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Meshuggah: Immutable
 Six years after The Violent Sleep of Reason, Sweden's djent masters Meshuggah return with their 9th full-length album, titled Immutable. They've also moved on from Nuclear Blast Records to Atomic Fire for the first time in their career, a new label formed by former employees of Nuclear Blast, who also have seen acts like Helloween, Amorphis, Michael Schenker Group, Opeth, Primal Fear, and others join the new roster. Immutable might be the strongest album from the Swedes in a while, though let's be honest, it's not like Meshuggah have ever released a bad album, but this one is immediately accessible, chock full of huge grooves, futuristic atmosphere, and their brand of off-kilter technical progressive metal/djent.
Just in case you are new to the band, Meshuggah is comprised of:
Jens Kidman: lead vocals
Fredrik Thordendal: guitars, backing vocals
Tomas Haake: drums, spoken vocals
Mårten Hagström: guitars, backing vocals
Dick Lövgren: bass
So, while Immutable certainly sounds like a Meshuggah album right from the get-go, there's a looseness here, a ridiculous heft to the guitar & bass riffs, nice use of atmospherics, some clean vocals in spots, and crazy technical guitar solos, that draw the listener in right from the start, unlike some previous albums that tend to take many listens to digest. "Broken Cog" and "The Abysmal Eye" are the excellent 1-2 punch to kick off the album, and the killer production only further enhances all the crushing elements that are on display. "Phantoms" is so heavy and littered with massive bottom end, while "Ligature Marks" is a venomous display of bombastic extreme metal, Kidman's barking vocals and occasional melodic lead guitar lines interjecting into what is otherwise an arrangement littered with brutal riffing. More crushing, elastic riffs permeate the killer "God He Sees in Mirrors", while the 9-minute instrumental "They Move Below" sees the band starting off with brooding atmospherics before the listener is assaulted with massive guitar & bass riffing that bludgeons you into oblivion. The stop/start riffing and intricate drum patterns of Haake on "I Am That Thirst" are simply mind-blowing, and "The Faultless" is absolutely pulverizing.
The only weak track here is the final piece "Past Tense", a haunting instrumental that doesn't really have a lot going on, but perhaps it's included to allow the listener to catch their breath after all the aggression that came before it. Immutable has quickly become my favorite Meshuggah album since 2008's obZen. It's sure to rank pretty high for top heavy metal albums of 2022 when the year draws to a close.
Track Listing
- Broken Cog
- The Abysmal Eye
- Light The Shortening Fuse
- Phantoms
- Ligature Marks
- God He Sees In Mirrors
- They Move Below
- Kaleidoscope
- Black Cathedral
- I Am That Thirst
- The Faultless
- Armies Of The Preposterous
- Past Tense
Added: June 5th 2022
Reviewer: Pete Pardo
Score:  
Related Link: Band Facebook Page
Hits: 1029
Language: english
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Meshuggah: Immutable
Posted by Ben Dudai, SoT Staff Writer on 2022-06-06 02:02:43
My Score:
The impact that Swedish legends Meshuggah have made on Metal is undeniable. Forming all the way back in 1987 (It’s hard to believe they've been around so long) Meshuggah are one of the true pioneers of extreme music. Moving from their Technical Thrash roots as exemplified on their debut album, 1991’s Contradictions Collapse to their monumental leap forward to the genre creating Progressive Djent masterpiece from 1995, Destroy Erase Improve. From there the band would continue to evolve their new sound which would reach perhaps it’s most potent expression on 2008’s obZen with the song “Bleed” becoming one of the most well known and copied riffs in metal history.
Meshuggah not only created a sound for themselves but as I mentioned they created an entire genre and have influenced and continue to influence countless bands in both the world of extreme metal and in other genres of music as well.
From my own point of view I felt that after obZen the material while still strong no longer seemed to be so urgently of potently pushing forward, creating somewhat of a holding pattern for the band, albeit a high level one. I know fans will disagree with that take but I felt fairly unenthused with their output of the last decade.
That brings us to Immutable and for the first time since obZen I feel the band have injected some much needed life into the proceedings. Immutable opens with “Broken Cog” which begins with a fairly simple (for Meshuggah) riff which then builds, but not initially with heaviness, but rather with meditative etherealness and spoken style vocals, all of which will return at various points stylistically throughout the album as well. Even though I think it's a strange way to open the album I found myself really enjoying it. Of course the song does ramp up in heaviness but it’s a nice direction shift that makes you wonder what else is coming. When “The Abysmal Eye” kicks off it’s more familiar and expected with the bludgeoning riffs of Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström on the guitars, backed up by Dick Lövgren’s bass grooves, Tomas Haake’s angular and insane drumming and the familiar bark of Jens Kidman on the vocals, all making their return to what has been their bread and butter for decades now. “God He Sees In Mirrors” is another standout and opens with a classic kickass riff and grooves hard and like several other tracks sees Fredrick employ his favorite guitar solo technique, a kind of weird, spacey, tapping thing, which definitely sounds cool but it would be nice to hear a ripping guitar solo once and a while with this music. The song “They Move Below” has a strangely gentle beginning which does help to retain the album's trance-like, meditative quality. When the heavy riff eventually bludgeons its way in and roundhouse kicks you in the face the pay-off feels all the better for the gentle beginnings. Meshuggah are sounding absolutely in top form here too and that combined with the excellent production makes for an extremely pleasing sonic experience. While there aren’t any songs on Immutable that are as immediate as “Bleed” or “Future Breed Machine” the whole album is remarkably consistent and enjoyable with each track having its own power and charm, making the whole perhaps greater than the sum of its parts.
So Immutable most certainly hasn’t reinvented the wheel or offered anything overly revolutionary, however it does see Meshuggah offering up their most engaging and interesting material since obZen. I would probably prefer if the band would have reduced the run-time, but maybe that's just the old guy in me who prefers shorter albums, especially when they are from the extreme end of the metal pool. Nevertheless Immutable is certainly a strong album from these veterans and it makes me very happy to see them still going strong after all these years.
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