- Country: Sweden
- Style: Progressive metal / Groove metal
- Label: Nuclear Blast
- Release date: 7 October 2016
For once, you can hear the people. Meshuggah recorded The Violent Sleep of Reason live in the studio, the whole band playing together at Puk Studios in Denmark with Tue Madsen behind the desk, and the difference is real. The grid is still there, those mathematical riffs still lock into Tomas Haake’s drumming like gears, but there’s a looseness and a push-and-pull that the cleaner, more programmed-sounding records never had.
“Clockworks” opens with Haake doing what only Haake does, a relentless, lopsided pattern that the guitars eventually swallow whole, and the pressure never lets up. “Born in Dissonance” is the most direct, nastiest punch on the record, while “MonstroCity” and the near-title track “Violent Sleep of Reason” lurch and grind like heavy machinery left running overnight. Jens Kidman sounds as furious as ever, barking lyrics about dogma and extremism that suit the Goya-inspired title.
It isn’t flawless. The middle stretch blurs together if you aren’t paying attention, and a couple of songs could lose a minute without anyone noticing. But the slow, suffocating “Into Decay” is one of the heaviest closers they’ve written, and “Nostrum” has a groove that’ll have your neck sore by the end of it.
Best tracks:
Clockworks
Born in Dissonance
MonstroCity
Into Decay
Author’s rating: 8.6/10
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