direction. I doubt most could tell one Meshuggah from another, in fact I wouldn’t want to be put on the spot to tell what song’s from what, but they do manage to vary their experimentations enough to wonder what they’ll be up to next.
Suffocation s/t
It’s not really a surprise that the band went for the s/t with this utterly tremendous work as it’s easily the best album the band’s made, at least since they reformed, possibly since the beginning. The talent of this quintet is just enormous and death metal seems to be one of those genres that can often benefit from the musical maturity of its members. Everybody from front to back is in top form here and some of these songs are some of the most fist-pumpingest extreme anthems I’ve heard since Immolation’s Unholy Cult. Part of it’s their precision, in moments where they do some tricky riffing and fills, they’re right on the dime, the other part is the layering and complexity of the music, Suffocation may come as close to anyone in metal to actually sounding like classical or symphonic music at times, due to the layering of harmonies. I could have almost made an identical review of this to their last one, but this seems better all around. Amazing to think the band is probably mostly in its 30s now and still delivering this style of music peerlessly. This could be one of the best albums of the last few years, if not the best. It’s beginning to dominate my listening time.