Review by Krys on August 9, 2001.

As the name indicates “Rare Trax” is a compilation of Meshuggah’s early-unpublished tracks, demos and the songs from 1989’s limited “Psykisk Testbild”. I hope you are not one of the rare 1000 owners of this unique album because in the band’s words its inclusion on “Rare Trax” is likely to “stir up some pretty ugly feelings in the few lucky bastards owning an original vinyl copy since it’s now been rendered completely worthless.” Maybe it’s not completely worthless because I’d love to have it in my collection, but I have to congratulate them on their humor and balls to do something like this.

The CD starts with the outstanding death-grind ‘War’, which was originally recorded for guitarist Fredrik Thordendal’s 30th birthday. The next three tracks ‘Cadaverous Mastication’, ‘Sovereigns Morbidity’ and ‘Debt of Nature’ come from the above the mentioned “Psykisk Testbild” and I don’t think I have to say anything here to convince any Meshuggah fan to buy this compilation only because of its uniqueness. ‘By Emptiness Abducted’ and ‘Don’t Speak’ are two tracks recorded during 1996 studio session which were never meant to be released. ‘Abnegating Cecity’ and ‘Internal Evidence’ are well known for Meshuggah fans from their first full-length release “Contradictions Collapse” but here they are included in a demo version. ‘Concatenation’ is presented in a remix form and ‘Ayahuasca Experience’, which even band members are not sure when it was recorded but the best guess is sometime before “None”, closes the audio side on this CD.

The video part is as good as the audio if not better. It kicks off with ‘New Millennium Cyanide Christ’, which was recorded in a bus during the American tour with Slayer. What can I say here... you have to see it. You have five grown men playing air guitars, air drums and singing into a pencil. All with serious as hell faces and with even more serious headbanging. The next video ‘Elastic’ is just a regular live recording and won’t make a huge effect on you after seeing the ‘New Millennium...’. Closing the whole CD is, as described by the band, completely irrelevant material called ‘Tour and Studio Clips’, which will give you a glimpse of what’s going on in the heads of those Swedish speedballs.

Bottom Line: A compilation well worth your money that should find its place in any serious metalhead collection.

Ratting: 8 out of 10