accident"; in a 2018 interview, Hagström jokingly apologised for the band's role in creating the term, calling it a "drunk misunderstanding". Method and lyrical themes Meshuggah's music is written by Thordendal, Hagström and Haake with assistance from Kidman and Lövgren. During songwriting, a member programs the drums, and records the guitar and bass via computer. He presents his idea to the other members as a finished work. Meshuggah typically adheres to the original idea and rarely changes the song afterwards. Hagström explains that each member has an idea of what the others are doing conceptually, and nobody thinks exclusively in terms of a particular instrument. Kidman does not play guitar in the band anymore, but he is involved in writing riffs. Except for when Hagström needs a soloist, he and Thordendal rarely record together. Both play guitar and bass while composing. Haake says about his songwriting, "Sometimes I'll sample guitar parts, cut them up, pitch-shift and tweak them until I've built the riffs I want, just for demoing purposes. But most of the time I'll just present the drums, and explain my ideas for the rest of the song, sing some riffs." The band uses Cubase to record the tracks, and the guitars are routed through software amplifier modeling, because it allows them to change the amp settings even after the song was fully recorded. Approximately once a year, Haake writes most of the band's lyrics, with the exception of finished tracks. His lyrical inspirations are derived from books and films. Aside from their album Catch Thirtythree, Meshuggah does not usually record concept albums, although the band prefers strong conceptual underpinnings in the background. Often esoteric and conceptual, Meshuggah's lyrics explore themes such as existentialism. AllMusic describes Destroy Erase Improve's lyrical focus as "the integration of machines with organisms as humanity's next logical evolutionary step". PopMatters' review of Nothing singles out the lyrics from "Rational Gaze": "Our light-induced image of truth—filtered blank of its substance / As our eyes won't adhere to intuitive lines / Everything examined. Separated, one thing at a time / The harder we stare the more complete the disintegration." Haake explains that Catch Thirtythree's cover, title and lyrics deal with "the paradoxes/negations/contradictions of life and death (as we see it in our finest moments of unrestrained metaphoric interpretation)". The main theme of obZen is "human evil", according to Haake. The title is a play on the