Bring up the idea of extreme metal, and the first band that comes into mind for the most of us is Meshuggah. The Swedish extreme/progressive metal act have come a long way since their early days, and have constantly evolved in their playing and composition. It was pretty hard to imagine the kind of effort it might take to top the wonderful ‘obZen’ and ‘Koloss’, which aren’t just great records, but musical yard-sticks. Enter 2016, and ‘The Violent Sleep of Reason’ was announced by Meshuggah, much to the endless excitement of the fans.
Metal Wani’s Editor In Chief Owais ‘Vitek’ Nabi & Roshan M had a chat with MESHUGGAH drummer Tomas Haake. He discusses the upcoming new album “The Violent Sleep Of Reason”, why they are lucky to find each other to create music which is unique, why he had to work hard to improve his drumming since the beginning. He also talks about the lyrical approach which is based on issues in Middle East, human catastrophic and how the album which is loosely based on “The Sleep Of Reason”, creating a ambient, meditative session on songs like “Nostrum”.
He also throws light on writing complex progressive element of Meshuggah, the arrangements, poly rhythm and poly tonal arrangements on this album, how the bass sounds angrier on this album and involving the bass player Dick Lovgren as part of the songwriting.
Stream PART 1 Here:
In this Part, Tomas Haake talks about the production on the new album “The Violent Sleep Of Reason”, why they recording the entire album live for the first time in Meshuggah’s career and why the album was mastered to the extreme on this album.
Tomas also talks about writing and recording the complex song of the album w.r.t. drums, his opinion on bands which are influenced by Meshuggah and how these bands focus on technicality than writing being ‘good songwriters’. Tomas also talks about how bands in the 80’s used to be ‘good songwriters’ as compared to bands now and elitism in metal via the backlash from fans to bands like Opeth and much more.
Stream PART 2 Below: