Meshuggah
October 19, 2016
The Novo- Los Angeles, CA
Swedish extreme metal band Meshuggah released their eighth studio album The Violent Sleep of Reason on October 7, 2016. They are currently on tour for support for the album. Their band name comes from the Hebrew/Yiddish word meaning “crazy”. If you’ve listened to their music, you know that they are just that. Their music can best best described as each member playing their instruments. It’s like they’re playing their own tracks, not following the music, yet it blends in perfectly and sounds heavy as hell. You’ll be jumping up and down, thrashing all over, and moshing your life away in the pit. The newly renamed Novo (formerly Club Nokia) was the place of choice for the metal veterans and lots of metalheads showed up on this Wednesday night to get their ears blown out.
The lights went out and fans went crazy as the members of Meshuggah made their way to the stage. Meshuggah opened the show with Clockworks, the first track from the new album. With the heaviness of the music, fans immediately started moshing and shoving. This was no show to be standing around at. If the music wasn’t moving you, the light show certainly was. To go along with their music, Meshuggah had an impressive light show with strobe lights flashing with an array of colors to go along with the pounding of the music. Lasers, strobe lights, and hints of fog covered the stage. The second song played was Born in Dissonance, another new track. Sane, Stengah, and The Hurt that Finds You First were more of the heavy tracks played by Meshuggah and the fans kept the energy of the show going. Tracks like Lethargica had a more djent sound to the band and so with that, fans kept moshing, headbanging in unison, and even a mosh pit behind the rail formed. Bleed is one of the band’s most popular songs and seemed to serve as the band’s finishing song. It made for a great ending song with the awesome double bass drumming from Tomas Haake, harsh vocals by Jens Kidman, savage bass by Dick Lovgren, and of course amazing guitar musicianship by Fredrik Thordendal and Marten Hagstrom. Mosh pits gave the song more of an edge and made it for a more impressive finish. The show seemed to be over, yet fans stayed put and called out the band’s name demanding more music. A short break later, Meshuggah came back out to continue their onslaught of music. The first encore was Demiurge from their previous Koloss album. To end the night, Meshuggah played Future Breed Machine, their most popular song. With the guitars that start the song, it made fans jump and mosh to it. It gave fans one last chance to let loose. Jumping, mosh pits, and headbanging in unison were all present for this song and you can feel the song hit you like a wrecking ball. It is an immense feeling that is best felt when seeing Meshuggah live. The band finished the song, thanked the crowd for coming out, then left the stage as fans could be seen with smiles and looks of satisfaction on their faces.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
