Meshuggah- Koloss ALBUM REVIEW 

I agree, Haake is probably the most practised robotic sounding god of rhythmic drumming. I’ve never seen a drummer be so dedicated to perfection quite like Tomas.

Exactly. Totally based on rhythmic stuff!!! Which is why they sound so amazing!!

I'd say in this style of metal riffs are the conduit for rhythm. Almost all of Meshuggah's drum parts are written in 4/4 and if you work out how to headbang to their music you will always follow the drums which can be simple. The guitars are what introduce new rhythms (often in odd time signatures) to create polyrhythms and often engage in some polymetric work. I'm surprised how little the guitarist is talked about when discussing the intricacy of Meshuggah's music compared to the drummer; people tend to talk about his solos which in reality are far less interesting than the mind-boggling riffage he offers. For me he is the real genius behind the beast that is Meshuggah.

This guy has no knowledge and mind fitting this kind of music. I bet he loves In flames and other metal bands that are melodic and easy on the ears of less intelligent people.

M. Freeman people who listen to those bands are not less intelligent. they just have a different taste to you. i like In Flames, but i also like Meshuggah. i also like Meshuggah more, but i still like both. do everyone a favour and don't make yourself sound like such an egotistical person :)

@@elscourou6654 Some people just don't understand Meshuggah, for instance, many critics don't see it. For example Catch 33 is an extremely underrated masterpiece, learn to flow with it, in trance sort of

I hear you.

100% agreed

Facts

Metal-funk indeed! That track just brings out the head bobs lol

and still the worst track on the album. but i agree

one badass motherfucking washing machine

Wessel van den Broek LOL

Sebastian Lacroix 😂

YESSS

So well said.

Rex M the violent sleep of reason absolute destroy koloss

you arent the real rex

@OnitsukaTiger82 This is the sound of a band that has perfected its' sound for better or for worse. It reminds me of Modest Mouse's The Moon & Antarctica and Circa Survive's The Amulet where some die-hard fans will cry that the band is selling out, and others, like me, will embace the cohesiveness and production quality. To each their own.

you asking me?

Kyle Schneid Here is from an article from the Drummer himself. Learn something - "What the hell time signatures are these songs in? “They are not in odd times,” Haake states for the umpteenth. “It’s not a big deal to us. It’s not a matter of us wanting the listener to hear the music the way we do it. This whole album is straight 4/4 all through. “You have of course a cycle that’s repeating. For example, a pattern of snare and kick could be nine hits over an 8/8 bar, and that nine-beat cycle keeps repeating while my cymbal/hi-hat hand and the snare play a straight beat as well. So the context of the song is 4/4, but if you wanted to you could say this measure is 13/16 or something, but we really don’t think about it like that. We just think bar by bar, and think of each bar as a different movement.

The word that neither of you seem to know is "Polyrhythm".

i know that word duh

John Arnold And if you know what it means you would also know that they dont play 4/4 time. Unless you dont know what 4/4 time is.

Yuuuup

agree the evolution of extreme music!!!!!

Nothing is absolutely the best meshuggah album ever

Nothing is their best, but I find myself always coming back to Chaosphere for more listens

@@Karg45 maybe my favorite Meshugga song.

Catch 33

100%. I think it’s their best record. Really felt like they were telling a story with this album.

agreed, obzen is such a retardedly happy album while nothing makes me wanna kms

I reckon the guy is just not into what the band brings to the table. It's almost as if needledrop would like Meshuggah to make an album that has absolutely nothing to do with their previous work, but I'm pretty much of an opinion that neither the fans, nor the group has that in mind. I'd also say they should stop releasing songs. Their last album was really, really weak. Born in Dissonance is brilliant, top 10 easily, but the rest is average at best.

And yet their sound is...Immutable

He obviously missed the theological undertone.

he doesn't no shit of anything occult in music sad bitch

Demi-moore I think.

Daniel Marino-Austin lol

Fantano's really not good at understanding deep lyrics at all, or metaphors in songs. He takes all the words at base surface level. Like in his review for slipknot's Grey Chapter, he said the lyrics to killpop were a cheesy breakup song about a girl. But in interviews, Corey said the song's about how much he hates pop music and how it pisses him off how people can make such generic low-effort music and make millions while actually talented musicians don't get any publicity and still need day jobs to be financially stable. Also, he gave Mastodon's emperor of sand a 4/10 saying it was the band at their most commercial and they should go back to making concept albums, but emperor of sand WAS a concept album. It just completely went over his head.

TheMeatballMen Agreed!

Yo mofinkin melon

skypjuh Haha..😂😃

Never again

Vali Saxonian next u want mastodon?? Pff 🤮

joe `martinez` you trynna say you don’t like mastodon and Gojira? Lay off the crack

@@NorthgateGuitar Mastodon is objectively great. Gojira has its faults, but they're objectively good.

@@rellik0098 gojira is just a shitty version of Morbid Angel

@@serialdrunkdriver are you sure about that

Robyn Withrow Marry me.

+Robyn Withrow YAAAASSSS rational gaze

Agreed, I've been playing for 20 years and Haake is the man, I can't think of anyone in metal that's as good accept for Roddy or Kollias who both play similar styles, but they can play a lot of other stuff so they're versatile, and I'd still choose Haake. Contradictions, None, DEI, Chaosphere for me. Their news stuff is still good.

Dude yes.. Roddy and Kolias are beasts as well.

I love DOE and its raw blend of thrash and jazz along with a lot of innovation. I think my favorite songs are on Chaosphere. I love the raw trax version of Concatenation, have you heard it? It's so sludgy and amazing.

Musa Tariq One of my favs aswell, such a killer track

I second this

some of the instrumentation on this album is the best they've done since Nothing, and that says a lot. And many of the ideas on this album are fun and imaginative like Do Not Look Down and The Demon's Name Is Surveillance. This shows that they are willing to go forward still with their music, and that is why it's dangerously close to a masterpiece.

comaring anything before Nothing to albums after Nothing is just plain wrong when you see how much they changed after introducing F tuning

he never seems to review stuff that's not New unless it's a "classic" so I doubt that unless it's a classic too fantee

Mark Esch from what it sounds like, he doesn't have a great amount of differing opinion between Meshuggah albums, up until their newest.

Errrrrrrrr

WillHerndon I thought the production could've been allot better.

I don't like the Guitar tone, and the drum sound they got basically. Guitar sound seems a bit too gainy and fuzzy. The drums sound kinda, boxy. Like carboard boxes.

The snare sounds powerful but also like it was recorded in a closet in a bathroom. I know what you mean about the guitars but the tone could've been better. As far as the editing goes idk. My only gripe about chaosphere is that the kick drum is too quiet. I think the best production they had was DEI.

You're not. I can enjoy you sober...

That's not entirely true. They use polymeters. So, yes, it's true that they use 4/4. But they're also playing in odd time signatures, too, and they're all played at the same tempo. Think of it like this: if you play 3/4 and 4/4 at the same time and at the same speed, they'll both meet up at 12 beats, or 3 bars of 4/4 and 4 bars of 3/4. So, they are actually playing in odd time signatures AND 4/4. They feel weird becuase they are weird, but they have a groove because they're also in 4/4.

Never thought of it that way, I usually just count the 4/4 beat but your right with that they also use 3/4 wich meets up with the 4/4. Whener I listen to a Meshuggah-song I always try to feel the pulse that the groove circles around, in that way it's easier for me to feel how the guitars and drums play along to the pulse. Wether you count 3 4/4 or 4 3/4 there is always a constant pulse that hides beneath the grooves of Meshuggahs songs :)

Daniel Nordström pretty much, they put the 4/4 groove in (drummer) Tomas Haake's hands, while both the guitars and Haake's feet match each other on the odd-time to create the polyrhythms (and that odd-time is often something a lot weirder than just 3). Then they reset every 8, 16, 32, or some other even number of bars. Super cool, though, and kinda puts you in a trance while feeling manic at the same time.

You've got the right idea, but this is known as rhythmic displacement. The simplest way to think about it is let's say you have a cymbal smashing away on 1 and 3, while the "pocket" revolves around a sequence of 7 beats. It would sound wonky for about 3 bars and then line up on the fourth, creating a sort of "tension and release" affect. Just thought I'd put it in simpler terms for those that seem to love over-complicating fairly simple concepts out of a sense of self-importance or whatever else.

INF1D3L010 good info. great thread.

TargusBaylior Oh man, Chaosphere! That was the album that got me into them.

It's all fashion...

I find myself enjoying his older interviews a bit more. It's kind of calming

***** Cadaverous Mastication

I find that Koloss is more of a detail-oriented album. Meshuggah seems to be moving more towards intricacy rather than their "in your face" weirdness of old. It is my humble opinion that Meshuggah's forte is the groove and Koloss has tracks that groove harder than any other band out there. Haters are gonna hate, regardless of what I say, but I absolutely love I am Collossus, Do Not Look Down and Behind the Sun. As a side note, the lyrics are so well-written, the meanings would probably go right over the heads of most people, but they still carry weight even if you don't quite know what they were getting at. Apparently, Tomas Haake reads lots of Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges and Robert Fisk, so the lyrics are very political/socially inclined. Some of the most artfully veiled "fuck you!"s to the ruling class can be had with post-9/11 Meshuggah albums, and Koloss is no different. Just take one read through I am Collossus' lyrics and try and tell me that it's not about the monetary system (Wall Street.)

INF1D3L010 I'm also curious as to how much of Koloss is influenced by Meshuggah's time on tour with Ministry. They're basically playing industrial metal style riffs, albeit manually and without the electronics, on some of these songs.

DJENTS

shib gends A sound Fredrik Thordendal made up to sort of describe a palm-muted chug on the guitar, which people started talking about as a genre describing Meshuggah and all similar bands. It's a sound, pretty much.