Hooks So Big

Album of the Week 10/09/06:
Meshuggah - Catch Thirty-Three



Suggested By: MH

MH: First of all, I think the idea of a concept album is awesome. I agree that sometimes, it is a bit alienating to the new listener of the band or if you just want to have singles off an album. But bottom line some of my favorite albums have been very conceptual. Operation Mindcrime, Leviathan, 2112, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. So I was IN at the release of this album.

These guys are such good players. There is one track that just had the guitarist playing the same chord for what feels like, 30 seconds. Then the rest of the band comes in and he is still playing the same notes. These guys are good. I wonder what Rush thinks of them? I think they should hear this disc. These guys are super heavy too. You can't really understand the lyrics, but I don't really care much about lyrics anyway. One thing that I learned about this disc is if you aren't lisenting to it in a row, these songs sort of don't work on their own. They are needed to be listened to the whole disc. Which isn't really that hard since the disc is, maybe 37 minutes or something.

I feel the album picks up during the last few songs. Dehumanization is great and a Jam. They seemed to be able to write the whole album with certain chords and have been able to sustain it, and yet, change some of the ideas with a simple change in tempo or melody line. Again, these guys are good. I need to listen to more of these guys. Which is kind of why I picked them, so I could be reminded about their jammingness. QM (Queensryche Mike, a.k.a MJ) got to see them, and I couldn't . Which sucked. Oh well. This album may not make the rotation, but I love it!!!!!! I ain't gonna worry about a god damn thing.

MJ: So what is this classified as, "Math Metal"? I'm still trying to figure out what the hell that means - music to play when you are leisurely working on calculus? Does the guitarist take a fairly awesome riff, then raise it to the third power? Anyway, it's been so long since I listenened to Meshuggah that I kind of forgot how they sounded. To me, it's one of those fairly extreme bands that has that little extra something that makes it work for me. Nice chunky riffs, they slow it down a bit and just go heavy on our ass...that's what I'm talking about. I will admit, there are times when the songs get a little repetitive - but I guess sometimes you just have to settle into the groove and see it all the way through...