THE VIOLENT SLEEP OF REASON

When people talk about extreme metal, they usually mean thrash, death, and black metal. However, doom metal and groove metal are a couple of genres that can be among the heaviest music out there yet get forgotten in discussions of extreme metal. For the latter, it's Meshuggah that has to remind listeners that groove metal can harbor colossal brutality on the same level if not more so.

The band wastes no time in beating you over the head with a mixture of jackhammer riffing, drum attacks and sludgy dirges. It's business as usual for the band, with insane syncopation, downtuned dirges, groovy hooks, piercing thrashings, and Jens Kidman's brutal screams and roars. "Born in Dissonance" may as well be the band's theme song, it pretty much displays what the band is all about. The sludgy "By the Ton" is another perfect representative for the band, as they sure deliver their destructive grooves by the ton. If they tuned the strings any lower, they'd break the sound barrier. "Monstrocity" is the main highlight, with the main riff sounding like a much heavier Korn, it's about as catchy as you can get while still crushing every listener's skull. "Our Rage Won't Die" is a groove-thrash fest to the most crushing degree.

There's really not much else to say. It's brutal as [%*!#], it's heavy as balls, it's skull crushing as hell, it's Meshuggah. Modern black and death metal bands wish they could be this heavy. Basically, if you liked the last couple Meshuggah albums or just like uncompromising brutality you won't be disappointed. Warning: May cause intense headbanging and extreme whiplash if you have long hair.

I am pleasantly surprised. The two tracks released as lyric videos ahead of the album release -- Born in Dissonance and Nostrum -- were good, but they didn't stand out. Listening to the full album, however, I'm happy to report that this is one of my favorites among their albums. It has their signature bajillion-string guitar sound with an energy they haven't matched since Chaosphere. Recorded live rather than track by track, Violent Sleep feels like the musicians actually enjoyed what they were doing, and the overall quality goes way up.

Overall, my highest compliment has to go to the fact that each song feels like it PROGRESSES. As much as I like their old material, I often feel like they sit on a single riff and do slight variations on it for four to five minutes. Here, there is variation. There is contrast of the sort that, on prior albums, you would really only get by hitting the "next track" button. This pays off in spades. For other bands this might be called something akin to "normal song structure," but playing at Meshuggah's level of skill is somewhat prohibitive to having such dramatic change-ups. So where a prior Meshuggah song might go from A to A' to A'' (such as Bleed), Violent Sleep has A, B, C, etc. in a single track. I have to respect the technical skill involved in learning multiple distinct and complex patterns for a single song.

There are only two real complaints I have against the album. First, some lyrics in MonstroCity are a little cringe- worthy. That should be apparent from the title. Meshuggah has never taken themselves as seriously as one might think they do, but... come on. Thankfully the instruments are actually really good on this track, and the lyrics grow on you in spite of themselves.

Second, Ivory Tower is a boring song. It isn't until about the 3:30 mark that we get any reprieve from the unrelenting triplet bass drum. It lacks that quality of progression that I praised about the rest of the album. Maybe it's just me, but I can't stop listening to the bass drum do the same thing over and over again. This might be fine if the thing it did was interesting, but it's just slow triplet eighth notes for five minutes.

Without getting into a track-by-track, here are the highlights:

Clockworks offers a relentless opener and a high bar for the rest of album. Haake shows off his jazz influences a bit more directly here, throwing in a bit of extra hand-work that doesn't necessarily come at the end of an eight bar phrase. It's a nice change of pace from how his drumming always seems so mathematical. It's still very much that, but he allows himself more freedom. He doesn't just carry on a 1-2-3!-4 between the high hat and snare like he does on so many songs. This generally carries through the rest of the album.

By the Ton is bizarre in a good way. They experiment with chord progression pretty liberally here. I think this is the song they called "a true twelve-tone song" in an interview, meaning there's no real key signature going on here. They use everything. There's also a distinct old-fashioned sound to the guitar. It's similar to their usual djent sound, but you can tell it's running through some kind of weird amp. It's hard to describe... you'll probably have to hear it for yourself.

The title track has some nice Shed-like psychedelic noises going for it, and the solo mid-song stands out from their traditional 56k modem logging into AOL solos by being... weirder? Again, I'm not sure how to describe it.

Nostrum has some fan-freaking-tastic drum work accompanied by minimalist guitars. It's like a better Spasm.

Kidman's voice also explores some new sounds throughout to great effect. It is more raw and unrestrained than the usual monotone.

The other songs besides Ivory Tower are at least very good. Ivory Tower itself is not terrible, just exceedingly mediocre among what is in my opinion their strongest work since Chaosphere.

My recommendation: if you like this style of music -- that is, extreme metal -- this is one of the best offerings I've heard in a long time. This is some Grade A material.

Chugga chugga djent djent, it's the MESHUGGAH train coming back to town and after four long years following their most accessible album of all they return in full fury with their complex tech monster bashing mix of aggressiveness unlike any other. THE VIOLENT SLEEP OF REASON (the 8th full length studio album) is chock full of all the famous time sig torture and mangled mutiny of sonic suffering. The title indicates somewhat of a loose theme that is based on Francisco Goya's painting "The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters" and it can be confirmed on this pummeling yet powerful 59 minute expression of brutality that they surely enter those territories and they are the kind that stimulate the senses in TOTALLY inappropriate ways. I love it!

MESHUGGAH wastes no time churning out the technical aggressiveness they've been conjuring up for a good twenty years and if you are familiar at all with the band's output then THE VIOLENT SLEEP OF REASON will not sound out of step in any way with their unique take on mutilated thrash metal that has since been designated with the nauseating term "djent" which i rather despise myself. I consider it a guitar style of playing NOT a true genre per se but i digress and nomenclature aside it is the delivery of incessant progressive and aggressive dissonance accompanied by the saturnine atmospheric tone of the brutality liturgy that really delivers a top notch edition of the MESHUGGAH world of chaotic noise and overtly angry sonicity.

THE VIOLENT SLEEP OF REASON was a blatant attempt to get out of the nitpicking neediness of the production that the band found themselves becoming slaves to and as a result this album was recorded totally live in the studio. That means all parts were recorded simultaneously by all members instead of each track separately. This does indeed give a more organic feel and yet the production is totally modern, crisp and clean and allows every little ear shattering decibelage to assault the senses. The spontaneity of what the band sounds like playing together does chime through as the album feels much like a retro 90s MESHUGGAH album i have to admit.

All in all this is a fine and dandy album that delivers all the MESHUGGAH goods and then some. The technical riff abuse is in full attack as Frederik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström are partners in crime on the dual guitar assaults and Dick Lövgren on bass and Tomas Haake on drums absolutely nail the avant-groove antics without hesitation. Jens Kidman delivers the best of his angry anti-relgious and dark cynical lyrics and vocal styles as to be expected. THE VIOLENT SLEEP OF REASON is a fine addition to the MESHUGGAH canon but personally i can't say i like this better than the cream of the crop such as their "Chaosphere" to "Nothing" remake period.

True that they keep their sound together in tact and offer an excellent slice of their homemade musical universe but at the same time they don't really offer anything new to it and with music this brutal and complex it's nice to have some variation involved such as acoustic and ambient passages that were prevalent on their earlier albums (yes there is some but not until track seven "Stifled.") So overall this will not go down as my favorite MESHUGGAH album of all time but nevertheless a very worthy avant-garde progressive thrashy groove metal album for those who have drenched themselves in the chaotic avant-garde jazz fusion techniques of dissonant metal that they churn out so well. It should go without saying that MESHUGGAH is very much an acquired taste and nothing on THE VIOLENT SLEEP OF REASON will attract new followers. If you didn't like them before, you won't like them now but if you have swallowed this Kool-aid then you can happily expect more of the same.

"The Violent Sleep of Reason" is the 9th full-length studio album by Swedish technical extreme metal act Meshuggah. The album was released through Nuclear Blast Records in October 2016. It´s the successor to "Koloss" from 2012 and features the same lineup as the predecessor. "The Violent Sleep of Reason" is a self- produced effort. Engineering was done by prolific Danish producer/engineer Tue Madsen at Puk Studios in Denmark. The album was recorded live in the studio, with all members playing simultaneously. So it´s basically a "live in the studio" recording, but you probably wouldn´t be able to hear it if you didn´t know it. Meshuggah are one tight playing unit. A well oiled machine. And even when they do something like this, everything is still delivered with militant precision.

Stylistically "The Violent Sleep of Reason" features very few surprises if you´re already familiar with the last couple of releases by Meshuggah. Crushingly heavy downtuned angular played guitars/bass riffs, the odd fusion jazz styled guitar solo/theme, technical drumming, crazy time signatures, and Jens Kidman´s raw aggressive vocals in front. It´s safe to say they don´t step out of their comfort zone much on this album, but the quality of the material is as usual incredibly high and the band´s sound is as unique as ever. I understand if some people feel Meshuggah have stagnated and that their style has become a one-dimensional and predictable size, because in some ways that´s true, but if you listen a bit more closely to what the band have to offer, you´ll notice that they still make little tweaks to their core sound. It´s nothing that changes their overall musical style, but there is enough development to keep the listener on his/her toes and ensure that "The Violent Sleep of Reason" stands out as an individual entity in the band´s discography.

The material on the 10 track, 58:55 minutes long album is as mentioned above of a very high quality. The tracks are written in an incredibly clever way and the technical details featured on the tracks are quite stunning. That´s not unusual for Meshuggah though, and it wouldn´t be enough if the tracks weren´t powerful and memorable too. That´s fortunately the case here though, and while there are a couple of tracks which don´t stand out as much as the best tracks on the album, every track is still of a high quality. Highlight include "Born in Dissonance", "MonstroCity", and "Nostrum", but "Violent Sleep of Reason" (which features some very intriguing lead guitar melodies/themes) and the crushingly heavy and therefore aptly titled "By the Ton" also deserve a mention.

"The Violent Sleep of Reason" features a powerful, raw, and detailed sound production, and despite how it was recorded, the album features the cold, clinical, and dark atmosphere, which suits Meshuggah´s music so well. It´s still organic to a degree though, and it´s certainly not a polished and lifeless sounding production.

So they´ve done it again...created another masterful release, which defies catagorization and which just sounds unmistakably like Meshuggah. The fans will probably praise this one as they´ve praised the band´s previous efforts, while the critics will say the same as they always do. This is not an album that´ll change that. Meshuggah´s music is still as demanding and inaccessible as it´s been from day one, and "The Violent Sleep of Reason" requires as much attention from the listener as every preceding release by the band before it. But once you lock into that crushingly heavy odd-metered hypnotic groove it´ll never let go. A 5 star (100%) rating is deserved.

When one buys a Meshuggah album one knows exactly what to expect, and this 2016 is no different to the ones that have come before. What we have here boys and girls is djent, but in a complex downtuned and aggressive form like none other. It is just not possible to state how brutal this album is, from the very first crunch to the last. Singer Jens Kidman has a great deal of work to do to make himself heard, as the rest of the guys are just so tight, so precise, that it is incredible that he manages to find a melody line at all. This is complex stuff, and no-one does this style of music better than the Swedes. True, they are somewhat lacking when it comes to dynamics, as there isn't a great deal of light to play against the shade, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for them as they just paint the shade somewhat darker. Polyrhythmic is the only way to describe a band who haven't worked out that 4/4 is often thought to be a valid time signature in metal. Why do that when they can groove in 5/8 instead?

There really is no other band like them, and that they continue to tour the world (they even turned up down here not long ago!) and release albums (this is their ninth) shows that while this may not be to everyone's tastes, there is simply no-one who can do this any better. Meshuggah, djent, metal, intense, superb.

Bird Box, a below average Netflix distributed horror film, portrays humanity facing off against cosmically demonic beings. Sane people who gaze upon the creatures are driven to self-harm and suicide. By contrast, the clinically insane are struck by the creature's magnificent transcendent beauty and are instantly converted into enthusiastic missionizers on behalf of the demonic beings. While the movie is ultimately forgettable, it functions as a useful metaphor for understanding the legacy of this album. While music critics like Anthony Fantano of YouTube fame lamented the albums alleged drudgery and lack of melody, emotionally overwhelmed metal fans were busy trying to process whether they had just heard one of the greatest metal albums of all time.

Admittedly, the album is a challenging listen at first. But an engaged listener will undoubtedly become captivated as the dizzying chuggs of the verses give way to expansive releases of tension as the songs develop. And once so engaged, the listener is sure to discern that these are the most melodic riffs and rich harmonies ever to be laid to track by Meshuggah.

The icing on the cake for this album is its raw sounding production, likely a biproduct of the instrumentals having been recorded live in the studio. And the album is just immeasurably better as a result