CATCH THIRTYTHREE

Hmmm...the second lowest rated Meshuggah album other than Contradictions Collapse? Am I listening to the same album as everyone else? I personally would put this up there with my favorite albums of all time, which includes Wish You Were Here, Images And Words, Master Of Puppets, Still Life and In The Court Of The Crimson King. All of these albums all have two things in common: they all portray that the bands have stunning technical skill and much more importantly, they are all so incredibly atmospheric, original, and emotional that they all have the capability to actually play with THE LISTENER'S emotions. Isn't that why people listen to music in the first place? I wonder if those one star reviewers took into account that this was meant as an experimental piece and listened the the album straight through, and ONLY straight through, as it was meant to be one song (not unlike A Pleasant Shade of Grey or Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence). You will not get the full, or even half of the effect if you only listen to the tracks as individual songs. I also wonder if they took into account the originality in the style and/or the talent that it takes to play the inhuman polyrhythms/crazy time signature changes/flow/etc etc. Even if it is not your type of music, based on that alone I find it hard to believe that anyone would rate this a 1 star "Poor. Only for completionists." I personally find this album to be perfect in every sense of the word. Haake's lyrics are painfully beautiful and dark, which is incredibly fitting to the music and cover art. Even the silent parts in "Mind's Mirrors" and "In Death- Is Death" both terrify and amaze me every time I listen to them. I cannot recommend Catch 33 enough. Absolute masterpiece.