Nothing by Meshuggah

Nothing, Meshuggah's fourth album, came out on Nuclear Blast in August 2002, and it's the Umeå band at its most crushing. Jens Kidman barks, Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström grind their guitars in queasy, interlocking patterns, and Tomas Haake's drums lock in on grooves that seem to fold back on themselves, the complex polyrhythms that made them heroes of extreme metal.

It was a rushed job at the finish: a last-minute slot on Ozzfest that year meant mixing it in two days and mastering it in one, so the guitars and drums were re-recorded for a remastered reissue in 2006. It entered the Billboard 200 at 165, and in 2013 Loudwire put the main riff of "Rational Gaze" on its list of the best metal riffs of the 2000s.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.