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Meshuggah - I CD (album) cover

I

Meshuggah

 

Tech/Extreme Prog Metal

4.17 | 140 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

el böthy
Prog Reviewer
5 stars Ok...where to start? mmm...let's start with the fact that Meshuggah used to be the one band I thought I would never get into and, to be honest, it's quite logical why. I mean... heaviness just for the sake of heaviness, no melodies, the singing (or should I say screaming?) the cold, soulless feelings to it, really, how can somebody even like this band? Well... look at me now...

This is the first album (or EP to be more specific) from this guys I have, I thought it would be a good place to start. Why?... I don't know, I guess cause I'm like the biggest epic fan ever and thought I should give this 21 minutes song a try, cause if I didn't like this, then I could easily move on to something else, knowing I had listened to the "best" Meshuggah song. Also, and this is kind of strange, I read the lyrics before I even heard the song, just cause I was so intrigued of it´s name. "I". "One has to have a lot of balls, or be reeeeally pretentious to name an epic this way" I thought, "I´ll check out the lyrics, cause for sure they can´t be that good". Guess what, the lyrics are genius! Chaotic but in an almost poetry-like way. awesome!!! And then I heard not one, not two, but a lot of people praising that this was THE BEST METAL SONG EVER. well now I have to listen to it. So, I got "I", almost sure I was making a huge mistake. Only once did I have this feeling before: when I bought "In the court of the Crimson King", and it turned out to be my favorite album ever. Man do I like to be wrong sometimes!!!

This song, this monster, is like the most brutal experience ever. I can't say this was love at first sight. In fact, I got a headache the first time I listened to it, but I immediately knew there was something to it, something special. So I kept listening to it, and the more I listened to it, the more I liked it. By the fourth time I had no doubts, this is a work of genius! There is no weak spot, no filler what so ever, just 21 minutes of pure brilliance. And there are some parts here and there that are just too good, like the whole 10th minute for example, with Kidman chanting "Shifting from worlds from chaos, to chaos, to chaos" and then the best part of the whole song. Meshuggah plays in 4/4!!! The result? One of metals best riffs ever, certainly one of it's heaviest. By far, the best part of the song, yet, after this, it doesn't drag or get dull, it continues truly great, until the big finale where Kidman delivers that final shout: "I" and the creepy outro begins.

I can now agree, this is one of metal best songs. I think it's important to remark the importance of the lyrics, which I noticed nobody really does. They match the music perfectly, and although shouting might not be the best singing technique, it fits the music and concept of the lyrics like a glow. 5/5; a masterpiece. Meshuggah truly are "crazy".

el böthy | 5/5 |

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