Back in the day, when metal was metal, there were metal bands, and there were METAL bands, acts that defined the genre and set the terms and conditions. Times have changed though, and as the metal faithful are forced to progress deeper and deeper underground in search of the ‘real thing’, it’s heartening, in a metal-ish kind of way, to see bands of that bygone era still standing tall, still producing the sound with the ethos of old.
Meshuggah don’t immediately spring to mind when thinking of the early ‘90s brand of power thrash, a time dominated by bands like Pantera, Sepultura and Machine Head, amongst others, but they’ve been there the whole time, building a totally dedicated fan base through the weight of their music and the obvious passion they have for what they’re doing.
Meanwhile, guitarist Marten Hagstrom chats to me from the offices of NuclearBlast in Germany where it’s raining, it is here too and we bitch about the weather for a bit before the conversation turns to metal.
Meshuggah are already riding high on the impending release of their fourth long player, Catch Thirty-Three.
“We (the band) are tentatively thinking this is the best work we’ve done”, he tells me in his mellow Swedish accent”, which is a big call when you look at previous works like Destroy, Erase, Improve and Contradictions Collapse, both of which received glorious praise at their time of release.
“We’ve never been interested in the commercial side of music”, he continues, “For us, it’s more about writing music and recording cool shit, and we’ve just always had the will and hunger to keep going”, which explains how Meshuggah have managed to keep their massive sound ‘underground’ over the years, while other bands of note seem to get distracted by those fat dollars with the music suffering as a result.
Catch Thirty-Three sees the band take the base elements of metal; the speed, aggression and the rawness and whilst keeping their respective forms, heading off onto a tangent, something new. Hagstom’s in a chatty mood and expands, saying how with this album, the band wanted something different from the manufactured sounds prevalent today.
“We wanted to explore something different, we wanted the aggression and the mystique but we didn’t want to sound like metal today, where there’s a heap of different ‘types’ of metal. I remember metal being, well, thrash, metal, you know…”, and I agree. We talk about Metallica, Hagstrom was at Cliff Burton’s final show, and influences in general.
“We are influenced more by each other, the guys in the band”, he continues, “Also by movies and books, but less so by metal bands before us”.
The new album certainly does sound different, there seem to be few musical influences that are obvious, as Hagstrom stated, and one factor which stands out is the fact the record is one long track, tastefully divided into thirteen segments.
“We wanted to give the record a theme, you know, like a movie soundtrack or something”, he explains. “We also thought it would be logical to divide it up, so people can listen to certain parts without having to fast forward all the way through, you know…”, I sure do. Another different aspect of the album is that all the drum sounds are samples of drummer, Tomas Haake, played through computers.
“We’ve recorded stuff before with sampled drums, and people we played it to couldn’t tell the difference, and we wanted to try something different, like I said, so we all put it together. It makes it easy, because I can’t play the drums, but if I have a beat idea, I can use Tomas’ samples to build it”, he says. Playing on stage, Haake would obviously play live, they’ll divide the record long song into parts as they see fit, Hagstrom explains, which Australian fans would love to see.
Catch Thirty-Three is being released at the end of May and as you’d expect, there’s a bit of touring on the horizon.
“To tell you the truth”, he confides, “I’m not really sure what’s happening after the record is released. There’s a European tour and an American tour, I’m just not sure of details”, and he laughs, it’s all good. And Australia?
“We’d have to come through Japan first”, he explains, “It’s hard to do, but again, everything is just waiting for the release of the new record”. In the meantime, Meshuggah, in a move which is rare for them, have already started producing and collating material for another record which they’re looking to release within a year of Catch Thirty-Three.
So what’s the secret? How are Meshuggah resisting the urge to sell out to the almightly dollar? How are they still producing music superior to today’s trends in terms of blatant rawness? These are good questions because Hagstrom has no answers, just a laugh and “I don’t know”, and just this responce alone bodes well for the future of a genre biding it’s time, and also for Meshuggah with no foreseeable end to the madness, not that anyone is wishing for one.
