MESHUGGAH

Djent pioneers’ early years, remastered on lovely, lovely vinyl.

For once, the term ‘long-awaited’ is entirely appropriate: Meshuggah’s much acclaimed back catalogue has been crying out for a proper vinyl release for some time. Happily, this first batch of remastered revisits delivers the sought-after goods.

It all starts with the eye-frazzling artwork that adorns each of the five records: either reimagined from the original or entirely new, it’s all stunning and truly adds to the experience. But it’s the music that made Meshuggah into contemporary legends and each of these seminal albums has been tweaked to a state of sonic near-perfection.

Admittedly, 1989’s self-titled EP and 1991’s Contradictions Collapse are both snapshots of a young band in a state of eager flux. Effectively dismantling the progressive thrash that Metallica defined on 1988’s classic …And Justice For All, removing all traces of the blues and feeding it through a wonky prism of King Crimson perversity, the Swedes’ sound seemed to be evolving in real time, but despite occasional moments

of prescient complexity like Abnegating Cecity (from Contradictions Collapse), it wouldn’t be until 1994’s None EP that Meshuggah would truly hit their stride. From that moment on, they sounded like no one else and seemed to be singlehandedly pushing metal into a future far beyond most people’s imaginations.

1995’s Destroy Erase Improve sealed the deal. Remastered for vinyl, it has never sounded as vast or overwhelming as it does here. More importantly, songs like Future Breed Machine and Soul

Burn still sound ahead of their time and genuinely subversive, too. The pick of the polyrhythmic bunch is Chaosphere, Meshuggah’s 1996 masterpiece. Faster, harder, more wilfully impenetrable and yet more ruthlessly streamlined than before, it captured a band in full Eureka! mode, plugged into the cosmic mainframe and impervious to outside influence. It’s one of the most absurdly exhilarating records ever made and, once again, it sounds astonishing on vinyl. One of these days, everyone else will catch up, right?