MESHUGGAH — Chaosphere (review)

MESHUGGAH — Chaosphere album cover Album · 1998 · Progressive Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
Kev Rowland
It is difficult to realise that ‘Chaosphere’ is now 25 years old, how did that happen? When Swedish band Meshuggah released their third album back in 1993 they probably did not realise that their new experimental move into polyrhythms and away from the more thrash exploits of their first two albums would create the inspiration for a whole new genre, djent. To celebrate the 25th anniversary it is has now been remastered by Thomas Eberger and Sofia Von Hage at Stockholm Mastering, the with the result being that everything is that much crisper and somehow even more poundingly heavy than it was all that time ago.

I came to the band later, so didn’t hear this when it was initially released, but the impact on the metal scene was intense and hearing it again all these years later it still sounds fresh and very current. If this was released as a brand-new album today it would not sound out of place in the current market, as this style of music is now something many appreciate and understand, but when this first came out the impact would have been devastating. Somehow, throughout all the chaos the band stay in 4/4, but such is the complexity and offshoots of music that one often thinks there are in 5/8 or 7/8, but the head knows what is going on as it moves uncontrollably to the groove.

The intensity is off the scale, and any movement of volume must only ever be up, which means there is a real risk to eardrums with this one. Everyone who knows metal will be fully aware of this band, and will probably own some of their albums, but now is the time to revisit ‘Chaosphere’ in all its heavy beauty and mark at the birth of a movement.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
siLLy puPPy wrote:
7 months ago
Haha. I think when i responded this morning i was referring to Catch Thirtythree! Yeah this one is a great one but Catch Thirtythree is the one that blows me away. My bad :)
UMUR wrote:
7 months ago
It looks like you´ve already posted a review Mike :-)
siLLy puPPy wrote:
7 months ago
Listened to this recently. What a phenomenal mind-blowing experiment of extreme metal. Meshuggah in a strange way is transcendental when you simply let your mind to drift with its music. I would probably give this a 5 when i finally review it.

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

The Goblin Sessions Heavy Metal
THEM
Buy this album from MMA partners
Tormenta De Arena Metalcore
VORAGO
Buy this album from MMA partners
Infinite Metalcore
FUTURE GHOST
Buy this album from MMA partners
Heretic Melodic Death Metal
SUNCINDER
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like A Life Vest As The Night Wept Mathcore
FRONTIERER
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Future Ghost - Wolves (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Future Ghost - Nemesis Game (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Harrowed TwentyTenVideo
HARROWED
Bosh66· 3 days ago
Sunmancer - Realms of Dilemma (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 8 days ago
Sunmancer - Lower Cavalier (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 8 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed