Meshuggah‘s sixth album, ObZen, turns 15 in March, and to celebrate it’s been remastered by Thomas Eberger and Sofia von Hage at Stockholm Mastering. We have an exclusive vinyl variant of the remastered album, on 2LP 180g “Red with Black Splatter” vinyl, limited to 500 copies. Pre-order yours while they last.
For ObZen‘s tenth anniversary in 2018, Invisible Oranges wrote:
obZen was Meshuggah realizing its true power. Lean, and crisp, the album was capable of taking their most wild bents and evening them out, creating something similar to a solution and gratifying compromise to the band’s hard work and fearlessness. They had figured out how to maximize their inertia. Moments were interwoven and open to exploration, yet pondered about circularly. While still extreme in the greatest sense, the record was less interested in blowing people to kingdom come than delivering a system to explore and progress their particular sound.
Like a jazz outfit, or even a band like Phish, Meshuggah created an environment that was partial to exploration. On obZen, they figured out the necessary system to make those adventurous juants even crisper and more immediate. The album had a Tool quality in its equitable minimalism. A more sculpted and fully realized sound, a product of the longest writing and recording process yet for the group. It is a equally challenging and digestible album: a work of art that sounds as immediate now as it did ten years ago.
Read their look back on the album in full here, stream it below, and shop for Meshuggah vinyl, including our exclusive ObZen variant, in the BV store.