MESHUGGAH: Immutable (OTHERS EXTREME): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

It's always the same with Meshuggah's albums. 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. Is it magic? No. But talent for sure. After 35 years in the service of extreme metal, the Swedes know the recipe by heart to stick us to our seats. And this recipe is immutable. Besides, by calling this ninth album "Immutable", the band warns from the start those who will say that Meshuggah is just doing Meshuggah.

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. Because whatever the case, it is impossible to remain indifferent to this steamroller of huge riffs and abysmal darkness. 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')

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. 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.

But 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". 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'. 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').

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. In Meshuggah's complex and chaotic musical space, nobody will hear you scream. - Official website

MESHUGGAH

IMMUTABLE

ATOMIC FIRE RECORDS

OTHERS EXTREME