If you are anything like me (lets hope note since I have some serious mental issues!) and you though “Catch 33” was the worst album Meshuggah ever put out and its importance was totally blown out of proportion by some media outlets… please people that record was one huge monotonous, boring song!

ObZen tries and achieves in some aspects to return to that great “Chaosphere” song structure and rhythm from which the Swedes have really cultivated that status of “cult band” around the world; the sad part and we all should be getting use to this, the band has slow down their riffs, included more progg guitar lines and made their vocal lines somehow more “accessible”, nothing wrong with slowing things down, but a very common path for bands to take once the years began to stack up in the calendar.

I never really heard the connection some made by labeling Meshuggah as a Technical thrash band, so don’t expect thrash riffs in here; what you should expect are authentic, atypic tempos all mashed up against each other and miraculously coming out in a very logical structure.

Two things that surprised me, were located in the first and last songs of ObZen, both tracks are by far the best on the record, providing some new elements to the well known Meshuggah formula; this additions are mainly made by Mr. Kidman on the vocal department, bringing a softer, more understandable dimension to his performance on a couple of cleaner lines, not clean vocals, just not as harsh as he usually interprets the rest of the songs, and giving me a sort of “tool” feeling of progression, not bad at all really.

ObZen is a slower, modern version of albums like “Nothing” and “Chaosphere”, with just enough “new” elements to satisfied their die hard fans and interest newcomers into going back in time and acquiring their previous albums… expect for “Catch 33”, just stay away from that record, believe me, you can thank me later if you want!