Catch Thirtythree is a concept album by the Swedish progressive metal band Meshuggah. I chose to talk about this album as an immersive project because of the way it was constructed. The entire album is one 47 minute long piece; The entire thing is one continuous song from start to finish. While the album itself is split into 13 individual tracks like in conventional albums, Catch Thirtythree (with the exception of the final track) doesn’t feature a single song that ends in silence. Every song feeds into the next to create the illusion that it never ends, and it does so very effectively.

I listened to this album while driving, and there were many instances of me being caught by surprise when I looked at what track was playing, as I often didn’t notice that the song had changed. The only instance where my immersion was disrupted was when I noticed that many of the songs on the album were only a minute and a half long. After listening to the album again and actively paying attention to what songs were playing, I found that my attention was constantly being shifted to the tracklist of the album, because it changed so often. However, this is something that you won’t be an issue if you are able to ignore the frequent song changes and just treat the album as one big song.

The music itself is also very immersive. Meshuggah’s music is very mechanical sounding, and they often make use of repetitive riffs and overlapping rhythms to create a somewhat hypnotic sound. This album in particular achieves this well, as there is never an interruption between songs, and everything remains continuous from start to finish. Like many other concept albums, Catch Thirtythree is at its most effective when listened to from start to finish. There are many songs on the album that just don’t successfully grab me when I listen to them individually, yet when listened to in the context of the album they are seamless and transition perfectly from the past song to the next.