''Immutable'' is the ninth studio album by Swedish

extreme metal Extreme metal is a loosely defined umbrella term for a number of related heavy metal music subgenres that have developed since the early 1980s. It has been defined as a "cluster of metal subgenres characterized by sonic, verbal, and visual tran ...

band

Meshuggah Meshuggah () is a Swedish extreme metal band formed in Umeå in 1987. Since 2004, the band's lineup consists of founding members Jens Kidman (lead vocals) and Fredrik Thordendal (lead guitar), alongside rhythm guitarist Mårten Hagström, drumm ...

. It was released on April 1, 2022, via Atomic Fire Records, making it the band's first studio album to not be released through

Nuclear Blast Nuclear Blast Records is a German record label with subsidiary, subsidiaries located in Germany, the United States and Brazil. It was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Donzdorf. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label moved on ...

Background

Guitarist

Mårten Hagström Mårten Hans Hagström (born 27 April 1971) is a Swedish musician, best known as the rhythm guitarist for the extreme metal band Meshuggah. He joined the band after the release of their first album, which allowed Jens Kidman to focus on his voca ...

stated “The title ''Immutable'' fits perfectly for where we are as a band,” “We’re older now. Most of us are in our 50s now, and we’ve settled into who we are. Even though we’ve been experimenting all along, I also think we’ve been the same since day one.” He continued: “The way we approach things and why we still make new albums, and why we still sound the way we do, it’s immutable. Humanity is immutable, too. We commit the same mistakes over and over. And we are immutable. We do what we do, and we don’t change.” In addition, certain Meshuggah songs on Spotify leaked a URL, which was https://immutable.se/. Clicking the link would give you a teaser of the song "Ligature Marks" and the release date. The songs "The Abysmal Eye", "Light the Shortening Fuse" and "I Am That Thirst" were published as singles before the album release. Music videos were released for "The Abysmal Eye" and "Broken Cog".

Reception

''Immutable'' has received universal acclaim from critics with a score 83 out of 100 on

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. Thom Jurek of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

wrote: "Ultimately, ''Immutable'' delivers the very essence of Meshuggah. While comfortable in their collective skin, they continue expanding their reach by obliterating – hell, nearly swallowing – metal's genre boundaries in their long, relentless search for the undiscovered."

Accolades

Track listing

Personnel

Meshuggah

* Jens Kidman – vocals *

Fredrik Thordendal Fredrik Carl Thordendal (born 11 February 1970) is a Swedish musician best known as the lead guitarist and backing vocalist for the extreme metal band Meshuggah, of which he is a founding member. Along with Meshuggah's rhythm guitarist Mårten ...

– lead guitar on 2, 6, 8, 11 *

– rhythm and lead guitars, backing vocals on 11, whispers on 1. * Dick Lövgren – bass * Tomas Haake – drums, spoken word on 11

Production

* Rickard Bengtsson and Staffan Karlsson – mixing *

Vlado Meller Vlado Meller (born in 1947 in Humenné as ''Vladimír Meller'') is a Slovak audio mastering engineer, currently with Vlado Meller Mastering in Charleston, South Carolina. Meller works across many genres of music, with credits on rock, hip-hop, p ...

– mastering * Luminokaya – artwork

Charts

References

{{Meshuggah 2022 albums Meshuggah albums