Artist: Meshuggah
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Release Date: 8/6/02
Average Rating: 4.2
Go to Judgment Committee Reviews of this Album
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Title: Nothing Artist: Meshuggah Label: Nuclear Blast Records Release Date: 8/6/02 |
There is currently 5 Reader Review of this album.
Average Rating: 4.2 Go to Judgment Committee Reviews of this Album |
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Submitted by Snake (1/24/03):
Meshuggah is back for another 10 rounds. On Nothing, we find 10 tracks of brutality, much like the menacing pit bull caught in mid leap at the end of chain. "Stengah" (Track 1) comes pounding in from the left right across your forehead. And just what the hell does "Stengah" mean? It is a half measure of whiskey. Well this makes sense, since the lyrics deals with the tortured soul of an alcoholic/any addict, " Toward the lights of need you strive - to drink into your vein the shine."Nothing is guaranteed to grab at your intestines and yank them out on to the floor. And, that,s when the stomping begins. The Meshuggah trademark walloping guitar crunch is ever present. The bass is off the wall, and the drums keep blistering time while walking over everything like a tarantula on steroids. Strained vocals slice through it all. With their "Rational Gaze" (Track 2), Meshuggah shows their depth. Guitars crunch and percussions provide an off beat tension. The guitar solos are just as off beat and so against the flow of what is expected. The dissonance is intentional and its uniqueness makes it very enjoyable.
"Perpetual Black Second" (Track 3) continues with dissonance tension and cracks out another beauty. The vocals are chased closely by the guitar riffs, when left alone their off to pummel the kids in the mosh pit. The chaos is heaped upon itself with pounding bass lines jack hammering down while the guitars lines shoot between the bass notes without getting squeezed.
"Closed Eye Visuals" (Track 4) is another great track; I can see this song as being awesome live as a constant neck thrasher, a ritual for the metal gods. In contrast, the cosmos opens to receive the spacer side of Meshuggah. The solos veer into a black hole leaving us standing at the edge. Eventually, we are sucked in as Nothing escapes, and we enter just in time to be smashed into infinity while being verbally assaulted with viscous vocals.
In "Glints Collide" (Track 5) the chain tightens and snaps; it,s time to get out of the way. A full on attack is commenced. The guitar cuts through you like a surgeon wacked on brown acid with an electric bone saw. Meshuggah wants to take your soul apart and they are pressing all the right buttons. "Glints Collide" contains cosmic fiddling guitar insanity and diverse riffing for those that pay attention.
"Organic Shadows" (Track 6) opens with headbanging riffs. Bouncing you around like a galactic pinball between immense galaxies. Filling the voids between the dense guitar galaxies are drums beats forming the gauntlets of stars. Crank this one way up. Equally impressive are the vocals and how they mesh with and become apart of the music.
"Straws Pulled at Random" (Track 7) delivers punishment to those unfortunate enough to have pulled the shortest straw. Little is left to chance as the fate of this song is to tear down everyone, even the strongest. The war drums pound and the guitars call the troops to formation. The war ensemble is assembled, and bounding bass signals their call for war. Waiting no more, the guitar solo draws his blade and cuts the enemy throat in slow motion. The crowd stands back as our victim goes into his death throws. And Satan laughs, all is good!!
"Spasm" (Track 8) shows us that Meshuggah can still make the corpse dance electric. And no shit, this track really comes across as some form of post modern nuclear dance tune, courtesy of Peter Tatgren's Pain. Not altogether the best on the album, but a shot at something different. Thankfully it leads into something a bit harsher, " Nebulous, (Track 9). This song leaves the corpse on the floor and punts it around, to put it mildly. Give me that skull, I want to throw something. This track has metal chunks everywhere. Bone splinters fly as the guitars aided with the bass proceed to stomp a mud hole in the bastard's poor chest. The song ends with a retarded psychedelic fade out. Well nobody is perfect.
"Obsidian" (Track 10) starts with some haunting acoustic guitars flanged out on LSD. Their harmonics cross dark passages of space reaching to the end of the universe. A catchy riff swings the butt end of the bass into the black obsidian of outer space pounding the black stone for a glimpse into Nothing. A clever ending, leaving us wanting some more of Nothing, which is a good thing.
Submitted by sharpedgedweapon (10/9/02):
From the opening notes of "Stengah," I was unsure of what to expect... once faced with the china though, I knew very well what kind of followup this was really going to be. Not nearly as diverse in its offerings as the madness of Chaosphere or the Hollidsworthesqe solos of DEI, Nothing nonetheless cranks it up another Meshuggian notch to offer custom Nevborn 8 string guitars, Jens screaming so gutterally that it sounds as if he ripped off his member and decided to sing about it, and drumming that will frankly fry your neural synapses. That aside, the album is fairly slow tempoed in stark comparison to past said releases.Shining moments in "Straws Pulled at Random" and "Rational Gaze" make this album worth its weight in gold, and the fact that the cover artwork is actually a severley altered picture of Shirley Mansons trite mug is enough for me to want to put on this disc and punch myself repeatedly in the face until I look just like her.
One skull deduction for "Closed Eye Visuals". This song makes me want to go to sleep.
Submitted by Shahril (8/29/02):
It's like evil stoner math thrash with a lil' bit of Alan Holdsworth noodlings thrown in for a good measure.
Submitted by Kefka X (8/6/02):
Favourite tracks: "Straws Pulled at Random," "Perpetual Black Second."It's been four years since Meshuggah has last released a studio album. During this time they have toured with quite a few mainstream bands, and have received a fairly decent exposure in the media, known as the premier "Norweigian Death Metal!" band. (Sorry, I had to indulge myself in that joke.) So because of this steadily growing popularity, most people are going to be critical of this album right from the start, particularly older Meshuggah fans of the DEI era. Which is odd, they should be pretty excited about this release.
While most people who have recently listened to Meshuggah's later work, Chaosphere, are going to see this album as a step into the mainstream, this album actually takes a step back into their roots, particularly the None E.P. Of course, all the typical Meshuggah trademarks are evident in this recording: downtuned guitars (8 strings? OH THE HUMANITY!!!), polyrhythmic drumming, Thordenal's completely spaced out solos, staccato guitar... everything that has made Meshuggah one of the most unique and catchy underground metal acts of the 90's. But for those who are looking for the speed and insanity that was implemented in Chaosphere, you might be disappointed.
The bottom line is this: If you like None, you'll love this. Nothing has a killer groove about it that tightens the laces of your Docs and your fists. Songs such as "Perpetual Black Second" and "Spasm" have some of the most accessible riffs, and at the same time still maintaining the Meshuggah sound and technicality. I haven't heard a Meshuggah song this groove-oriented since "Sickening." Some parts of the album are very exploratory though. For example, "Closed Eye Visuals" (7:30 Meshuggah song?!?!?!). If it seems like the song is going on forever, well... it is. These parts sound as if Meshuggah are going off from their style and experimenting with a slower, Neurosis-type (yes, you heard me... Neurosis) feel (listen to Sol Niger Within for a better understanding of what I'm talking about).
Meshuggah is proving to the world that they aren't selling out. They still carry the same intensity as always, likewise with their musicianship and songwriting. Don't let their name on the Ozzfest bill fool you. One word review: Powerful.
Submitted by Cyanide (7/29/02):
It is my firm conviction that there are certain albums that just ask too much of us the first time we listen to them. Some even ask too much of us after the tenth time. And some don't even start revealing themselves by the hundreth time. Nothing is a prototype of such an album. Listening to it, your sonic impression starts out as a small streak, constantly growing as you listen to it, revealing all the subtle and at first unbelievable details of the music and finally appearing as the whole horizon of darkness and endless, harsh cold that it is.Meshuggah have once again followed their trademark of songs based on polyrhythms and weird time-signatures. The album is in the same way a logical follow-up to chaosphere as it comes as a surprise. Nothing lacks its speed but pushes the cold and mean atmosphere even further. The Meshuggah-typical complexity is even more omnipresent and it sounds more demonic, certainly also due to using an even lower tuning (8-string guitars, tuned down to G). The acoustic parts of Destroy Erase Improve are back, but usually stay in the background of the mix. Even though the record sounds very compact and tight, there is a great deal of variety contained within. From the calm of a clean break (which is purposely and out of nowhere destroyed only moments later) in "closed eye visuals" to "glints collide" containing one of the heaviest riffs in music-history and the experimental "spasm" where Jens Kidman's voice sounds like acid injected into the listener's veins, Meshuggah form the true soundtrack to obliteration and annihilation.
As weird as it may sound, I believe this masterpiece has to be fully digested before it reveals its incredible heavyness. To me, it is a lot darker and meaner than a big bunch of grind and death-records (being a big fan of grind and death metal myself). Nevertheless, I am certain there will only be very few die-hard metal fans who are going to embrace and appreciate Nothing for what it really is (forget Ozzfest, this is NOT an album for nu-metal-fans and trendy people who aren't willing to really take the time to dive into it) - a groundbreakingly trip to new shores of extreme music. To me, Nothing tops everything the band has done so far and is one of the most interesting and extreme records this genre has brought to life up to now. Yet I fear it will also end up as one of the most underestimated records of all time, just because it is so different from everything else.
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