It’s becoming increasingly difficult rating a band like Meshuggah – you can’t help but feel, as a reviewer, that you are obliged to say whatever the band release is fabulous - purely on the basis that they are totally unique in approach and sound - in a scene that is so often “full to the brim” with stale, half-arsed copycat ideas. Sadly, too much of anything, no matter how unique, tends to get a little tiresome.

So here we have Catch 33 – the latest release from Swedish math-metal lunatics Meshuggah. It’s hard to believe almost 10 years have passed since their landmark “Destroy, Erase, Improve” album – and whilst there is no denying this is a band that have progressed an awful lot in that time – Catch 33 doesn’t quite deliver the new promises of experimentation and greatness that were hinted at on the “I” EP released earlier last year.

The “I” EP divided fans - myself sitting in the “love it” camp finding it to be a one-song, 21 minute tour de force of several well meshed styles, every moment a jaw dropping delight. The idea of an entire 50-minute album in this “one song” style was quite a mouth-watering prospect. With Catch 33, it seems trying to get the formula to work for a full 50 minutes may be pushing it. The band obviously thought this too. With the album being promoted as “one 50 minute song” it is still broken up into 13 separate track placements – fair enough you may say, easier to find the bits you like – but some areas have a clear “finish” and clear “start” point, in other words separate movements – giving it considerably less impact as a consequence.

The first six tracks, kicking off with “Autonomy Lost”, are essentially one song and the first movement of the album. Sadly things here seem to have regressed to the 8-string, down tuned repetitive dirge of filler tracks off the “Nothing” album (released back in 2002). This is stereotypical Meshuggah of course, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been heard before – and unfortunately the band fail to keep it interesting on this occasion. The first part of the album is a somewhat dull and disappointing backwards step.

The clear start of the second half “Mind’s Mirrors” is the first time when things start to get interesting. A slow, creeping, almost “alien” sounding track building into a crescendo of insanely timed riff work, setting up the groundwork for two mammoth slabs of apocalypse – “In Death is Life” and “In Death is Death”. This middle section, by far the album highlight, feels almost like a separate entity, and ironically is almost 21 minutes long – one can’t help wonder whether this whole idea would have been better as another EP instead.

“Shed” marks the beginning of the end for Catch 33, somewhat reminiscent of “I” in its introduction but soon lapsing into dull repetitiveness ala “Nothing” filler once again. Things do pick up with “Personae Non Gratae” and “Dehumanization” - two thundering fast behemoths (harking back to “Destroy, Erase, Improve” intensity with added elements of “I” experimentation). The album wraps up with “Sum”, an adequately bleak, alien swansong, but perhaps not the explosive ending some might be expecting.

The crux of it is, the more a band experiment, the more it demands of the listener, and thus as a listener, for your efforts you expect to get something in return. Catch 33 doesn’t quite deliver fairly within that ratio. Any fan of Meshuggah will know not to expect something normal or run-of-the-mill, and while you can’t accuse Catch 33 of being either of those things, you can accuse it of not delivering all that was promised, and in some cases, particularly the lacklustre early section, re-treading old ground all too often.

Some have hinted this was a contract filler to get away from Nuclear Blast – so who knows – but I still eagerly await what this band will attempt next. I just hope they remember - that whilst experimentation and progression is good thing - it’s sometimes more fun for the listener to hear music as opposed to a mathematical lesson in odd time signatures and mis-tuned chords.

Standout Tracks:  Minds Mirrors, In Death - Is Death, Dehumanization.

Overall Score:   7 /10