### Meshuggah: Destroy, erase, improve

#### 11/04/06 || Lord K Philipson

Released: 1995

##### Introduction

Yes, I do know that staff-member/pig/crossdresser/bitchass/cunt/ penis-collector, The Abyss, covered this album for this section, but I just have to do it as well. That said fucko even forgot to give the album an overall rating, so my coverage wins. And last off, I actually wrote this whole thing before noticing the fag in question already got it covered a year ago. Since I rule this shit, mine goes up as well. And there’s not a thing you can do about it.

By the way, I apologize to Abyss (who should change his name to Anyss , haha… That was actually funny as hell. Sounds like when Ze German tries to say “Anus” ) for being rude. I just can’t help myself.

Anyways… I was one of the very few who were aware of Meshuggah in the beginning of their existence. I even had contact with ex-bassist Peter Nordin (and even remember his name, just like that) while running my old fanzine back in the very early 90’s. I worshipped the “Psykisk Testbild” mini-LP these guys launched. I got their debut-album sent on cassette from Nuclear Blast, and I fucken worshipped that as well. And if I’m not completely inhaling angel dust here, I even remember getting some demo’s from Peter. Those were the days…

##### Songwriting

9. This album almost has it all. The whole she-bang. The loot. The cum. The shit. The whatever. We are talking fuck-heavy material that makes my ass bounce north, south, east and fucken west. This is hit-material to the core. A little more technical than their debut but they hadn’t lost it completely here when it comes to rhythms and weird chuggah-chuggah guitars. On the contrary, they knew exactly how to create insanely catchy tunes.

##### Production

10. The fucken punch in this shit is on par with Mike Tyson’s better shots. It completely crushes. The studio used for this album (I think it’s Tonteknik Studios in Umeå) should be fucken world-famous.

##### Guitars

9,5. You have to look hard to find a tighter pair of guitar-wankers than these guys. Their lives must have consisted of 3 things from the first day they decided to form the band: Rehearsing, rehearsing and some more rehearsing. The solos are weird as always and completely off the wall. At least that’s the only thing off the wall with this recording. Later on Meshuggah decided to make exactly everything off the wall, and lost me in the damn process. The fucken sound of them guitars is just insane. Meshuggah could possibly possess one of the heaviest sounds around when it comes to guitars. That goes for this album as well as any of their newer releases. But using anything axe-wise with more than six strings is fucken gay. Not even Meshuggah gets away with that nu-metal shit.

##### Vocals

8. Screamy, powerful and absolutely fitting to this style. I can’t imagine any other type of vocals with this kind of music.

##### Bass

9. Clear in the picture, and the sound of it is nothing but completely ace.

##### Drums

10. Tomas Haake is not human. He must be something else. A intergalactic phenomenon, a can of psychadelic space-tuna or a drunken Finnish seal. Anything but not a human being, I’m sure of it. Right, that makes sense. Humans don’t do this. Not without tons of drugs and super-powers. I think he took drumming as a concept as far as possible on this album. It’s not weird at all that people stop playing drums after hearing this fucken guy. If I ever think about starting to bang the drums again, I’ll just put on anything by him and that will perish the thought. Playful, technical, groovy. And most of all: Perfect.

##### Lyrics

8. One of their best songs ever, “Future breed machine”, holds the following verse (if you can blame Meshuggah for using such things as “verses”):

AN EVEN STROBE A PULSE OF FLASHING HATELIGHTS OF SYNTHETIC SOULS MASSPRODUCED HAMMERED INTO SHAPE A SIGN OF TIMES DREAMS TURN INTO SYSTEMS A NEW WAY A NEW BREED IMPLANTED IN OUR MINDS

(Yes, I copied this from somewhere and won’t fucken care that it’s all CAPITALS, shut the fuck up)

The lyrics are as weird as their music later on turned out to be. I don’t think they know themselves what the hell they are writing about.

##### Cover art

2. That’s one crappy cover if I ever saw one. My penis would throw together something better in a few seconds. And you can quote me on that.

##### Logo

6. It’s just some decent font. As spectacular as a night with the local whore. Eh, wait now…

##### Booklet

I have no idea where my fucken CD is. I just noticed. Whoever borrowed it, give the fucken thing back, bitch!

##### Overall and ending rant

8,5. “Destroy, Erase, Improve” is where Meshuggah peaked. This is one of the best albums out of Sweden, ever. There’s just no fucken 2 ways about it. If Meshuggah sounded half this good today, they’d be excellent. Now they are just completely confusing. “DEI” is as close to perfection as you can come when we are discussing technical, groovy, fucken metal.