Whilst not only being one of, if not the most forward thinking band in metal Meshuggah are now in the 25th year together as such have begun announcements of a new live DVD entitled The Ophidian Trek of their previous world tour supporting their latest release Koloss but long before Koloss there was absolutely essential and oft forgotten I. The 21 minute, 1 track EP encapsulates exactly what makes The Swedes real genius. Although it seems sometimes that Meshuggah out do even themselves, when asked if Haake and co would ever play the song live he stated “I’m sure it could be done with a lot of listening and hard work,it’s really too unstructured a track. It would take up too much time and effort to make sense. ” Essentially a song that was put together with other pieces based on one of Haake‘s sessions on the kit Thordendal and Hagstrom were essentially using sight reading to form the song. Originally penned to be a “nugget” of a song intended to help out a smaller record label Fractured Transmitter it began to take on it’s own form into the monster that we know it now to be. With the re-release via Nuclear Blast it will give the opportunity for fans to not only hear the track in remastered sound but also let fans have a physical copy of the rare album, as well as having two live songs and a release that was put out through Scion AV which may have slipped under the radar “Pitch Black. No formal release date has been set yet but we can assure you that if you haven’t already heard madness that is “I” it deserves all the attention it never got. The track listing for I is as follows :
1 – I
2 – Bleed (Live)
3 – Dancers To A Discordant System (Live)
4 – Pitch Black