Bizarre grooves, quantum riffs, and a haunting, Lovecraftian atmosphere – these are the things that first spring to mind upon listening to MESHUGGAH‘s fifth studio album “Catch Thirtythree.” When it came out via Nuclear Blast on May 16th, 2005, it soon proved something unmatched in metal music. First, the polyrhythms on the album make you feel as though your very soul were torn between two parallel timelines simultaneously. Then, with the band boasting one of the best metal drummers of all time, Tomas Haake, you read from the liner notes that the drum parts were actually programmed throughout the album, although using Haake‘s original drum samples! Excuse me, what?! I was introduced to the album 20 years ago by a good drummer friend of mine -of course I was, drummers are typically into this type of stuff! After the first spin, I had no idea what had bulldozed over me. Listening to this album for the first time truly was a one-of-a-kind experience. You see, “Catch Thirtythree” is a single, 47-minute track divided into thirteen shorter sections, suggesting that it is best enjoyed in one go. Even so, with its mind-bending nature, the album requires multiple spins to get to the bottom of it properly. It is a concept album with the lyrics being mostly comprised of paradoxes in a somewhat Zen Buddhist fashion – the band’s following studio album was titled “ObZen” (2008), so it looks quite a lot like they’re into that sort of esotericism. Online music forums are still littered with threads contemplating what the lyrics on this album are all about. My 2 cents on the topic would be something along the lines of contemplating our human struggles of coming to terms with ourselves, our human condition, mortality, and such, with a somewhat Lovecraftian twist. The lyrics are vague enough to leave a lot of room for interpretation, which is a huge part of the album’s lyrical appeal. Someone on Reddit consulted AI once to break down the lyrics and, I must say, some of the interpretations were pretty interesting, such as the view that the opening track, “Autonomy Lost,” could depict the internal conflict between our desire to be autonomous and the need to overcome our fears preventing us from moving forward.
If the lyrics on “Catch Thirtythree” are full-on esoterica at its finest, the music does not pale in comparison. The band’s approach to songwriting is closer to the no-holds-barred experimentalism of the electronica extraordinaires on the artist roster of the pedigree British IDM label, Warp, than your average prog-metal bandits. MESHUGGAH‘s labyrinthine song structures recall some of the most far-out sonic experimentations by electronic luminaries such as Aphex Twin and Squarepusher. Artists such as these not only push the boundaries of the genre but throw the standard verse-chorus-verse format out the window altogether, crafting individual songs into immersive adventures through sonic outer space. A snippet of lyrics in “Imprint of the Un-Saved” applies to the band’s music as a whole as it goes, “The scattered jigsaw of my redemption laid out before my eyes, each piece as amorphous as the other – each piece in its lack of shape a lie,” with the word, “lie,” replaced with “illusion,” perhaps. One of the most ingenious illusions that the band has developed quite a knack for pulling off is the way they make those serpentine riffs sound as though they’re in some weird, off-kilter time signature when, in fact, the meter in the songs is mostly straight-up 4/4. The trick is in the asymmetrical, polyrhythmic nature of those down-tuned, bouncy riffs – by their fifth album, MESHUGGAH had honed their artistic vision to such a high level of sophistication that it’s impossible not to repeat the praise you must have heard a thousand times already. What sets this album apart from, say, “Nothing,” which came out 3 years earlier, boasting somewhat similar, albeit slightly catchier but still mind-bending riffathons, is that uniquely dark, nightmarish atmosphere. Obviously, this album is not for everyone – heck, as much as I love it, it is sometimes a bit too overwhelming even for me to listen to from start to finish in one go! While the album rolls out a dynamic range from pockets of complete silence to full-on sonic rage, the hypnotic feel stems from quite a lot of repetitive riffs, which might prove a little bit too exhaustive, say, after a long day of bullshit at the office. Still, when the time is just right, there is no better way to be completely absorbed by music than putting this beast on! It sure did raise a few eyebrows when it came out, and even today, it is still considered the band’s most difficult album by some fans. “Catch Thirtythree” is quite intense, yes, but also intensely rewarding in the right state of mind.
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist
- Autonomy Lost
- Imprint of the Un-Saved
- Disenchantment
- The Paradoxical Spiral
- Re-Inanimate
- Entrapment
- Mind’s Mirrors
- In Death – Is Life
- In Death – Is Death
- Shed
- Personae Non Gratae
- Dehumanization
- Sum
Lineup
Jens Kidman – lead vocals, guitars, bass, drum programming, mixing
Fredrik Thordendal – guitars, bass, drum programming, mixing
Mårten Hagström – lyrics, guitars, bass, drum programming, mixing
Tomas Haake – lyrics, vocals, drum programming, mixing, artwork & concept
Label
Nuclear Blast
