It reaches out into the darkness with an angry fist and slams down anything in its path. They Move Below starts with a mellow guitar riff. In their early albums, like their name suggests, it’s chaos. In it - Meshuggah gives us substance that you won’t hear on their essential Chaosphere record from 98’. The 9+ minute track is actually a beautiful song. While opener Broken Cog is the absolute epitome of a Meshuggah track and a great selection to lead things off with its ‘look-at-how-good-we-are-at-counting riffs - the star of the album is They Move Below. The lead single I Am the Thirst is an odd pick and probably the most unlike the rest of the album song. Aside from that, you’ll get the occasional lead guitar of Fredrik Thordendal strumming a little higher up, roaming around in no particular direction to add at least a little dynamic to the sludge. They follow the shake-your-head-at-how-complicated bass drum of Haake. Meshuggah is an enigma of incredibly unique evolving time signatures and straightforward concepts and riffs.Īnchored by a generational talent in drummer Tomas Haake, both rhythm guitarist Mårten Hagström and bassist Dick Lövgren are completely playing in unison every song, every riff. Later, “Kaleidoscope” gives you more head-nodding grooves to sink into. For example, “Phantoms” might be the closest thing you can tap your toe along to without getting utterly lost. That said - there are some epic grooves that Meshuggah gets itself into. Meshuggah is an industry of serious progression. In Meshuggah's complex and chaotic musical space, nobody will hear you scream.A factory line of precise polyrhythms expertly hammering along with such unabashed disregard for structure. With "Immutable", the Swedish band proves that they are still the fascinating colossus of extreme metal and leaves us stunned by so much violence, rage and despair. On the other hand, because this album is surely the most melodic that Meshuggah has produced since "Obzen", thanks to the predominant use of atmospheric guitar strings in the background ('The Abysmal Eye', 'Light Of The Shortening Fuse', 'Ligature Marks'). On the one hand because the sound of the Swedes is warmer and more organic than usual on this new album, which paradoxically accentuates its nihilistic and worrying atmosphere, like the black metal influences of 'I Am That First' and the strange instrumental 'Black Cathedral'. The long instrumental 'They Move Below' shows how the two bands have influenced each other for years and have a common approach in the search for trance, with repetitive riffs ('The Faultless') that slowly evolve to kidnap the listener's attention, leaving him incredulous and disarmed in front of his Stockholm syndrome.īut even if the foundations of Meshuggah's music remain unchanged, solidly anchored in a technical djent that they invented themselves ('Kaleidoscope') and built on pachydermic thrash metal riffs (the huge 'Armies Of The Preposterous', the disturbing 'Phantoms'), the band evolves slightly with "Immutable". The effect of hypnotic stupefaction that "Immutable" provokes is finally quite close to the fascination that Tool's music can generate, of which Meshuggah is the extreme counterpart. So welcome to Meshuggah's hypnotic hell, with its eight-string guitars tuned at least two tones below normal, its soli only based on dissonances ('The Abysmal Eye', 'The Faultless'), the inhabited vocals of Jens Kidman whose screams compete with aggressiveness and whose whispers from beyond the grave are even more unhealthy ('Broken Cog') and unplayable polyrhythms that Tomas Haake, even with the help of his computers, is the only one to understand (the impossible rhythmic of 'God He Sees In Mirrors') Because whatever the case, it is impossible to remain indifferent to this steamroller of huge riffs and abysmal darkness. In fact, all the ingredients of the band's music are there, the very ones that carry away the adhesion of some and the rejection of others. Besides, by calling this ninth album "Immutable", the band warns from the start those who will say that Meshuggah is just doing Meshuggah. After 35 years in the service of extreme metal, the Swedes know the recipe by heart to stick us to our seats. Each track gives us a good slap in the face, but it is almost impossible not to turn the other cheek and not to give up in front of so much power. It's always the same with Meshuggah's albums.
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