Crimson Falls, Meshuggah reviews
Two more reviews up - at Metal Injection, I've covered the new Crimson Falls, absolutely ripping Belgian metalcore that's pretty much death metal but for the occasional breakdown. At Stylus, I've reviewed the Meshuggah reissue of Nothing.
Labels: belgium, clee, death metal, metalcore, sweden, writing
10 Comments:
I'm no Meshuggah fanatic. You would probably benefit to know that they don't employ polyrhythmics in the sense you mean them in your review. Meshuggah are quite the definition of lockstep, they all play unison rhythms. What's polyrhythmic is the drummer's parts on their own. Hands in one meter, legs in another, even sometimes different snare time, different kicks time and that ever-insisetant crash keeping the flat time. The most common trick is that usually the crash is in triplets over the beat.
That's quite different from 6 over 4 where things pulse out of sequence and eventually return to their proper place. As I said, not an expert in this band, but I've not heard them do much of this.
If you want to hear people playing enjoyably arsis-return stuff, get King Crimson's Discipline album from the 80s. Or Confessor, who do all sorts of drum wizardry.
Also, about overcompression and 'typical metal production'. It'd also be interesting to note that this band has gone to great lengths to create a very unison-based sound. They aren't just producing like this because 'it has to be done'. They shun dynamics on purpose. It's not a radio trick, it's not mastering to sound louder than everybody else, it's just their peculiarity that makes them want to sound like ONE THING (plus the solo here and there). I predict they'll go even further in this path in the future, eventually it'll just be rhythmic slabs of white brick waveform.
I liked them when they played thrash metal, the newer stuff's not for me.
Thanks for the clarification about polyrhythms. A quick Wikipedia search reveals that perhaps "polymeters" or "irrational rhythms" describe Meshuggah better.
I think, given the importance of drums to Meshuggah, and the fact that the riffs are percussive and therefore have space between notes, that dynamics are still important for the band. The more I listen to both "Nothing" versions, the more I feel that the original still hits harder.
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Anonymous again, let's call me Helm.
Rests between notes aren't what I was talking about. Juxtaposition of velocity, attack, peaks and valleys in the sound, volume swells, so on. A soft note and then a hard note. This band almost completely does without that sort of thing, emphasizing ROBOTIC PROGRAMMED PRECISION.
Think about this for a second. They are abolishing the analogue feel from their music. Their 'dynamic range' edges towards binary. 0 = SILENCE 1 = FULL VOLUME. They alternate between the two a lot, but the waveform remains constant, a huge brick of ear-hurting metallic unison.
Doesn't it strike you as peculiar that they actually went back and *reduced the natural drums in favour of tracked percussion*? They have a game-plan, regardless of whether they talk about it in interviews, and it really doesn't involve a lot of 'human' quality in music. Dynamic, analogue feeling is very human. Therefore slowly but surely becoming obsolete, as far as this band seems to be concerned.
On another note, readers: post comments on this wonderful blog now that you know you don't need a blogger account to do so.
I generally agree with you on the mechanical nature of Meshuggah. Thematically, artwork-wise, and soundwise, this is largely true. However, I don't think they necessarily need mechanical *means* to achieve that. In fact, on recording their new album, drummer Tomas Haake said, "It's so great to actually be playing drums again."
Using drum samples on the "Nothing" reissue could have been for any number of reasons. For example, the old drums might not have fit with the new guitars mix-wise, so they had to add new drum sounds. Somehow this seems more plausible to me, especially since the band is so eager to get back to real drums and their thrashy early sound after "Catch 33."
As far as the on-off nature of guitars, I've actually thought about this a lot recently. Guitars going through extremely high amp gain almost have no dynamics to begin with. Just touch the string, and you have a ragingly loud sound. In extreme metal, guitars are either generally loud or soft, with little in between. That might be all that's going on with Meshuggah.
I love these nerd discussions, keep 'em coming!
That is true about most Metal and dynamics, and it seems it's going in that direction even more. But the best Heavy Metal (if this doesn't spark a little bit of commentary controversy I don't know what will) doesn't neglect dynamics at all.
Stuff by Manilla Road, Fates Warning, Candlemass, even inventive thrash bands like Annihilator (listen to the song 'The Fun Palace' to catch enough dynamic shifts for a Stravinsky piece) aren't monochromatic at all.
In metal, if we have say an overdriven tone that doesn't allow for a lot of dynamic picking variation, what are we left with that can express in that sense?
We have light palm muting, heavy palm muting, no muting at all.
We have downstroke picking, alternate picking, tremolo picking, of course these things contribute to the density of events in a given moment.
We have instrument stacking, two, three, twentythree guitar channels.
Tempo shifts of course, simplifying a riff or making it more complex...
In the end, if the band has dynamics in mind there's plenty of apportunity to use these things to portray a finite but interesting amount of range between SILENCE and METAL CHAOS.
Meshuggah are very able musicians. They are neglecting this aspect of their music on purpose, is my point. On a more general note, sadly a lot of extreme metal is more 'extreme' than it is 'metal'. I'll take a black metal record by Absu or Taake any time over one by Anaal Nathrakh, similarly a death metal album by Demilich or Autopsy over a Hate Eternal record, so on. For those of us interested in Heavy Metal as a whole, who have a good sense of the genre's history, extremity for extrmity's sake is pretty pointless. A lot of younger bands are doing 'metal-by-numbers' as far as I can tell.
Not to say Meshuggah have no aesthetic imperative to be as they are, really. Kind of a sideways tangent.
I'm reading Deena Weinstein's sociology book on metal right now, and she touches on this issue of the core essence of metal vs. its mutations. I personally don't mind if something is more "extreme" than "metal." I'm interested in sounds in general.
Weinstein brings up the interesting point that bands will police themselves as to how far they stray from metal's essence. If they stray too far, they'll lose their metal audience. Grindcore, to a degree, is not about dynamics so much as sheer attack, and it is definitely metal. To me, Meshuggah aren't so experimental that they'll start making noise albums. After all, the most-invoked name on Blabbermouth must retain some measure of metal-ness to ensure its livelihood!
This conversation is taking an interesting turn, though I'm fearing we're weighing down an entry that is fast scrolling towards the archives and others might miss it therefore.
I listen to a lot of things besides metal (strong liking to ambient, modern composition, progressive rock and dark wave), but I usually like my metal proud. Let's just say a confused-identity band will very rarely put out records of great importance in our little genre. That's just how metal is, it requires a certain type of transcendal arrogance to work. Most great metal albums seem to emanate a 'I am the only metal album you need to hear' quality about them, and that's when the charm is done and you're transfixed.
Quasi-metal bands become more of a curiosity, a 'check this out also' than they become the livesblood of the metalhead, and though I am guilty of having a lot of curio-metal around, still, a proper arrogant heavy metal album makes me bang the head and throw the horns and feel not just alive and vital, but eternal.
Which is why it's increasingly disappointing when people are ashamed to say 'Heavy Metal' because they think it means 'Saxon'. Hammers of Misfortune and The Lord Weird Slough Feg? They're not 'unclassifiable'. They're Heavy Metal. The Vision Bleak's second album, 'Carpathia'? Not gothic atmospheric whatever. Heavy Metal. Maudlin of the Well? Not progressive/accoustic/whatever. Heavy Metal. I's debut album? Not black n' roll, HEAVY FUCKIN' METAL.
Though I understand some of the confusion. At least - to one with a sense of metal history - Lord Weird Slough feg are obviously Brocas Helm (*ahem*) hero-worship. Maudlin of the Well have as much romantic-doom in them as they have progressive rock, but that's the thing: what ties these 'expansive' bands back to their source is that singular willpower, an almost magical belief in their intent and potency, which in the end is what Heavy Metal is all about. You can't separate this aesthetic from the music.
The quasi-metal bands don't have the aesthetic down, they are aping the stylistics. They 'play the riff like that riff' they don't feel the need of the riff. There's a certain emulative kick you get when you hear your hands produce music 'just like the music you like!' and I swear this has been the downfall of a lot of promising newcomers. I know this sounds like a 'true metal kills false metal grr' argument and I can't completely discard the relevance of this notion, but it's not just that.
Meshuggah in that sense are inherently a Heavy Metal band too, and yes, I don't think they'll abandon that sort of aesthetic cohesion in the future, though their sound might just as well become white noise plus some solos plus some vocals. It'll still be recognisably Heavy Metal, and not to applease the Blabbermouth audience.
Why do I know? Well I don't, but I strongly suspect this will be the case because I've read that Meshuggah simply don't talk about what they're doing. They don't discuss 'the band's future' and so on. They just do it. Heavy Metal.
I agree that there's a heavy metal essence that comes out when a band has a certain degree of self-confidence, with vision and skills to match. I'm not sure what it is; I just know it when I feel it. Of course, albums like I's debut scream "heavy metal" because they refer to previous sounds already established as "heavy metal." The riffs and songs are at a certain speed, with a certain power and melodic quality that recall old albums. Amon Amarth, for example, really goes for this vibe. I think that something could be newer or have newer reference points and still be metal all the way. Nile comes to mind. Its closest reference point is Morbid Angel, which is hardly classic metal, and yet it is more metal than you or I ever will be. I don't think metal is in danger of losing its essence. Lesser bands will fall by the wayside, and stronger bands will survive. Metal audiences are tough and regulate the market accordingly.
I could never sit through a whole Nile record really, as is sadly my problem with a lot of piledriver-type DM (Ripping Corpse and Dim Mak a strange exception!) so I can't talk about the purity of their metal, though I understand their pedigree certainly goes way back in the field. I think there's two ways you can be Heavy Metal. Either because you sound like Saxon, as I say above, or because your sound is so all-encompassing and obviously the result of a studious pupil of all sorts metal than in the end the 'death metal' part doesn't overpower the 'speed metal' part or whatever. This is for example why Master's Hammer, though historically considered black metal sound just fine next to Candlemass next to Bathory next to Iron Maiden. It's a singular love for all things metal that makes both the best Heavy Metal and the best 'niche' metal bands.
Bands whose influences are recent and only recent rarely achieve such a state. Look at recent american metal for a sorry example of this. Therefore I submit that it's very possible Nile (or another band of that calibre) aren't closely referenced to only Morbid Angel but also Thin Lizzy to equal amounts. Of course one could only know if they ask, but I'd bet an arm most highly revered say, black metal bands know their Iron Maiden and Metallica and whatnot just as well as they know their Burzum and Darkthrone, and in the end even if it is subconsciously, that sort of identification carries through in the music and paints in in far more vibrant colors than the traditional second-wave Transylvanian Hunger black and white would suggest.
Sure, the older bands are also older fans of metal, and thus their work may have greater metal "authenticity." One tends to be influenced by what one heard in one's youth. For the kids of now, that is the music of now. I grew up on thrash and death metal, not Maiden and Sabbath and Priest. Those bands I had to go back and discover on my own. I'm sure many other metal fans have done that, too.
Metal is both a historical and a progressive artform. Innovations still come along, like blastbeats or Burton Bell's dirty/clean vocals, that get used and abused, but become part of metal's vocabulary. I think such progression prevents the genre from becoming stagnant.
There are plenty of American bands that have older references, like Lair of the Minotaur and Saviours. They're just not the flavor of the moment. As long as musicians keep discovering and rediscovering the old records, though, they'll keep that feeling alive.
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