By Martin Popoff
The new record rips holes way down low, the band going for an almost subsonic, mid-speed lope, pure to the essence Meshuggah like never before. "I would say first and foremost it's two things: the eight-string guitars of course, which kind of totally change our sound. I think you can still hear that it's Meshuggah, but it's something new. If Chaosphere was an explosion, this is more of a sinister album, you know what I mean? I perceive it to be that. The eight-string lends itself more to the slower songs. And I would say that it wasn't deliberate in any way, but it was a natural progression. This, I would say, is actually more Meshuggah than any time before. This time around you've got a balance in there. The Chaosphere album is more about being in-your-face; this is more about dynamics. If you listen to the tempos of the songs, there are medium tempo songs, a little bit up-tempo, a little bit slower, whereas Chaosphere it is pretty much all-out, all the way."
"There are a lot of reasons for calling the album Nothing, actually," relates Hagstrom on the curious title. "First and foremost, it was an idea we had in the band about... you know, overstating things is often one of the run-of-the-mill, common things in the music industry. Hitting people on the nose with your message is something that happens quite often; making things a little bit too obvious. So to us, Nothing means everything. It's like, you pick the record up and you see that it says Meshuggah, and you see that it's called Nothing, but apart from that, there's nothing on there. The inlay, everything is blank. It's about letting the music speak for itself. It sounds clichˇ, but that's pretty much what it is. And also it's about the psyche, about what you become, what becomes of your mind and your soul. It's an existential theory behind it as well, which is pretty intricate. But in general terms, it's about everything, and it's a statement about letting the music speak for itself, rather than having a million things on the inlay. It's nothing; you get the music and that's it."
MESHUGGAH - Nothing Doing! Page 3