Fredrik Thordendal's Special Defects
Sol Niger Within

If we were to give an evolutionary direction that encompasses the most complex progressive and metal with the most fierce and cybernetic atmospheres, then we could very well cite Meshuggah, which I consider in their brilliant musical conception, a band that has brought metal to outstanding levels. But it would be absurd to try to categorize Meshuggah, and similarly, it would seem blasphemous to try to give a musical direction to the creator of such a monolithic compositional approach.

Frederick Thordendal I simply define as a brilliant guitarist, capable of uniting in his sound prog, thrash, heavy, fusion, jazz, and every musical genre. He possesses a versatility that astonishes, disarms, and leaves one in awe of his musical work. And his work is not only Meshuggah. If you think you've heard enough, his solo work "Sol Niger Within" possesses a rare charge, a rare genius, and an extremely rare ability to amaze, to be unpredictable, a rare mathematical capacity, and a rare ease in executing pieces so exquisite and endowed with astonishing rhythmic and technical difficulty. This amazing sonic acrobatics stands between the masterpiece of "Destroy erase improve" and the other astonishing album "Chaosphere", thus redefining its own sonic evolution by distancing from the cyber thrash label to cross into new sonic territories. And this solo album is its watershed, it is the symptom of a personal evolution that shortly thereafter would also involve his band.

The circular structure of the album, its compactness (30 tracks of a few minutes, if not seconds, each, an experiment later revisited in "catch33" by Meshuggah) and its more industrial cut give it the impression of being comparable to a stream of consciousness, a musical flow like Thordendal writing and playing on the fly, endowed with innovations that only afterward would achieve final consecration, or that still have not had it (like the use of particular synths or unusual instruments like sax and organ).

This album captures, transports, hypnotizes, and is endowed with a rare jazz/fusion charge that stands out in parts like "Zeta1-reticuli", built on Thordendal's solo guitar that brings to mind certain Holdsworth-like solos or presents a new soloing approach that immediately recalls the soloing of "Chaosphere" as in "Bouncing in a bottomless pit." The rhythmic parts and bursts on distorted guitar are not lacking right from the opener "The beginning of the end of extraction," where Frederick's 7-string Ibanez draws absurd and hammering rhythms. Thanks to a more soloistic approach, Thordendal manages to be less cold, more direct, and paradoxically emotional than he is in Meshuggah. Successful examples of this are tracks like "I, Galactus," a hypnotic musical vortex, or "Magickal Theatre. 33." It would be reductive to cite tracks embedded in one another. Such is the difficulty of separating them from each other that listening becomes a cathartic and enveloping experience.

Naturally, during the album and at the end, one wonders who could have conceived such a work. Naturally, the arbiter of everything is Thordendal, but with him played Morgan Agren, a virtuosic drummer who has previously collaborated with Dweezil Zappa and other greats such as Steve Vai, and Thomas Haake from Meshuggah, who contributed to the few vocal inserts. All these performed, not even reaffirming it, on qualitative and professional levels that to say alien is an understatement.
The musical journey of such a masterpiece is enriched also by immense literary citations directly taken from the works of Dante, Hesse, and Plato, in a swirl of words and notes that results almost psychedelic.

This album doesn't deserve a judgment or evaluation because its splendor is so great. It deserves applause for its incredible genius, for its astonishing ability to surprise and immobilize the listener, and make them helpless and fascinated by every lick of the drums, by every guitar riff. It kidnaps and transports you, captures you, giving you a rude awakening only at the end when you will once again want to listen to it.