It's typical for Sweden's Meshuggah to take several years between album releases. That said, Immutable has been an unusually long time coming; six years, in fact. The COVID-19 pandemic started just before they began work on it, adding years to the process. Though their trademark sound remains instantly identifiable, Meshuggah creates deliberate tension between that trademark sound and an insatiable need to evolve musically. That intent is pervasive on Immutable. It marks the contrast in production, composition, and guitar ...
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It's typical for Sweden's Meshuggah to take several years between album releases. That said, Immutable has been an unusually long time coming; six years, in fact. The COVID-19 pandemic started just before they began work on it, adding years to the process. Though their trademark sound remains instantly identifiable, Meshuggah creates deliberate tension between that trademark sound and an insatiable need to evolve musically. That intent is pervasive on Immutable. It marks the contrast in production, composition, and guitar tones over a whopping 67 minutes, making it their longest album to date. The staccato riff in opener "Broken Cog" is mathematically complex, almost industrial. The dual melodic yet angular guitar lead from Mårten Hagström and Fredrik Thordendal adds a perverse quality as Jens Kidman delivers an uncharacteristically restrained vocal in menacing, sinister tones. "The Abysmal Eye" provides a classic, churning example of "djent" riffing, but is expanded on by the introduction of haunted ambience and layered atmospheric synths hovering around the guitars with Tomas Haake's polyrhythmic drumming framing Kidman's growl: "... Something this intensely profound/Can never be allowed/The fabric and all that holds it/Will all burn/It will all be torn down...." Tracks such as "Light the Shortening Fuse" utilize massive circular grooves. A series of detuned, ringing guitar harmonies foments a majestic bridge that feeds back into the chug and stomp, punctuated by bassist Dick Lovgren. "God He Sees in Mirrors" offers shifting tempos as guitars and bass create shard-like harmonics and frenetic off-kilter riffs amid wildly polyrhythmic drumming. Ultimately, it conjures five minutes of utterly aggressive, extreme metal. While "They Move Below" commences as slow, melodic, and almost Gothic, it incrementally progresses to reveal monstrously crushing guitar riffs that recall Killing Joke on Revelations. "Kaleidoscope" offers the nastiest guitar tones we've heard from Meshuggah since Nothing. The call-and-response twin guitars and dirty, throbbing bassline create a concentric circular groove governed by Haake's swinging, syncopated kit. It's followed by the two-minute instrumental "Black Cathedral," a drumless yet imposing metal interlude that introduces "I Am That Thirst." This track's melodic lead frames an insanely catchy vamp from the rhythm section, which drives an old-school death metal attack. "The Faultless" delivers angular, dissonant, guitar vamps in stop-and-start progressions, Haake's thunderous playing balances them, making the track virtually danceable. "Armies of the Preposterous" is almost traditional technical death metal and heavier than anything here. It sets up the instrumental closer "Past Tense." It's nearly lyrical dual guitar theme is transformed through the rhythm section's ever-insistent prodding. It unfolds from its softly articulated sparse, harmonic melody into some hoary, cinematically obtuse, shattering, sinister anthem. It suggests an unseen yet keenly felt horror lurking just outside. Ultimately, Immutable delivers the very essence of Meshuggah. While comfortable in their collective skin, they continue expanding their reach by obliterating -- hell, nearly swallowing -- metal's genre boundaries in their long, relentless search for the undiscovered. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi
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