By Jase Walker
Meshuggah at this point are essentially part of the bedrock of Djent/Math metal/Prog metal, whatever label you want to give them really! Essentially writing the rulebook of music that’s a pretty big chunk of the scene these days years before others started emulating their penchant for extended range guitars, low-tunings and eclectic time signatures and after a fairly large gap since their last effort, they’ve returned with Immutable.
This is by no means a short album either, 13 tracks! But as you’d probably come to expect from these guys, each track is dripping with raw processed guitars, facemeltingly heavy riffs, time signatures that would confuse even the most seasoned audience member, because if you can’t figure out where the ‘1’ is then it’s just par for the course really.
Prior to this there’d been three singles released in the lead up to the album, ‘The Abysmal Eye’, ‘Light The Shortening Fuse’ and ‘I Am That Thirst’ which did a fantastic job setting the tone for the album so let’s have a quick overview of them.
‘The Abysmal Eye’ with its chugs mixed in with Meshuggah’s signature string bending about as far down the neck as you can possibly get right from the outset and it’s relentless double-bass pedal hammering away, yep – feels like home when it comes to their style. Discordant melodies backing away in the breaks between brutal uncleans.
‘Light The Shortening Fuse’ hits straight on the ‘Dun dun d-dun dun’ style sound that’s pretty common throughout Djent styled music as a whole, just listening to this it’s pretty easy to visualise them smashing this out live with flashing strobes going apeshit over a crowd that’s one step away from pulverising each other in a pit.
‘I Am That Thirst’ is similar with its rhythmic chugs to ‘Light The Shortening Fuse’ but that breakdown towards the end is just top tier: “Right we’ve done the singing bit now, time to just thrash this bit out while you guys in the audience go berserk”.
So, with the singles out of the way, it’s hard to really get down into the nuts and bolts here of the rest of the album because honestly, it’s a massive chunk of music so I’ll just pick out the real standout tracks for me.
‘Phantoms’ is one particular track that sticks out a bit more than the rest, mainly because it actually sounds a bit like a SikTh track in their choices of using tight palm muted riffage for the verse parts while the ‘chorus’ takes the riff, builds on it and really lets rip with it and then just goes mad with towards the end with a relentless low bending and discordant atmospheric melodies over it, love it.
‘They Move Below’, one of the longest songs on the album is a nine and a half minute long prog epic, where it starts slow, and ambient, then the riffs steadily build as the song pushes on but an extended guitar solo part with the signature Djenty riffs in the back. It’s a great showcase of the more melodic side of Meshuggah considering they’re generally more well known for rhythm and grooves.
And finally, my other favourite is ‘Armies Of The Preposterous’, it’s probably mainly just because of the groove for this one really being a full on gurner for me, proper head-bop sort of territory. It’s the same reason I love Strapping Young Lads’ ‘Love’, it’s the sort of riff that just compels you to bang your head, top stuff.
Overall, to summarize how I feel about this album, not to downplay it by any respects but you listen to it and you’re immediately like ‘Yep, that’s Meshuggah alright’ – I think a friend of mine referred to it as like slipping on a familiar, comfortable pair of slippers which I think is a pretty damn good way of putting it. It’s fantastic to see them back in the swing of things and this album is no doubt going to sound amazing live, if you’re into Meshuggah then this will be another good heaping of more of what you love.
- ‘Immutable’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
- Meshuggah tour in May/June:
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