In Fact, I Just Like To Say The Word 'Incarceration'

Meshuggah – I

I liked Meshuggah's other albums Catch Thirty Three and Chaosphere when I wrote about them last year, but wasn't overly impressed either. However I've found that they've both really grown on me. That's not much of a surprise considering how technical their music is. As it doesn't have a big emotional impact most of its worth becomes apparent through careful listening.

I is an EP that was released between those two albums, and while short it combines the strengths of both of them. Like Catch Thirty Three the album is one continuous piece of music, although only 20 minutes long instead of 50, and like that album it contains a mix of heavy passages and weird atonal interludes. From Chaosphere it inherits the incredibly brutal riffs that manage to be catchy despite being in completely deranged time signatures.

While the bizarre rhythms of the other albums have their own strange kind of order to them, I goes in a little bit of a Dillinger Escape Plan direction using completely random time signatures. Other than that there's not much to add except that it's another excellent release from these guys but without much to differentiate it from their other albums. It's short and succinct and would probably be a good introduction to Meshuggah.