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Fredrik Thordendal's Special Defects - Sol Niger Within (UAE, 1997) Fans of technical metal will certainly recognize Fredrik Thordendal's smooth, jazz influenced lead guitar from the brilliant progressive thrash band Meshuggah. Sol Niger Within, hailed on the promo flyer as "A 45 minute musical journey through a psychotic mind," is one single CD track, one long piece of music with 29 sections. The sections have individual subtrack indices and offbeat titles, like "Skeletonization" and "Transmigration of Souls." Thordendal plays all guitars and most of the bass, synthesizers, and vocals. Other session musicians cover the drums, the remaining bass and synthesizers, some saxophone, and a Church Organ. The single track format of the CD is admirable from an artistic standpoint, but it has the practical limitation of preventing quick access to most of the music.The music ranges from interesting and complex to completely weird. Many sections feature the two major styles of Meshuggah's sound - the disjointed, shifting heavy riffs and the soaring leads played over ethereal held chords. The heavier sections are more industrial and noisy, with croaking, almost spoken word vocals, and the atmospheric parts are experimental and strange, blending saxophone and Church Organ with Thordendal's guitar. One of the voice parts is a growling cackle like a Halloween witch, adding a harsh grate to sections of the music. The bombastic Church Organ compliments the heavy riffs extremely well, since the organ is very fierce sounding, yet in a more antiquated tone. The soprano sax solo in one of the ethereal middle sections is brilliant - it has the same smooth fluid quality as Thordendal's guitar leads. Another eerie segment at the very end of Sol Niger includes a chord progression taken from "Sublevels" on Meshuggah's Destroy Erase Improve.
The guitar leads scream with the familiar Thordendal sound, heavily influenced by jazz fusion master Allan Holdsworth. The solos are placed in the music at appropriate points so they provide a counterpoint to the other musical elements without dominating the music. Sol Niger Within is not bursting with guitar solos, like many solo records by metal guitarists who don't have Thordendal's wacky songwriting skill.
Sol Niger Within is a strange yet interesting musical journey, but the oddities and the single track format make it a challenging listen - it's not a CD you can just pop in for a few minutes. The Meshuggah fan who appreciates weird layered music, blending a wide range of sounds and influences, will want to pick up this CD. Meshuggah fans who prefer straight ahead thrash might be disappointed.
Review by Scott Andrews [sha3u@virginia.edu]
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