Meshuggah & Dimmu Borgir get reloaded!

The day that you have to get back to work after your Labor Day weekend, the good folks at Nuclear Blast Records are softening the blow of your return to the grindstone with the release of the first two shots in their "reloaded" reissue series.

On September 2nd, 2008 the label will release "reloaded" versions of two crucial albums from their extensive and impressive metal catalog: Meshuggah's radical 1995 breakthrough album Destroy Erase Improve and Dimmu Borgir's classic 1997 breakthrough, Enthone Darkness Triumphant. Both album will be packaged in an uber-cool "super jewel" cases with a snazzy side opening button and, well, lots more music for your buck!

Meshuggah's "reloaded" technical-metal masterpiece Destroy Erase Improve also includes songs from the band's long out-of-print Selfcaged EP as well as tracks from their 1994 None EP. Later in the month – on September 30th to be exact – Nuclear Blast will follow up with "reloaded" reissue versions of Meshuggah's unbelievable 1991 debut album, Contradictions Collapse, which will also include tracks from the band's 1997 True Human Design EP. On that same day, NB will also reissue the band's classic 1998 album Chaosphere, again with bonus tracks from True Human Design.

The "reloaded" version of Dimmu Borgir's black metal classic Enthrone Darkness Triumphant includes a bonus track in the form of the spanking "Raabjorn Speiler Draugheimens Skodde" as well as a live video clip of the song "Entrance" that you can peep on your computer, a Dimmu photo gallery, a ultra-spooky screensaver and some entirely appropriately Borgir WinAmp skins.

These are two Hall of Fame entrees in the metallic Valhalla, freshly remastered and awaiting your purchse. The Rev sez "check 'em out!"

(Click on the CD covers to buy either album from Amazon.com)

Meshuggah - Obzen CD review

Displaying less of an egghead Einstein approach to their metallic onslaught, this time out finds Sweden's Meshuggah – they of the mighty signature changes and predisposition towards formulaic improvisation – providing a welcome bludgeoning dominance to their normally scalpel-precise barnstorming. Obzen, thus, provides the best of all worlds for fans of the bombastic. Meshuggah slices-and-dices single notes unlike any metal outfit before or since, but with Obzen they add the soul-crushing dimension of hardcore HEAVINESS to their considerable arsenal.

A creepy, scraping riff and teetering cymbals kick off "Combustion," as appropriately-named a song as you'll experience this year, a blast-a-minute mindfuck of guttural vocals, blistering drumbeats and fretwork that will flay the skin from your bones before you know it. "Electric Red" ramps up the amps with powerful tribal rhythms, plodding discordant riffs and Jens Kidman's gutted-pig vox. Treading dangerously close to doom-turf, the song's down-tuned axes and stomping Killing Joke drumbeats are simply to die for….

If these first two songs set the stage for what will follow on Obzen, nothing could prepare the listener for the unrelenting barrage of noise-as-pain and pain-as-aural-pleasure that is to follow. Although Meshuggah's technical mastery has long been established, the machine-precision and robotic chaos of Obzen is truly staggering. Drummer/songwriter Tomas Haake ventures away from the computer for many of these songs, proving acidic live skins that beat the hell out of any other metal posse plying their trade in these dark streets today.

Haake's work on "Bleed" is outright scary, his bass drum bludgeoning the listener with a ferocity that even Fenriz can't muster, his machinegun rhythms complimented by the sting of Fredrik Thordendal's flippant guitar solos, while Mårten Hagstrom's rhythm guitarwork provides some of the strongest steel-beam construction that you'll find in contemporary metal. The song is simply exhausting on so many levels, but satisfying in a way that non-metal fans could never understand. The title track offers more of the same, monster riffs and syncopated rhythms forever melded with tortured vocals and an innate sense of musical outrage.

The textbook poly-noodle of "Pineal Gland Optics" starts with a snaky recurring riff and modal synth signature before descending into Kidman's own personal hell, his powerful vocals drowning amidst the rapidly-shifting quicksand of the song's ultimate confusion. The six-string work here blisters-and-peels any surface close enough to be impacted by the scraping riffage and bonfire rhythms, and the vox are guaran-damn-teed to give you nightmares for a week. "Dancers to a Discordant System" offers more of the big-bore chalkboard formula of previous Meshuggah albums, providing fans of the band's more scientific sound with some tasty integrated circuits to bite down on … though there's nothing here to alienate lunkhead purists, either, Kidman's death-throes vocals and Thordendal's switchblade solos fulfilling the perceived math-to-metal quotient.

Altogether, Meshuggah's sixth studio effort is a fine kettle of chaos, indeed, Obzen offering up plenty of everything that today's young headbanger could ever desire. Although the album further showcases the band's awestruck instrumental virtuosity and ability to change directions on a dime within a single song, there are also enough bone-crunching rhythms, surgical airstrike guitars, and city-destroying Godzilla bass lines to leave any listener a drooling mass of quivering cretinism … and what more could you ask for from any metal album? (Nuclear Blast Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Obzen from Amazon.com)

New Meshuggah album charts high with debut!

In this age of diminished sales expectations, nobody expects a CD by an extreme metal band on an independent label to make waves on the charts, but that exactly what Meshuggah has done with their ground-breaking new album obZen.

The disc, released by Nuclear Blast Records, entered the Billboard Top 200 at a very respectable #59. That's not all that obZen achieved, either – the album clinched the #14 spot on the iTunes Top Rock Albums chart; it was the #1 "Most Added" metal album on both the CMJ Loud Rock and FMQB radio charts; and it set a new Swedish My Space pre-listening promotion record with over a quarter of a million album streams in seven days. Quite respectable, indeed, for a band whose name most non-metal fans can't even pronounce!

Of the album's early success, Meshuggah drummer Tomas Haake says, "we are SUPER-STOKED! With a diminishing market for CD sales, we didn’t quite know what to expect for obZen, but reaching a place on the Billboard charts is truly AWESOME! Of course, we feel that we have a strong album and all that, but kudos where it’s due. This would not have been possible without the tremendous work of all the gents and gals at EMI & Caroline, our label Nuclear Blast, and of course, our fans. Thank you ALL for helping us reach new levels!"

The band will hit the road next week in support of obZen, touring with Ministry and Hemlock.

(Click on the CD cover to buy obZen through Amazon.com)

Meshuggah North American Tour Dates

Three years after the release of their groundbreaking Catch Thirty-Three album, Meshuggah is ready to drop a new disc, titled obZen, on March 11th, 2008 in the United States and Canada. The band will also be hitting the road in support of obZen, with Ministry and Hemlock. Here's where you can catch the show:

03/25/08 - Big Easy Concert Hall, Spokane WA
03/26/08 - Whiskey Nightclub, Calgary AB – CANADA
03/27/08 - Croatian Cultural Center, Vancouver BC – CANADA
03/28/08 - Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver BC - CANADA
03/29/08 - Showbox SoDo, Seattle WA
03/30/08 - Roseland Theatre, Portland OR
04/01/08 - The Fillmore, San Francisco CA
04/02/08 - The Fillmore, San Francisco CA
04/04/08 - House of Blues, Hollywood CA
04/05/08 - House of Blues, Hollywood CA
04/06/08 - House of Blues, Hollywood CA
04/07/08 - House of Blues, San Diego CA
04/08/08 - Marquee Theatre, Tempe AZ
04/09/08 - House of Blues, Las Vegas NV
04/11/08 - In The Venue, Salt Lake City UT
04/12/08 - Ogden Theatre, Denver CO
04/14/08 - Sunshine Theater, Albuquerque NM
04/15/08 - La Zona Rosa, Austin TX
04/16/08 - Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa OK
04/17/08 - The Palladium, Dallas TX
04/18/08 - Verizon Wireless Theatre, Houston TX
04/19/08 - House of Blues, New Orleans LA
04/21/08 - Revolution, Ft. Lauderdale FL
04/22/08 - House of Blues, Lake Buena Vista (Orlando) FL
04/23/08 - Jannus Landing, St. Petersburg FL
04/24/08 - Tremont Music Hall, Charlotte NC
04/25/08 - The Masquerade, Atlanta GA
04/26/08 - Rams Head Live, Baltimore MD
04/27/08 - The Palladium, Worcester MA
04/29/08 - The Fillmore (at Theatre of Living Arts), Philadelphia PA
05/01/08 - The Fillmore (at Irving Plaza), New York NY
05/02/08 - The Fillmore (at Irving Plaza), New York NY
05/03/08 - Metropolis, Montreal Quebec - CANADA
05/04/08 - Koolhaus, Toronto Ontario - CANADA
05/06/08 - The Agora Theatre, Cleveland OH
05/07/08 - Emerald Theatre, Detroit MI
05/08/08 - House of Blues, Chicago IL
05/09/08 - House of Blues, Chicago IL