Nothing or Obzen

[Scar Symmetry]

Ewan, I totally get what you're saying about the outro to Pineal Gland Optics and in the intro to Pravus where there is the same kind of thing where the snare goes once, twice, once, thrice, once, twice, once, four times over and over. Although it's more obvious and less technical in a way to the Rational Gaze main riff (which is actually harder because of the feel), I still love those types of sections.

Obzen is probably the simplest Meshuggah album to date, which makes it more accessible, but with songs like Dancers To A Discordant System they completely throwout their sensibilities and go for full tech madness like they've never done before so I think overall the album balances out. Combustion is also one of those simple-yet-extremely-technical songs where to play it properly requires extreme concentration and technical proficiency.

One thing Meshuggah did a lot on Obzen was - although remaining in 4/4 - changing the feel to come in half a bar early to throw the timing off and then resolve in 4/4 again, which means that you can headbang to the whole riff and it comes together nicely. They also stretched one idea over entire songs (Bleed, Lethargica, DTADS) which I usually hate, but in this case they've done it in a way where they explore the full possibilities of one idea which I think is fucking great.

 

[liquidcow]

Combustion is the other one besides Bleed that I did actually like (I mean I don't totally hate the album I just never ever find myself wanting to listen to it again), though it sounds very unlike them I think. I do like how in Bleed they develop one idea for most of the song, and I can't imagine how they actually learned the whole thing (well, they only play half of it live...), but in the other cases it just didn't do it for me, felt almost like they were trying to write 'Meshuggah-style songs' a lot of the time.

 

[B36arin]

obZen is great, but Nothing takes the cake. It's consistently better, although the standout tracks on obZen can definitely compete with Nothing.

 

[damigu]

both of them.

i simply can't decide, because i have to be in different moods for each one. but both are in regular rotation for me.

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

Re-Nothing

It's probably one of the most crushing discs own.

 

[JoshuaLogan]

Re-Nothing by far. The production sounds way, way better and the 8 strings were new for them at the time and they were really putting them to good use. Obzen is more of the same of what they've put out recently really.... not bad, but not great either. A few good songs, a lot of meh, lackluster production...