Released: May 1, 1991
Contradictions Collapse doesn’t present itself as an origin story. It sounds like a band already working through friction, testing how much tension a structure can hold before it fails. From “Paralyzing Ignorance,” the album establishes a restless forward motion, driven by tight riff cycles and abrupt shifts that don’t linger long enough to explain themselves. The music feels urgent, but not explosive. It’s searching for alignment, not release.
“Erroneous Manipulation” sharpens that sense of instability. The riffs cut quickly, rhythms pivot without warning, and the song moves as if it’s constantly correcting course. There’s a technical edge here, but it’s not presented as mastery. It feels provisional, like the band is learning what happens when precision is pushed faster than comfort allows.
“Abnegating Cecity” continues without smoothing those edges. The track’s stop-start motion emphasizes fracture rather than flow, reinforcing the album’s refusal to settle into a single groove for long. Memory here doesn’t form around melody or hook, but around interruption. You remember where the music snaps, not where it resolves.
By the time “Internal Evidence” arrives, the album’s method is clear. Riffs repeat just long enough to establish pattern before being disrupted. Drums follow tightly but never relax into predictability. The band sounds focused on control, but not yet containment. Everything is still in motion, still testing limits.
“Qualms of Reality” stretches that tension further. The pacing slows slightly, but the unease remains. The song feels less aggressive on the surface, yet more unsettled underneath. It’s here that Contradictions Collapse begins to sound less like speed-driven thrash and more like a system struggling to stabilize itself.
“We’ll Never See the Day” pushes forward again, returning to sharper momentum without resolving what came before. The album resists narrative progression. Songs don’t answer one another; they coexist. Each track reinforces the sense that the band is circling an idea they haven’t fully named yet.
“Greed” and “Choirs of Devastation” occupy similar ground, their structures rigid but constantly stressed. The riffs lock in, then fracture. Rhythms tighten, then slip sideways. The repetition feels intentional, but the instability is never smoothed out. The album’s weight comes from how often it refuses balance.
“Cadaverous Mastication” closes the record without synthesis. It doesn’t pull threads together or suggest direction. It simply maintains pressure until it stops. The ending feels abrupt, but consistent. The album doesn’t resolve because resolution was never the goal.
Production across Contradictions Collapse is raw and immediate. Guitars are sharp and dry, drums sit close to the surface, and vocals cut through without polish. There’s little space in the mix, reinforcing the album’s compressed feel. Everything sounds pushed forward, as if clarity is less important than momentum.
Contradictions Collapse doesn’t invite nostalgia or reinterpretation. It holds its place as a document of friction—ideas colliding faster than they can be refined. The album matters not because it reveals Meshuggah’s future, but because it captures the moment before control hardened into system.
When it ends, it doesn’t feel unfinished. It feels interrupted. That interruption is the point. Contradictions Collapse holds because it preserves the sound of a band still inside the struggle, refusing to smooth the contradictions that would later become structure.
Written by Rob Joncas for DeadNoteMedia.
Artist information and music courtesy of the band.
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