CONTRADICTIONS COLLAPSE & NONE

Sub-genre: Tech/Extreme Prog-Metal (Strong fit)
For Fans of: Death, Atheist, Cynic, '80's thrash metal
Vocal Style: Not quite Cookiemonster, but an equally annoying yell fest.
Guitar Style: Heavily distorted, Metallica-like in the Contradictions Collapse numbers, more compressed and gated with Holdsworth style warm solo tones during None. Each album contains occasional clean breaks
Keyboard Style: Choral patch for ambience only heard on solo/bridge section of Gods of Rapture
Percussion Style: Heavy Heavy Metal, technically strong, thick with polyrhythms, especially on None
Bass Style: Occasional overdrive, picked metal bass
Other Instruments: None

Summary: The LP and EP presented in this collection mark important transition in the approach to Meshuggah's music. Contradictions Collapse, their first LP release is primarily viewed as a thrash metal album. The beats are fairly straight forward with occasional breaks and oblique syncopations. But the foundations for something different than the Slayers and Metallicas of the day had already been laid. Large sections of the songs included vast Jazz influenced chord extensions as well as tri- tonal and whole tone intervals that were few and far between at the time in the metal world. Hints of guitarist Fredrik Thordendahl's love of Alan Holdsworth were spicing his solos. This love comes into full light in None, particularly in the song Gods of Rapture, with its long keyboard backed, syncopated bridge/solo section. The EP marked a shift in the drumming approach as well. The opening song, Humiliative, starts with a rarely heard, almost drunken sounding polyrhythm that basically set the tone for the remainder of Meshuggah's career. The recording quality is greatly improved as well. The guitars have a tighter, compressed feel that give abrupt thumps with every chord.

Final Score: Whether considered a thrash metal or progressive metal album, Contradictions Collapse contains some tight, quality songs. No less than 3 stars. None is a defining moment in Tech/Extreme Progmetal. 4.5 stars. Kidmans voice is always a half star subtraction. Bonus points for leaving the ultra annoying Aztec Two-Step off the album.
3.8 Stars rounded up.

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