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Rating:
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.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Paralyzing Ignorance (04:28)
Hear the mourners
The earth is gasping for air
Sneering at this thoughtless ravage
If we don't wake we'll massacre ourselves
Sneaking skullduggery
Slaughter the lungs of humanity
Spreading devastation through this world
a price we never can pay
Dethrone the impassive governments. No more of this
DUPERY
Pollution of environment
STOP THIS NOW
Before it's too late
Mouldering world
you're dying slowly piece by piece
All the riches you've created
will soon be laid destroyed
Dethrone the impassive governments. No more of this
DUPERY
Pollution of environment
STOP THIS NOW
Before it's too late
People
OBEY YOUR EYES
We can't repair when it's all destroyed
no way
DUPERY
Approaching death
TOMORROW FALLS
Why?
People
OBEY YOUR EYES
We can't repair when it's all destroyed
no way
DUPERY
Approaching death
TOMORROW FALLS
Why?
Paralysed by ignorance
The cemetery plans continue
A tremendous trepidation
Perfidious annihilation-all in vain
02 Erroneous Manipulation (06:20)
An inwrought irksome rabbit
is washing my stomach
I can't stop thinking about my tonsils
how they are pendulating between my toes
slowly suffering from liberty
I'm naked on a TV-set and it's running wild,
fast, sweet and heavy penetrating in to my
grandparents pupils out of reach but with a
canoes evil emotion
Allright I can admit it now
I was a screaming and lying stoneoperation
who searched his way through carparts
afraid to be recognized by a spoon
Birds with empty refridgerators heated up the
childrens chairsweat
There was no chance to drive the table without
a blue sock cause my mistakes rolled down above
the forest of investigation
As soon as I heard my neighbor bend his arm
with a submarine the milk was hot and dangerous
like a bed
Nobody understands how wipewashers can breathe cows
Farting magazines are wading in waxed scarecrows
Falling flesh punched me in my bathsuit look alike neck
which controls universe with an irongrip of umbrellas
I'm wiping away some mirrors from the snakes
without drinking any busstations
Sorry, I'm in love with a door
05 Qualms of Reality (07:09)
Redundant cruelty
Children are shoveled into enclosed solitude
in lack of value cause by minor defects
Each one an unsuitability
Outside the publics field of vision
Left to die on a bed of concrete
While the rich swallows ostentation
Distorted minds screaming for consolation
The vanity of convenience rules the world
LOCKED UP
Who cares about rights
SO WHAT
If the world's a bit rude
The PROSPEROUS
Pay to keep it concealed
Leaving problems untouched because of fear
ABONDONED LIVES
Hundreds in a room, staring with empty swollen eyes
Mutilated possibilities
Enslaved by INSANITY
The belligerent ARROGANCE of the leaders
strangles the subjecteds RIGHT
to a childhood of safety
NIGHTMARES But for real for ever engraved
in the minds of lost infancies
SHUT OUT
From this dying world of calumny
INFANTICIDE
A thousand souls a day flows away with the breeze
Living corpses, breathing lungs filled with disease
Underdeveloped twisted thoughts, trying to understand
Unfairly secluded by the prevailing injustices
that pushes this mentally ill world
over the edge of acceptance
LOCKED UP
Who cares about rights
SO WHAT
If the world's a bit rude
The PROSPEROUS
Pay to keep it concealed
Leaving problems untouched because of fear
DEATH INSIDE, WITHOUT REACH-THEIR FREEDOM. BOUND TO FEEL, WITHIN-
ILLNESS FLOATING. SOULS IN PENURY, SOON TO FADE OUT-AGGRAVATION IN
CHARGE...BEMOAN OPPRESSION, EXTENSIVE CARNAGE BEHIND WALLS OF
UNCERTAINTY, WE'LL REALISE AS THE FLOODS OF INSIGHT COME DOWN
06 We'll Never See the Day (06:03)
Justice runed by eternal travesty
Bloodcurdling hammer soon to be released
Stalking brutality tomorrow we will see
the unjustified agony unleashed
Strangling superstitious braces
Rampage overboard
Remoted deathmasks have no faces
We only see the cord
Lead to pathes and alleys
chosened by a treacherous source
Squeeze the odds down to our last days
to summon up their force
Folded to pernicious chambers
pounded by the walls Disappear noone remembers
Nobody hear our calls
Ruthless saints prey upon us
the society of friends
They are the wounds we are the pus
no matter how i ends
Maimed and left to putrefy
betrayed by society
Indiscreet left to die
filled with indignity
We will come to grief
by this irrational democracy
What's a life worth for humanity
Nothing more than justice by insanity
Utilization, covetousness
a voracious mouth to feed
fatal greed engraves our death
chokes our possibilities
We are the children of this devastating science
We are the lost till the end
We are the victims who knows who is lying
forgotten we are dying
WE ARE DYING
WE'LL NEVER SEE THE DAY
WE'LL NEVER SEE THE DAY
WE'LL NEVER SEE THE DAY
WE'LL NEVER SEE THE DAY
08 Choirs of Devastation (04:00)
Melting hands, as in fear they've ruled
but will not anymore
Determination now only a coagulating fluid
burning its pathes down the sad soil
Clouds pregnant with heavy rain
opens up its portals and pour upon earth,
the moist of a lost childhoods
embrace as it boil.
Believe-as you see-the anticipation
lost in mourning choirs of devastation
The aimless glow, we thought would never cease
now groan out its renunciation.
Toxic airwaves throwing their corrosion,
like patternless meshes over consumed ground.
Earth, blindly-stretch out her maimed arms,
only to receive the certainty-there's no help to be found
No one's to blame as streams of equality washes away,
the last traces of humanity's existence.
We just sat, like contented denials as abnegation
took its toll in exterminations' enhance.
We claimed, the dead would open the eyes of the living,
but who's left to exclaim the words-we were right.
Memories of anguish lie as whisper in the heat
Only bareness observe the last remains float out of sight.
09 Cadaverous Mastication (07:31)
Here we are to stay
We all can see the purblind day
Assail the cause
Defray the ogre, the insubordinates
Restrained to live
Bring me home
Confronting mutants
We are all bound to fall
Mortality
we see today, defrauds our dreams
Approachable to die
Sliced by their lies, secured morbidity
Restrained to live
Bring me home
Confronting mutants
We are bound to fall
How many of the judges place a bet on me?
What's there to be?
MORIBUND IRREVERENCE
What's there for us in this deranged society?
Inanity
CADAVEROUS MASTICATION
SATURDAY
They have saturday
SATURDAY
Now it's saturday
SATURDAY
They have saturday
SATURDAY
Now it's saturday
YOU ARE INSANE
How can you let there be such cruelty
YOU ARE INSANE
Now it's time for you to see
Here we are to stay
We all can see the purblind day
Assail the cause
Defray the ogre, the insubordinates
Restrained to live
Bring me home
Confronting mutants
We are bound to fall
We are bound to fall
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