Album Review: "The Violent Sleep of Reason" by Meshuggah

MESHUGGAH

*The Violent Sleep of Reason*

(Nuclear Blast)

Meshuggah is, in a word, otherworldly. The aesthetic of the latest album--the eighth in a 25-plus-year career--heavily resembles H.R. Giger’s alien surrealism style, furthering the extreme Swedish metal band’s exploration of futuristic themes and sounds.

Off-kilter, syncopated rhythms and frequent time changes, done with maximum percussion and riffage, disorient the listener on the best of tracks. “Monstrocity” builds chaotically until a downward spiral riff progression repeats with singer Jens Kidman deliberately barking out the syllables “Monstro....City!”

“By The Ton” is a mid-tempo beast of a song, heavy on thudding bass and bordering on sludge metal. Another repetitious and downward spiral chord progression is mined in “Ivory Tower,” a warning against putting faith into false institutions, which has H.P. Lovecraft-like allusions to inevitable horror: “The construction is our penance here / tumorous growth chiseled in white / when the darkness comes to slay the day / enters horrors that you’ll be wishing away.”

“Stifled” is another mid-tempo track that shows a slightly groovier side to the band’s brutality. But the title track, opening track “Clockworks,” “Born in Dissonance” and “Our Rage Won’t Die” (with an opening drum line that can only be described as a game of Whack-a-Mole) will satisfy the fans who prefer uptempo shredding.

9/10
Link to print version of review in December 2016 issue of Illinois Entertainer magazine. Navigate PDF to page 44.