Meshuggah
Contradictions Collapse

The Meshuggah are, without fear of contradiction, one of the most original metal bands of recent years. What I am going to review is their very first full length, released in '91 under Nuclear Blast.

The lineup differs slightly from the current one, as the singer Jens Kidman is also responsible for rhythm guitar here, and the bassist was still the good Peter Nordin; on lead guitar we have the excellent Frederik Thordendal and on drums Thomas Haake, unexpectedly the architect of a frantic and fast drumming, without giving anything away to the odd and thoughtful timings that made him popular in events exclusively dedicated to drumming.

There isn't much to say about the album actually, essentially it is the most accessible album in their discography as it reproduces, albeit with enormous technical/instrumental skill, thrash metal canons and dictates over ten years old with occasional themed digressions consisting of the first appearances of fusion matrix solos, but generally the CD is absolutely linear to the point that it seems to travel on a rail.

And it is precisely for this reason, as well as for the intrinsic banality of a gaudy and predictable genre, that the album absolutely does not convince, all without considering the biggest flaw, namely Jens Kidman's poor vocal performance: in this album his vocalizations are limited to a banal imitation of James Hetfield of Metallica, rough and on the verge of agonizing braying, so much so that it is almost impossible to understand which words he is screaming into the microphone. The shouted back vocals of the other band members serve no purpose, creating an annoying cacophonic effect reminiscent of a football stadium's south curve.

Of the nine tracks present, only the opener stands out, fierce, fast and well-played, but the rest of the album does not stray much from this, and the repetition of the same stylistic canons wears thin before reaching the last track.

Ultimately, the purely "artistic" dimension of such a work is virtually nonexistent, but one can already glimpse some highlights worthy of the name they bear, such as the aforementioned solos and an uncommon technical ability.

If you have prejudices regarding the metal genre as a whole, in short, a record like this will certainly not sway you from your position, as it redraws all those characteristics attributed to thrash, such as roughness and banality, combined with an almost total lack of originality.

For collectors.