CATCH THIRTYTHREE

Meshuggah have long been known to write highly complicated patterns of monotony, but thankfully that gets thrown away somewhat for this release. The album plays like a forty five minute song, if you will, but there really is not very much in the way of continuity. For the most part, even though all the vocal parts and plenty of the guitar lines sound quite similar, there really isn't any continuity to the album as a whole. Parts are played and discarded. I heard a rumor once that there were lyrics, but you wouldn't know it by listening to this--so I'm afraid I can't discuss those.

What we have here, though, is a critically acclaimed progressive metal act finally trying something progressive. Some awkward and sophomoric soundscapes fill several songs, but even though they aren't terribly interesting musically, they create an effect that I haven't found anywhere else in Meshuggah's music: they make the next section more interesting. The production is much tighter than in previous albums, and the sound conveys more than a mere intent of heaviness--sometimes the music on Catch 33 is in fact heavy.

This album is supposed to be one of the band's most deep works, one of the hardest to digest. In the end, though, it was the only one I could really swallow at all. The repetitiveness and monotony is still present, like in all their releases. Still, an effort at self improvement is a good sign.

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