Composition Study Results: “Catch Thirty-Three” by Meshuggah
Analysis Written by Ben Kammerer
General Thoughts:
- Tempo stays constant throughout, and is pretty much the only thing that does
- Though harmonic directions briefly appear at times, it definitely is waaay too chromatic to be any sort of tonal
- Lots of semitones, octaves, tritones, sevenths, seconds, ninths, etc.
- Meter is usually very unclear, even though there is lots of repetition it’s too irregular (most everything is in 4/4 overall, it’s just impossible to count it like that)
- Lack of meter leaves the listener lost in whatever sort of form there is, but it’s ok because
you’re just waiting for what’s next without knowing when it’s coming
- Riffs develop very systematically:
- Increasing range, focusing on a very short rhythmic cell, becoming (sort of) straighter when
vocals enter
- Sometimes extremely simplified down to one pitch, one rhythmic idea and much straighter drum grooves, and meter becomes clearer
-
Lead parts are mainly based around semitones
-
The same lead part recurs over almost every riff
- Whenever
clearer harmonies show up it sounds very cool, they come up with great chords
and their jazz influence is clear
- Solos are just random noise, but it still has a way of sounding “right”
- In smaller sections (within each track) there’s some formal repetition, but overall everything is through-composed
Specific Thoughts:
- Nasty depressed whammy buzz in “Mind’s Mirrors” just makes you feel dirty, then with autotuned vocals we hear real chords for the first time
- Still not functional,but it does end distinctly unresolved
-Awesome clean break in “In Death – Is Death”
- Microtonal stuff going on with very dissonant harmonization, but they have a way of making it sound really good, not even harsh, at least to my ear
-The best part of the whole album is “Sum” after 1:00
- The riff at 1:00 has some awesome
intervals and a sort of harmonic direction, but is still very chromatic
- Meter also is clear 4/4, but the inner rhythms are all over the place
- Even better then is the cut to simple, slow, clean chords
- So slow and repetitive that meter and form are lost
- Adds a really pretty chord melody, then breaks into more crazy dissonance and fades out
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