It was a time when this band was only for the elite, because only a couple of Russian scientists had heard of it, and to the rest of the people the name of the band sounded like a rare tropical disease. Later it turned out that everyone who played some kind of extreme metal is a fan of theirs. And at some time even grandpa Ozzy’s fat son declared on MTV that he’s listening to “some death metal band from Sweden”. Meshuggah themselves seem to have felt some kind of nostalgia for the old times and have firmly fucked off the slow and sleepy approach of their work since 2002’s “Nothing”. They’ve abandoned the idea of one-song EPs and albums, too. Their new creation has a brutal fast tempo that puts it somewhere between “Destroy Erase Improve” (1995) and “Chaosphere” (1998) - these two being the albums being quoted by bands inspired by Meshuggah most often, by the way. And the result of this and the sound that the monstrous 8-string guitars create is a mindblowingly crushing album. The opener “Combustion” is a super fast track that smashes the listener and leaves you breathless. “Bleed” demonstrates some insane drumming by Tomas Haake (who really does play this time, unlike on “Catch 33” where the drums were programmed). I cant imagine any other band pulling off such a track live. And towards its end we can hear one of those beautiful psychidelic solos a-la “destroy Erase Improve”. And this is what goes on until the album’s end, even in the over 9-minute-long closer “Dancers to a Discordant System” where Meshuggah pour everything they’re capable of on our heads once again. At once. The privilege to record in your own studio has once again had a pretty positive effect and the album sounds crushing in the most literal sense of the word. “obZen” is like a monster that takes you and smashes you. And this may very well be the album of the year.