MESHUGGAH: Catch Thirty-Three

Produced by Meshuggah

Released: 2005

Meshuggah's latest album is getting plaudits from all over the place right now, but until I hear it myself I can't comment. So here now I present my view of their bewildering 2005 release, Catch Thirty Three. Like other Meshuggah albums, it’s a combination of wierdly abstract lyrics, excessively down-tuned guitars, seemingly awkward time-signatures and off-kilter arrangements, but this one pushed boundaries they had only just begun to explore.

After releasing an EP that consisted of a single 21-minute track, the crazy Swedes followed through with something even more audacious: Catch Thirty Three is one 47-minute long song broken up into 13 separate parts. At first, you don’t even notice. A sludgy, slow and twisted riff pounds by, somehow staying within the parameters of a recognisable time-count. Then you look up and see that you’re at track four! By the time “Entrapment” rolls around a little after that none but the biggest Meshuggah fanboy could deny that it’s starting to sound pretty repetititive, but that’s when the album begins to evolve. “Mind’s Mirrors” breaks up the piece with a long section that is almost nothing but vocoder followed by some unconventional guitar tinkering. Having reached the halfway point, Catch Thirty Three moves up a gear on “In Death – Is Life”, but shifts moods again almost immediately. The album’s longest “section”, “In Death – Is Death” stretches on and on seemingly without end for over 13 minutes of what can only be described as wankery but for some reason if you’ve come this far you have to go the rest of the way. From track ten onwards, the album almost crashes to a finish with the same riffs and themes as the first half, but at a slightly more frantic pace.

Catch Thirty Three is hard to describe adequately because it’s just too strange, and certainly not for anyone who is looking for something particularly catchy or easy to digest. At the same time, it is maddeningly compelling and even hypnotic in parts and it certainly ranks as one of the oddest metal releases of all.

1. Anatomy Lost


2. Imprint of the Un-saved


3. Disenchantment


4. The Paradoxical Spiral


5. Re-Inanimate


6. Entrapment


7. Mind's Mirrors


8. In Death -- Is Life


9. In Death -- Is Death


10. Shed


11. Personae Non Gratae


12. Dehumanization


13. Sum

Rating: 77%