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With that said this is one of the most brutal and inaccessable chunks of metal that was ever made. The best way for me to describe Meshuggah's sound is: a Metal-Core style breakdown that keeps on going instead of stopping after twenty seconds. As many have noted Meshuggah is more of a machine than a band, they churn out insane, dissonant polly rythm's and dissonance and never once allow anything you can sing or hum to into their songs, or in this case song.

song by song: I:

I starts with a verry repetitive riff and some insane double bass, this lasts about a minute, then you get static, and then the song starts. The song has their normal thrashy sound but they also incorperate some mid-eastern sounding drones into the mix. The song goes into an insane almost jazzy solo, only it is so fast and dissonant that it is as unnapealing to the ear as the music is, however if you are a weathered extreme metal listener such as myself you will find yourself playing air guitar and headbanging like a maniac. After the solo the song goes into more dissonant speed and insanity. After a while Meshuggah gives you a quiet interlude, but dont get any ideas, this isn't Opeth, its not going to sound pretty, and soon your back to the same machine grinding you into dust and causing your ears to blead. The song goes through tons of the same style riffs and solo's before finally going into a slow doomy style, almost reminisant of Neurosis, you can almost hear some post-rock sneaking its way in. This slow part provides a really good counterpoint to the speed and feels like almost a stand still after the ungodly fast majoraty of the song, I actually like the slowness better than the speed. After the doom they go into a mid- tempo that is somewhere between their normal speed and their slow speed and it sounds really good, the bass shines through in this section for the first time in the album, the riffs are also probably the most memorabal in this part. Following this is what sounds like Korn in an interesting time signature and with actual talent. (infact Meshuggah were undoubtably influenced by Nu-Metal, though they dont sound bad at all) The end of the song sounds alot like Opeth to me, extremelly dark and technical.

Overall probably the best place to start with Meshuggah, and an amazing peice of music, but it's not for everyone and is sertanly not a classic: my virdict three stars: Good (probably the best of its kind) but non-essential (for prog, essential for metal)

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