ObZen

obZen
Cover artwork by Joachim Luetke
Studio album by Meshuggah
Released	March 7, 2008
Recorded	March 2007 – October 2007
Genre	Extreme metal, progressive metal
Length	52:25
Label	Nuclear Blast
Producer	Meshuggah
Meshuggah chronology
Catch Thirtythree (2005) obZen (2008)
Alternative cover
The censored version of album cover for obZen

obZen is the sixth full-length studio album by Swedish band Meshuggah. It was released in Europe on March 7, 2008, and in the U.S. on March 11, 2008.^[1] It contains nine tracks, and a total length of 52 minutes and 25 seconds.^[2] Tomas Haake makes his return as the studio drummer for the record after Drumkit from Hell was used on Catch Thirtythree.^[3] The album debuted at number 59 in the USA with first week sales of 11,384 copies. In Sweden, the album entered the official album chart at number 16, and in the UK at number 151. A video was filmed for a shorter version of the song "Bleed".

The release of the album was followed by their first world tour.

By September 19, 2008, obZen had sold over 50,000 copies in the U.S.^[4]

The song "Bleed" was released as DLC for the Rock Band video games via the Rock Band Network on June 18, 2010.^[5]

Background

In an interview with Revolver, Haake stated that obZen would be a collective return to the band's past works, signaling a shift in direction away from their previous effort, Catch Thirtythree. "We've got some fast, intense songs and hectic, heavy stuff that draws from all the things we've done in the past."^[2]

The album was originally planned for release in November 2007, prior to a European tour featuring Meshuggah and The Dillinger Escape Plan. The recording process for obZen took longer than expected and led the band to drop out of the tour, later explaining on their official website that the "album-promotional" aspect of the touring no longer applied and that they would rather focus their priorities on getting the record finished.^[6]

In an interview, drummer Tomas Haake commented further on the time taken to record the album: "This time around we took almost six months to do all the recording and the sampling [...] we definitely took our time".^[7] Drumkit from Hell was used on the album, but not programmed as Catch 33 was. Drumkit from Hell was an auxiliary sound source.^[8] He elaborated on the concept of the album in another interview, saying: "If you haven't figured it out yet, obZen means that mankind has found its 'zen' in the obscure and obscene." Haake also mentioned his favorite track on this album is "Dancers to a Discordant System" but, he has stated that the band will never perform the song live because of the difficulty of reciting the spoken vocals.^[9]

Album art

Although Meshuggah had not done so in the past, the album art of obZen was outsourced. With a vision of what they wanted the artwork to be, Meshuggah made use of cross-media artist Joachim Luetke. In an interview with Nuclear Blast USA, Haake and Hagström explain that the artwork features a photograph of a male model in the "zen lotus position" with the bottom half of the photograph being from a female model. This is because the male model could not perform the position, making the figure androgynous.^[10] The model is covered in blood, which is explained as a metaphor for mankind finding peace of mind through obscenity.^[11]

Track listing

All lyrics written by Tomas Haake. 

No.	Title	Music	Length
1.	"Combustion"	Thordendal	4:08
2.	"Electric Red"	Hagström, Haake	5:51
3.	"Bleed"	Thordendal	7:22
4.	"Lethargica"	Hagström	5:47
5.	"obZen"	Hagström	4:24
6.	"This Spiteful Snake"	Hagström, Haake	4:52
7.	"Pineal Gland Optics"	Thordendal	5:12
8.	"Pravus"	Hagström	5:10
9.	"Dancers to a Discordant System"	Thordendal	9:36

Reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	83/100[12]
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[13]
Alternative Press	[12]
The Aquarian	(A+) [14]
The A.V. Club	(A) [15]
Blabbermouth.net	[16]
Exclaim!	Favorable [17]
IGN	[18]
The Skinny	[19]

The album received generally positive reviews from critics. Metacritic gave a score of 83 out of 100 based on 6 reviews.^[12]

The album was praised for its consistency and how the band was claimed to continue their musical evolution, with Nick Terry from Decibel saying: "Three years on, and we have a new reference point to chart Meshuggah's musical evolution. And yeah, things are evolving nicely".^[20]

The album was also praised for the band revisiting their early thrash metal-oriented approach on tracks like "Combustion" and "Bleed" while still maintaining the experimentalism found on their last few albums. John Norby from Zero Tolerance Magazine gave the album a score of 5.5/6.0 and described it as "The best of modern-Meshuggah meets the best of older-Meshuggah."^[21]

Thom Jurek, in his review of the album on Allmusic, called obZen "sheer attack metal, played by a band that has run from simplicity to excess and incorporated them both into a record that is on a level with anything else they've done, even if not all the elements marry perfectly yet".^[13]

Magazines such as Terrorizer, Decibel, Revolver and Metal Hammer named the album in their 2008 year's end list.^{[citation needed]}

Meshuggah were nominated for a Swedish grammy for obZen in the category of Hard Rock but lost to In Flames.^[22]

Personnel

• Jens Kidman – lead vocals
• Fredrik Thordendal – lead guitar
• Mårten Hagström – rhythm guitar, lead guitar on "Electric Red" and "Pravus", bass^[23]
• Tomas Haake – drums, vocals on "Dancers to a Discordant System"

• Meshuggah – production

References

1. ^ "MESHUGGAH: 'obZen' Track Listing Revealed". Blabbermouth.net. 2007-11-29. http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=85785. Retrieved 2007-12-04. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "MESHUGGAH: New Album Title Revealed". Blabbermouth.net. 2007-11-12. http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=84678. Retrieved 2007-11-15. 
3. ^ "MESHUGGAH to Return to 'More Traditional' Songwriting Approach on Next Album". Blabbermouth.net. 2005-05-19. http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=36907. Retrieved 2007-11-15. 
4. ^ "Meshuggah's 'obZen' Cracks 50,000 U.S. Sales Mark: News @ blabbermouth.net". Blabbermouth.net. http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/Blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=104986. Retrieved 2011-03-02. 
5. ^ ""Bleed" - Meshuggah//Rock Band". Rock Band. http://www.rockband.com/songs/UGC_5002233. Retrieved 13 September 2010. 
6. ^ "MESHUGGAH Explains THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN Tour Cancellation". Blabbermouth.net. 2007-09-11. http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=80512. Retrieved 2007-11-15. 
7. ^ "Meshuggah: Destroy Erase Improve, Tomas Haake talks Obzen". The Skinny. http://www.skinnymag.co.uk/content/view/6631/. Retrieved 2008-03-01. 
8. ^ Decibel's Top 25 Most Anticipated Records of 2008
9. ^ "MESHUGGAH: New Song 'Bleed' Available On MySpace". Blabbermouth.net. http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=90056. Retrieved 2008-03-06. 
10. ^ "Meshuggah - Nuclear Blast Video Cast - Episode Two - PART 3". YouTube. 2008-01-29. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdTpQJdzRLU. Retrieved 2008-02-02. 
11. ^ "MESHUGGAH's 'obZen' Lands On BILLBOARD Chart". Blabbermouth.net. http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=93220. Retrieved 2011-03-02. 
12. ^ ^{a b c} "Meshuggah: obZen (2008): Reviews". Metacritic. 2008-03-11. http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/meshuggah/obzen. Retrieved 2011-03-02. 
13. ^ ^{a b} Jurek, Thom. "Obzen – Meshuggah". allmusic. Rovi Corporation. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r1314680. Retrieved 25 July 2011. 
14. ^ http://www.theaquarian.com/2008/03/05/meshuggah-obzen/
15. ^ http://www.avclub.com/content/music/meshuggah
16. ^ http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/showreview.aspx?reviewID=1359
17. ^ http://www.exclaim.ca/musicreviews/generalreview.aspx?csid2=846&fid1=30229&csid1=120
18. ^ http://music.ign.com/articles/858/858285p1.html
19. ^ http://www.skinnymag.co.uk/content/view/6715/
20. ^ "Everything Zen, Meshuggah dont think so. Review by Nick Terry" DECIBEL Magazine. Issue #42, April 2008.^{[dead link]}
21. ^ Norby, John (March–April 2008). "Review of ObZen". Zero Tolerance Magazine (22). 
22. ^ "In Flames - Win Swedish Grammy Award". Metalstorm.ee. http://www.metalstorm.ee/events/news_comments.php?news_id=7973. Retrieved 2011-03-02. 
23. ^ "Meshuggah's Marten Hagstrom: 'I'm Allergic To Major Conformity'". ultimate-guitar.com. 2008-03-13. http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/interviews/interviews/meshuggahs_marten_hagstrom_im_allergic_to_major_conformity.html. Retrieved 2011-03-23. 

External links

• Bleed video at YouTube