Bell in some Fear Factory ballads, but nope. Wow, an incredible ambient interlude! You might expect Kidman to sing nicely like Burton C. However, the speeding bullet-train hits an unexpected halt with the instrumental "Acrid Placidity". That song, along with "Vanished" have amazing drum work rolling like a bullet-train. "Transfixion" has more thrash and less groove than most other songs in the album, continuing the brutal riffs and heavy lead work. Jens Kidman sounds great here especially in the chorus where his syncopated vocals give the song more rhythm. "Soul Burn" begins with some pounding groove before leading you into a wild direction of furious guitar riff-wrath. "Beneath" starts with a brief ambient intro, and the rest of the song is nothing too special but still enjoyable. The chaos begins with "Future Breed Machine" which starts with a bit of an apocalyptic atmosphere that sounds like robotic machines taking over the world industrial noises for almost 30 seconds, then a piercing siren over a total headbanging onslaught. The guitar tone and soloing here is never really parallel to thrash but still masterful progressively. That does NOT mean this band is thrash! Well they used to be thrash before this album, but this is the start of the sound that would later be djent. Unlike later albums which have each song seamlessly blend to another constantly and have a thick groove, Destroy Erase Improve is, a little like Contradictions Collapse, still focused on thrash metal. Pretty much every song here has the off-meter alien-like guitar playing of Fredrik Thordendal, precise drumming of Tomas Haake, and Jens Kidman shouting like an arrogant drill sergeant. Destroy Erase Improve is what many metalheads believe to be one of the best metal albums in 1995 along with Fear Factory's Demanufacture, and with this album, Meshuggah has packed much more of their brutal technical force. They DESTROYED and ERASED their original sound from their first album and IMPROVED it into a more industrial-influenced progressive thrash style with more guitar strings attached. After the technical thrash sound of Contradictions Collapse, Meshuggah had their breakthrough success with their second album Destroy Erase Improve.