04/23 – 04/27:

Meshuggah, Koloss

Since last we heard from Meshuggah, a whole thing has sprung up trying to turn them into a genre called “djent.” It’s really dumb. The perfectly synced stop-start guitars & drums and palm mutes that Meshuggah favors these days sound cool, sure, but it’s hardly enough to build a genre out of. And, on the other hand, most of the bands don’t actually sound like Meshuggah, they just have songs with parts that sound like Meshuggah, which makes the whole thing even flimsier.

But Meshuggah have changed a lot over the years, themselves, and the band that currently sounds like a factory designed to produce flawless heavy metal is back, making it clear that there’s only one band in their genre. Koloss is definitely of a piece with previous album obZen, maintaining its unrelenting assault, but adding a surprising amount of groove. It doesn’t have anything as fast as “Combustion” or “Bleed” from that album (Though “The Demon’s Name Is Surveillance” and “The Hurt That Finds you First” will still get your blood pumping), but I think it has a greater coherence from front to back. Like obZen, Koloss might seem simpler than past efforts at first, but while the increasingly weird experimentation of their 2000s work is mostly gone, it’s replaced with songs where the trick isn’t necessarily inventing a new way to play so much as making more familiar song forms fit that strange Meshuggah sound. The jagged guitar parts and odd pattern of the drums on “Marrow,” “Break Those Bones Whose Sinew Gave It Motion” or “Swarm” recall the Meshuggah of the 90s, but never simply return to the style they played at the time. The aforementioned new focus on groove is an interesting experiment itself. “Do Not Look Down” has a groove bordering on funky, even, yet still sounds like Meshuggah. The 6-minute “Demiurge” adds spooky atmospherics to the mix, while instrumental closer “The Last Vigil” lives up to its name, a surprisingly quiet, reflective piece more about atmosphere than song. There are so many new sounds to take in. The band continues to find new ways to expand on their sound, to find new layers and paths within it, without ever really changing it. It’s a difficult balancing act, but they pull it off. Accept no substitutes.

Meshuggah, “Do Not Look Down”

Paul Weller, Sonik Kicks

In recent years, Paul Weller has alternated between more straightforward rock records and more experimental albums. Previous offering Wake Up The Nation was a rocking call to action, but its predecessor, 22 Dreams, was almost a different style of music for every track, and it was preceded by his first rock album in several years, As Is Now. so that puts Sonik Kicks on track to be a bit more loose and experimental, and lo, it is. While it has straight up rockers like “Kling I Klang!,” and”Around The Lake,” most of its running time is made up of tracks with a little bit more spirit of adventure. Electronics find their way into his music for the first time of significance since the latter days of The Style Council, he experiments with dance rock and dub, there’s a Middle Eastern flavor to “Driftiers,” and there are a few ballads in a classic Weller mode. But while the stylistic variety of 22 Dreams gave it an unwieldy sprawl that was hard to appreciate all together, Sonik Kicks is remarkably focused for all its flights of fancy. This complete feeling is helped along by some songs that flow into each other or odd little interludes. It doesn’t take much, but it makes a big difference, as the album is so much more fluid and a really enjoyable listen from start to finish. Weller has experienced something of a Renaissance in the 2000s (the 3rd?... 4th?... of his career, even), and Sonik Kicks may be the best album of this period.

Paul Weller, “Drifters”

Sharon Van Etten, Tramp

Sharon Van Etten’s apparently been doing it for years, but I am just getting on the bandwagon here. Seems like a pretty good place to climb aboard. This album’s thoughtful, vulnerable tone is almost hypnotic, reeling you in deeper with each subsequent song. It reminds me in places of PJ Harvey, post-new wave 80s “alternative,” folksy singer-songwriter fare and more as it unwinds its running time, but it manages to shift very subtly from song to song and sound to sound, creating a true album experience in a music world where that’s becoming a lost art. The introspective, forlorn “Give Out” makes way for the album’s only real rocker in “Serpents,” which is in turn followed by the stripped down ballad “Kevin’s,” but it all feels of a piece and unified. It’s a great record.

Sharon Van Etten, “Give Out”

There you go.

--D