Nothing

Artist: Meshuggah
Label: Nuclear Blast Americ
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Enhanced
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 727361654221
EAN: 0727361654221
ASIN: B000069ATO

Release Date: 2002-08-06

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Listmania:

The best riffs of the new millennium (part one)
My favorite Meshuggah full-length releases (plus 1 EP) in order.
Albums that you must own if you like the metal or hard rock
My Music Pt. 7
The best (new) riffs since the 1980s (list 2)!
Great albums that I listen to
Some of my favorite True Metal albums
More of my favorite prog metal
Funky metal (my faves)
A rhythm guitar fan's wet dream (list 2)

Tracks:

Stengah
Rational Gaze
Perpetual Black Second
Closed Eye Visuals
Glints Collide
Organic Shadows
Straws Pulled At Random
Spasm
Nebulous
Obsidian

Similar Items:

Chaosphere
Destroy Erase Improve
I
Catch Thirty-Three
Contradictions Collapse/None

Customer Reviews:

an outstanding album.......2006-08-16

I have never been disappointed with this band and with each cd of theirs I acquire I build a greater appreciation for their unique style. With the most oddest rhythm mixed with an excellent vocal style of violent hurt and aggression, this album is not to be missed. Track 2 is a definitely a fav of mine

Meshuggah has done it again. All hail 'Nothing'!.......2006-07-04

Meshuggah did it once again. "Nothing" is hardly nothing.

When this album first hit stores I went and picked it up the day it came out. I must say, it does SOUND less complex than past efforts...but thats not at all true. You see, when a band like Meshuggah does something like this its to fool you. To fool you into thinking something completely the opposite of what it really is. In this case, they tried to make you think of this album as bland, simple, and less "heavy" than the past albums. And if you thought that...you have fallen right into their trap. Nothing is definitly my favorite Meshuggah album. Out of all of them this is the one that sounds most refined and emotional-(lyrically). Not to worry, though, because Meshuggah is still obviously Meshuggah on this album, they just tried to pull a fast one on us!

If you want my honest opinion, I think you should go out and buy every Meshuggah album you can lay your hands on! Nothing is my personal favorite, maybe its time for you to find out yours!

An important evolutionary step.......2006-04-18

Along with the usual attacks on Meshuggah for being tuneless (among other things), Nothing was widely considered by fans of the band to be a disappointment. It came out on the heels of Meshuggah's stint on Ozzfest's second stage and also capped a four year gap between releases. Being new to Meshuggah at that time, I don't know for sure what the hype was, but I can guess it was pretty high. So here's this band that is supposedly breaking big on Ozzfest and is about to release their MAGNUM OPUS... and then we get....

Nothing.

(haha)

Nothing is Nothing like its predecessors... well that's not entirely true - it is rich in disorienting polyrhythms and crushingly heavy guitar riffs, as we have come to expect from Meshuggah. But compared to the manic Destroy Erase Improve or the unrelenting Chaosphere, Nothing is... slow. It's slow and it's sludgey and it's repetative. Many of the riffs are far more abstract and melodically counter-intuitive. As the pitch becomes less and less important, the rhythm comes even more to the foreground. At this point, Meshuggah ceases to be a thrash band and becomes a trance band.

So what's so disappointing about that? Well, for one, it alienates many of the non-musicians who must struggle to discover the tune buried under all the math. But that's Nothing Meshuggah didn't do on Chaosphere - they just did it a lot faster, a lot angrier, and a lot scarier. So now, not only can it not be sung along to, but it's too slow and confusing to headbang to. The song structures are less apparent as well.

But Meshuggah was really hinting at something here, which I think was lost on a lot of people until perhaps Catch Thirty-Three was released (and judging by the reviews, is still lost on some of those people)... that is, the use of repetition and atmosphere to create a mood with their music as opposed to coming straight out with the riffs and calling it a day. There are more hair-raising dissonances and uncomfortable chromatic guitar riffs here than on any single other Meshuggah album, and sometimes it takes up to three or four minutes for the "hook" of the song to be revealed.

All of this put together can make it a difficult listen even for a seasoned metalhead. However, for supposedly being a flop, it has its fair share of extremely high quality tracks; "Stengah" is a great introduction to this Meshuggah, displaying just a few of the great things that can be done with this sludgey, droning style. It also introduces us to the basement-range 8-string guitars which were just prototypes at this point. "Closed Eye Visuals" is the central accomplishment of Nothing with its hypnotic, oscillating guitar riffs and creepy, psychedelic interlude/outro. "Spasm" is a standout track in Meshuggah's catalogue, remaining one of my favorite Meshuggah songs for several years now - there's a swaying, dance-like quality to it that is addictive.

In fact, the whole first chunk of the album is really good. The main problems with this album take place after the initial euphoria of the first four tracks. For example, "Glints Collide" is a decent song with an amazingly cool bridge riff, but overall isn't fantastic. That's excusable, most albums have their-less-than-brilliant moments. But then another song comes on that buries its best riff somewhere towards the end, and then another and then... well then it starts to become tedious. If Nothing else, Nothing is just badly paced - too many songs based on the same concept were placed in clusters too large for the impatient listener to put up with. Nothing's songs, particularely in the middle, have more of a tendancy to run together than the other albums.

Nothing does have an oddly appropriate ending sequence though: after the almost painfully slow and sludgey "Nebulous" comes the actual closer, "Obsidian". "Obsidian" starts out as an instrumental in the vein of "Acrid Placidity", but then explodes into a repetitive sequence of brutal dissonances that goes on for several minutes - not entirely unlike the end of Chaosphere, actually, but slowed down several notches and prolonged for zoning-out-purposes. It is probably the weakest ending sequence of any Meshuggah album (bar Contradictions Collapse) but is appropriate nonetheless.

In the end, I can affirm that yes, Nothing is a bit of a disappointment. It lacks the songwriting prowess of Destroy Erase Improve and the insanely tight focus of Chaosphere... but it is an important evolutionary step in Meshuggah's sound. The use of the riff as a tool for creating atmosphere heavily foreshadows the drama of Catch Thirty-Three. The worst moments on Nothing are probably a result of the band getting used to their new 8-string guitars, and they seem to have a better handle of it on subsequent releases. All in all there's really no good reason NOT to buy this album, although I would recommend new people try DEI or Chaosphere first as they suffer from fewer shortcomings. A mostly 3-point album bumped up to 4 by awesome highlights.

I'm glad I purchased this!.......2006-04-08

This is math-metal at it's finest. Meshuggah's use of 8-string guitars have made them a very innovative band. How can you people let this CD only have a 4 star rating while garbage like Fly**** has a 4.5 rating?! Anyone who says this is simple should strap a 8 string guitar around their shoulder and get a Meshuggah tab. Then come back and tell me that it's simple. The guitars are nice and crunchy, with the odd time signatures only enhancing the band's sound. The solos are quite a trip as well. Tool said that Meshuggah's sound will have a huge influence on their new CD. If so, i'm very excited!

Ignore all the naysayers, and pick up this CD. You won't regret it!

Nothing - nothing worthwhile .......2006-02-22

I really tried to listen to this, but its one of the most boring things I've bothered with. Apart from Destroy/Erase/Improve, I dont enjoy anything by this band. Why people rave over this self-indulgent [junk] is beyond me.

I saw Jack Osbourne calling this band swedish death metal. What a joke ! Calling Messhugah swedish death metal is a mockey of real swedish death metal.

They should have just included a blank CDR disc and it would have had the same effect.

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