PITCH BLACK

The EP features two tracks and a full playing time of 15:47 minutes. "Pitch Black" is a new studio recording while "Dancers to a Discordant System", which was originally featured as the closing track on "obZen (2008)", is featured here in a live version. If you are familiar with Meshuggah's distinct sounding trademark style you won't be surprised when I tell you that "Pitch Black" is somewhat rooted in heavy groove laden thrash, that it features a hypnotic odd metered groove, that the riffs played are downtuned and crushingly heavy and that the vocals by Jens Kidman are raw, distorted and aggressive. The last part is not exactly true on "Pitch Black" though as Jens Kidman sings/talks in the mechanical way he has done before a couple of times in the past. The track is also in the atmospheric end of the band's repetoire with odd clean guitars and multible solos. Production wise it sounds like "Pitch Black" could be a leftover track from the "Koloss (2012)" sessions.

The live version of "Dancers to a Discordant System" is executed to perfection and yet another example of how relentlessly aggressive and skilled a machine Meshuggah really are. I think the vocals by Jens Kidman could have been slightly better, but it's a minor issue when listening to the band perform this killer track with a technical precision that seem almost inhuman to me. But as always they groove in a hypnotic fashion that's completely their own.

"Pitch Black" is a nice free EP, but it's not exactly the place to start if you're a new commer to Meshuggah. For that the title track isn't representitive enough of the band's usual style. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is warranted.