Meshuggah Appreciation Thread

Vibrationbaby wrote: Wow ! The invasion of the metal heads  ! The thing about all these death metal bands that ruins for me is the annoying satanic vocals . I actually took the time to listen to these guys ( I think Meshugga means something like insane or crazy in Hebrew ) and if they would just knock off those assinine vocals maybe there`s something here. I kind of liked the insanity that Mind`s Mirrors evoked sort of reminded me of some Hawkwind from the 80s. I watched the two videos Straws Pulled At Random and Shed and at leasst the latter is a bit more upbeat and reminds me of Crimson`s Thrak & Vroom album & EP  a little. I own a lot of older heavier albums from Sabbath, Priest, Ministry, Rammstein, Laibach, Soundgarden etc. but these newer bands just blow it for me with the Satan vocals.

Eh, these aren't 'satanic' vocals, more like hardcore (the genre) ones. And you'd have to get rid of vocals altogether, no freaking way you can have anything in the way of clean vocals in Meshuggah, they'd come off even flatter than the present shouted ones.

Removing vocals wouldn't be a major loss, but if you're to keep vocals in at all, this is the way they have to be.

^ Kinda like with Opeth... well, actually Opeth is even more problematic here, getting read of the growls would mean having to rewrite most of the instrumental sections. 

Vibrationbaby wrote: Wow ! The invasion of the metal heads  ! The thing about all these death metal bands that ruins for me is the annoying satanic vocals . I actually took the time to listen to these guys ( I think Meshugga means something like insane or crazy in Hebrew ) and if they would just knock off those assinine vocals maybe there`s something here. I kind of liked the insanity that Mind`s Mirrors evoked sort of reminded me of some Hawkwind from the 80s. I watched the two videos Straws Pulled At Random and Shed and at leasst the latter is a bit more upbeat and reminds me of Crimson`s Thrak & Vroom album & EP  a little. I own a lot of older heavier albums from Sabbath, Priest, Ministry, Rammstein, Laibach, Soundgarden etc. but these newer bands just blow it for me with the Satan vocals.

For a start, Meshuggah isn't even a death metal band.
I don't see how anyone can confuse what it obviously an experimental/tech/groove metal band with a death metal band.
They have completely and utterly different musical characteristics.
Honestly, I'm starting to find it ridiculous that people come into threads, make up blatant rubbish like that, display a complete lack of knowledge/ignorance of a band/genre, and expect to still maintain credibility for their argument and expect not to receive backlash.

Satan vocals? What are Satan vocals?
Death Metal vocals are called death growls, not Satan vocals.
What you hear in Meshuggah are vocals very much similar to hardcore screams.
A completely different vocal style to "SATAN VOCALS".

I don't go into a Yes thread for example and say "well, Yes wasn't an influential" when clearly that is not the case (an example of just posting blatant made up crap in a thread).
If I, or others don't do that, I except the same kinda of respect back from other forum members.

I think it would have been reasonable enough just to say "I don't like death metal style vocals". I think many of us can agree on that.

And lastly, it's posts like those that ruin Appreciation Threads.

Again, I don't go into a Caravan Appreciation thread and say "Well, personally I think Soft Machine is a far superior Canterbury band".
I'd rather let all the hardcore fans just have the thread to show their love and appreciation for the band, just leave them alone without trolling a thread that was clearly not made for people to come in and bash a band.
Think about how you would feel if someone came into your appreciation thread and bashed one of your favorite bands, before you go into another person's thread and bash their favorite band.
It's all I ask.

Jake Kobrin wrote: Dude, if you say that about the vocals in 'Shugg then you obviously don't understand them. They're NOT supposed to be used like melodic instrument, as nothing else in the band is. They're used, like their drums, guitar, and bass, as a RHYTHMIC tool... like a second set of percussion.

yup. And that's why they have to be shouted.

Love these guys to bits but I will admit they are a very recent discovery for me (thank you iTunes)

I think you all should take some happy pills. 

Back on topic...

How does ObZen compare with the other albums? I only listened to the Myspace songs once or twice and didn't like them, sounded like Meshuggah Lite to me. But I'd like to hear other opinions on this.

^ Destroy, Erase, Improve or Chaosphere. Probably the former is the better choice.

Visitor13 wrote: ^ Destroy, Erase, Improve or Chaosphere. Probably the former is the better choice.

I've just finished listening to the Myspace songs from obZen, and it sounds as if this album could be a good entry into Meshuggah.

And I've only now realised 'obZen' is a play on 'obscene'...

mithrandir wrote: its been a long long time, but I used to really like DEI, Chaosphere is actually the last Meshuggah album I heard, I also really liked that Fredrik Thordendal's Special Defects album maybe even more than Meshuggah...

Thordendal's album is perfect in my opinion. Better then any of Meshuggah's albums...and thats saying a lot!