Nothing

Nothing
Studio album by Meshuggah
Released	August 6, 2002 October 31, 2006 (re-release)
Recorded	2002 2006 (re-release)
Genre	Extreme metal, groove metal, progressive metal, avant-garde metal
Length	53:09 58:36 (re-release)
Label	Nuclear Blast
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Allmusic link (re-release) Blabbermouth.net link Pitchfork Media (8.1) link Rolling Stone link
Meshuggah chronology
Chaosphere (1998) Nothing (2002) I (2004)
Alternate cover
Re-release (2006)

Nothing is the fourth album by Swedish metal band Meshuggah, originally released in 2002. The album debuted at number 165 on the Billboard 200 chart, slightly higher than band's following effort, Catch Thirtythree. ^[1]

A last-minute decision to join 2002's Ozzfest tour forced the band to mix the album in two days and master it in one. It was re-mastered for a new re-release with re-recorded guitars in 2006.

Summary

The songs on this album consist of slower tempos and a heavy focus on groove instead of the thrash metal stylings of previous albums. This stylistic change has led to mixed reviews from fans, though it has received a warmer reception from mainstream critics than the band's previous efforts have. Jazz fusion elements such as the interludes found in some songs on the band's Destroy Erase Improve album are still present in this release.

This is also the first album where guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström experiment with 8-string guitar tunings, though the album was recorded using detuned 7-string guitars at the time of recording, due to their custom Nevborn guitars not yet being ready.

The track "Rational Gaze" was promoted with three music videos; the first one was a repetitive black-and-white sequence of pictures, and didn't have much connection with the song structure; the second version, directed by Torbjörn Oyesvold, featured a blue-greenish environment with the band performing, heavy post-processed by blurry video filters; the third version, entitled "Mr. Kidman Delirium Version", wasn't an official video, but rather a handicam of Jens Kidman performing as his bandmates, with the help of different wigs.

"Nothing" has sold over 95,000 copies in the US.

Track listing

Re-release

A re-recorded and remastered version of the album was released on October 31, 2006. The new version features the rhythm guitar tracks re-recorded with new guitars and amplifiers. The guitar tracks on the original Nothing were recorded with detuned 7-string Ibanez guitars, as the Nevborn custom 8-string guitars they owned suffered from bad intonation and became detuned between each recording. When guitarists Hagström and Thordendal were sponsored by Ibanez with custom 8-string guitars, they were so pleased with the results that they decided to re-record their parts with the new instruments. The drums were also redone by triggering the original drum hits using Drumkit from Hell Superior.^{[citation needed]} The vocals were not re-recorded, but were given extra dramatic effects.

Aside from the re-recorded guitars and triggered drum samples, there are only two songs significantly modified from their original version. The tempo of "Nebulous" has been lowered, and the length of "Obsidian" has nearly been doubled, the heavy riff beginning at 3:08 and changing tempo at around 5:30. Also the rest of the songs from the re-release seem to be minimally longer than the original release.

The re-release also includes a DVD of video clips and their Download Festival performance in 2005, as well as modified cover art.

Re-Release track listing

Studio album

DVD track listing

Personnel

• Jens Kidman − vocals
• Fredrik Thordendal − Lead Guitar, Rhythm & Bass Guitar (Rhythm, Lead and Bass Guitar on the 2006 re-release)^{[citation needed]}
• Mårten Hagström − Rhythm guitar
• Tomas Haake − drums, spoken word on tracks; 4, 8, and 9, artwork^[2]

References