Meshuggah - 'The Violent Sleep of Reason' (Album Review)
Friday, 07 October 2016
Written by Alec Chillingworth
We take Meshuggah for granted. We really do. Every time a new record does the rounds, we’re blessed with polyrhythms, eight-stringed garrisons and the glorious sound of a man throwing up in his mouth, and we go: “Yeah, it’s Meshuggah.”
It remains remarkable that this sound has come from the brains of humans. Not computers, or the kid who speed-read the latest Harry Potter book, but real humans. The Swedish titans’ eighth LP, ‘The Violent Sleep of Reason’ shows little sign of slowing down or the taking of a collective breath after 25 years of releasing sonic gold.
Whereas their contemporaries, like Gojira and the Devin Townsend Project, have branched out further in order to run rings around younger bands trying their hand at this brand of downtuned dissonance, Meshuggah have refused. Because they are Meshuggah, and they already deal in far-flung, futuristic, cranium-crushing death metal of the most technically dazzling sort.
The uncanny rhythmic lunacy of Clockworks immediately lets us know we’re not safe. At all. Jens Kidman’s gritty, staccato barks stab when they want but the whispered mid-section of the record’s title-track welcomes one of a number of experimental flourishes.
By The Ton’s sheer weight, meanwhile, is counteracted by the almost sloppy, punkish nature of the piece, where amid a loose attack of muted guitar you can hear Mårten Hagström and Fredrik Thordendal’s fingers sliding from the strings. That’s not a mistake or a failure in production – this record sounds massive – but because they wanted us to hear it.
Thordendal’s solos are still summoned from some sort of spaceship with an exceptional radio station, with the guitarist delivering those jazzy, brain-bending perversions of his instrument most prominently on Stifled. The drumwork of Tomas Haake remains yet another mysterious facet of Meshuggah’s existence, too. He’s a percussive anomaly who might give an octopus serious self-esteem problems. This is, ultimately, an LP that only this band could’ve crafted.
It strays into ‘standard’ Meshuggah territory towards its climax, but that’s not a criticism. They’re responsible for influencing an entire generation of metallers, so the fact they still crack through new ground is a feat in itself. Building on the sound they cemented on 2008’s ‘obZen’, Meshuggah have literally nothing left to prove. Since 1995’s ‘Destroy Erase Improve’, Meshuggah have been peerless. ‘The Violent Sleep of Reason’ only confirms that.
Meshuggah Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Thu January 12 2017 - BRISTOL O2 Academy Bristol
Fri January 13 2017 - BIRMINGHAM O2 Institute
Sat January 14 2017 - NOTTINGHAM Rock City
Sun January 15 2017 - GLASGOW O2 ABC Glasgow
Tue January 17 2017 - BELFAST Limelight
Wed January 18 2017 - DUBLIN Academy
Thu January 19 2017 - MANCHESTER O2 Ritz
Fri January 20 2017 - LONDON O2 Forum Kentish Town
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