Band:	Meshuggah
Album:	Immutable
Style:	Math metal, Progressive metal, Technical thrash metal
Release date:	April 2022

01. Broken Cog
02. The Abysmal Eye
03. Light The Shortening Fuse
04. Phantoms
05. Ligature Marks
06. God He Sees In Mirrors
07. They Move Below
08. Kaleidoscope
09. Black Cathedral
10. I Am That Thirst
11. The Faultless
12. Armies Of The Preposterous
13. Past Tense

Vildhjarta ended 10 years of silence with last year’s Måsstaden Under Vatten; however, just after the apprentice has made a comeback, the master returns.

I must admit, as one of the more vocal champions of djent on the website, I’ve never fully embraced Meshuggah; it took years after I first heard the band for me to somewhat gel with albums such as ObZen and Chaosphere, and even now, while I find them an awesome band to experience live, they’re not something I find myself opting to listen to with any degree of regularity. In Meshuggah’s music, pretty much every instrument functions as a percussive or rhythmic element above anything else, from Jens Kidman’s monotone barks to the to the dense low-end guitar assaults, not to mention Tomas Haake’s legendary drum skills; it makes for an incredibly impressive sound on a technical level, and the complex grooves do hold a real appeal at a more primitive level, but it’s not always the easiest sound to listen to for an extensive period of time. Well, after six years, Meshuggah are following up The Violent Sleep Of Reason with Immutable, their longest record to date at a whopping 68 minutes.

If you’ve heard a Meshuggah album before, you know what to expect from them, and Immutable does not subvert expectations; get ready for maddeningly complex arrangements built around syncopated polyrhythms, with the returning Fredrik Thordendal’s signature guitar leads lurking on top. However, the record starts off in perhaps surprising fashion with “Broken Cog”, an ominous slow-burn of a track built around a slow central marching rhythm that revels in softer, cleaner atmospheres for prolonged periods of time. It’s a fascinating opening to the album, and “The Abysmal Eye” builds upon it by retaining an aura of restraint, even as it kicks up the ante with more immediacy in terms of groove and aggression (as well as a typically mental Thordendal solo).

Beyond that, the next few tracks deliver quintessentially Meshuggah music while each featuring distinctive elements, whether it be the hypnotic persistence of the latter stages of “Phantoms” or the more melodic nature of “Ligature Marks”. The centrepiece and highlight of Immutable is “They Move Below”, a 9-minute all-instrumental mid-tempo leviathan that progresses from innocuous beginnings through a barrage of rhythms and grooves before culminating with a conclusion that delivers a sense of levity and finality. All of these angles and emotions are accentuated by what seems to be a continuation of the more organic production approach used for The Violent Sleep Of Reason.

Having revisited Koloss and The Violent Sleep Of Reason, I think Immutable may be the post-ObZen Meshuggah record that I find most satisfying. However, where it does fall down is with its length; it’s not nearly as draining an experience as Måsstaden Under Vatten’s obnoxious 80 minutes, but I struggle to maintain nearly as much interest in the tracks that follow “They Move Below” than those that come before, as the innate similarity of the songs quickly leads to diminishing returns. One possible place that the album could end at is with the brief percussion-less instrumental “Black Cathedral”, which, although not making for the most emphatic of conclusions, would do a much better job of giving Immutable a sense of post-apocalyptic resignation than the pointless and excessively long “Past Tense”. The tracks that follow “Black Cathedral”, while worth a listen, are not the most compelling on the album, although I would take the slick groove of “The Faultless” over “Kaleidoscope”.

Ultimately, for those for which there is no such thing as ‘too much Meshuggah’, Immutable is a blessing from the Gods, an avalanche of gnarly djent riffs, immense rhythmic complexity and relentless groove. For the less dedicated fans, Immutable is a strong return from the Swedish pioneers, with “Broken Cog” and “They Move Below” standing out as impressive departures amidst an onslaught of satisfying material that nevertheless diverges too little from the established formula to remain consistently exciting throughout its runtime. With stricter editing and a bit more variety, Immutable could have reached even greater heights, but even still it’s a solid addition to their discography.