Swedish extreme tech-metal pioneers MESHUGGAH have released “Light The Shortening Fuse”, the second single from their upcoming ninth studio album, “Immutable”.

Due on April 1 via Atomic Fire, the follow-up to 2016’s “The Violent Sleep Of Reason” was recorded at Sweetspot Studios in Halmstad, Sweden; mixed by Rickard Bengtsson and Staffan Karlsson; and mastered by multiple Grammy Award winner Vlado Meller (METALLICA, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, SYSTEM OF A DOWN). Visionary artist Luminokaya once again created the stunning cover artwork.

Full of surprises and yet instantly recognizable as the work of metal’s most idiosyncratic force, “Immutable” redefines and redesigns the MESHUGGAH sound across more than an hour of the most stimulating and absorbing music the band has ever made. Despite the challenges of the last couple of years, the progressive principles that have always informed their artistic efforts remain as cherished as ever. As we spiral towards a dystopian future, MESHUGGAH still stand alone.

For guitarist Mårten Hagström, the task of embarking on another unprecedented tech-metal odyssey was impossible to resist. “For us, it wasn’t all that clear that we were making a new album,” he said. “We knew we could do it, but did we want to do it? We had to decide, are we doing this or what else are we doing? After a long, long discussion, we agreed on certain things. We would make an album with as few restraints as possible. We would go in and try to make as cool an album as possible, have no anxiety about it and see it as an opportunity. How do we make this a challenge that we feel like accepting and rising up to? Pretty quickly we had a starting point. Everybody started to write, the ball started rolling and suddenly we were sitting there, discussing how many songs we were going to have to cut.”

Regarding the “Immutable” title, Hagström said: “The title fits perfectly for where we are as a band. We’re older now. Most of us are in our fifties 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. 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.”

The most inventive and creative metal band of the last 30 years and one of the most widely revered, MESHUGGAH has been standard bearers for forward-thinking creativity in heavy music throughout their illustrious careers. Over the course of more than 30 years and eight studio albums, Sweden’s widely worshipped progressive mavens have consistently redefined what it means to be heavy, while exhibiting a ferocious intelligence that belies the crushing weight of their riffs. From the ground-breaking savagery of 1995’s “Destroy Erase Improve” to the psychedelic tech-splorations of “CatchyThirtyThree”, and on to the streamlined grotesquery of “ObZen” and “Koloss”, MESHUGGAH has always been way ahead of the game and plainly without peer.

In October 2020, MESHUGGAH drummer Tomas Haake confirmed to Knotfest.com’s “Mosh Talks With Beez” that the band had spent much of the downtime during the COVID-19 pandemic working on fresh material.

Regarding the musical direction of the new MESHUGGAH songs, Tomas said: “Of course, we have a certain framework that we still wanna sound like MESHUGGAH, we wanna have that signature sound, we want people to be able to — even if they haven’t heard the song [before] — in the best-case scenario, it’s, like, ‘Oh, that’s gotta be MESHUGGAH,’ even if it’s a brand new thing. So hopefully that’s something we’re aiming at. But with that said, as far as the music goes, we try to [do] kind of the opposite of what AC/DC has been doing for 40 years. So we’re not trying to write the same album over and over. And whether we succeed with that or not, that’s more up to our fans and other people, but that’s definitely the aim. We try our best to kind of find new grips within the framework of what we’re supposed to be, I guess. ‘Cause we don’t wanna really step out of that either. We’re not looking to be another band all of a sudden or something that we haven’t been or that is not true to kind of what we’re doing.”

“Immutable” track listing:

01. Broken Cog
02. The Abysmal Eye
03. Light The Shortening Fuse
04. Phantoms
05. Ligature Marks
06. God He Sees In Mirrors
07. They Move Below
08. Kaleidoscope
09. Black Cathedral
10. I Am That Thirst
11. The Faultless
12. Armies Of The Preposterous
13. Past Tense

MESHUGGAH is:

Jens Kidman – Vocals
Mårten Hagström – Guitars
Dick Lövgren – Bass
Fredrik Thordendal – Guitars
Tomas Haake – Drums

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Founding STONE TEMPLE PILOTS bassist Robert DeLeo spoke to AXS TV’s “At Home And Social With” about his upcoming first-ever solo album. The 56-year-old musician said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Through this pandemic, there’s been a lot of time and a lot of free time. And it gave me a chance to pick up all my acoustic instruments and kind of talk to them a little bit and see what they had to say back. And before I knew it, I had a bunch of songs together of my own — acoustic-based songs. And I had some friends of mine, who are very talented, do some vocal stuff. So I have different vocalists — about five different vocalists — through the record, and great, great, very talented people helping me out with this.”

Asked if he wanted to name some of the singers that appear on the LP, DeLeo said: “I’m gonna keep that a secret right now, but I’m about 10 songs out of 12 done. And hopefully later this year [I’ll be able to] present that. And I’m really excited about that. I’m playing guitar and bass, and I sang one song and kind of laid it all out on my own, using different instruments that I have. And it’s been really therapeutic.”

Late last month, DeLeo revealed on his Instagram that his solo album will include a guest appearance by Kara Britz, who has worked as a backing singer on NBC’s “The Voice” and has backed up country artist Blake Shelton, as well as piano playing by producer, engineer and mixer Bill Appleberry and cello playing of Dave Eggar.

Among the tracks set to appear on the LP is “Anew”, which can be previewed below.

Last summer, DeLeo discussed his upcoming solo album in an interview with Bass Player magazine. At the time, he stated about the set: “It’s all acoustic bass, and I got a chance to sharpen up my acoustic guitar skills too. I wound up finding a guitarrón — you know, the Mexican bass? I found one that was converted to four strings and it was fretted, and it sounds unbelievable. I’ve reached out to people that I really wanted to write and collaborate with.”

DeLeo has been discussing the possibility of releasing a solo album for at least the last two decades. Back in 2002, he said that he was “compiling a number of songs” that had not made their way on to STP records, “not because they’re bad songs, [but] just because they never found a place. Though they’re different from STP, they still mean a lot to me,” he explained.

Just three months ago, Robert revealed that he had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. He later said that “it was rather mild, like flu mild.”

In November, STONE TEMPLE PILOTS scrapped the remaining shows on their tour — including an appearance at the Welcome To Rockville festival in Daytona Beach, Florida — after a “member” of the band’s “organization” tested positive for COVID-19.

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS features three original members — Robert DeLeo, guitarist Dean DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz.

Singer Jeff Gutt, a 45-year-old Michigan native who spent time in the early-2000s nu-metal act DRY CELL, among other bands, and was a contestant on “The X Factor”, joined STONE TEMPLE PILOTS after beating out roughly 15,000 hopefuls during an extended search that began more than a year earlier.

Original STONE TEMPLE PILOTS singer Scott Weiland, who reunited with the group in 2010 after an eight-year hiatus but was dismissed in 2013, died in December 2015 of a drug overdose.

Chester Bennington, who joined STP in early 2013, departed nearly three years later to spend more time with his main band LINKIN PARK. Bennington committed suicide in July 2017.

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS released their first all-acoustic album, titled “Perdida”, in February 2020. The disc was Gutt’s second with STP. His recording debut with the group was on its self-titled seventh album, which arrived in March 2018.

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Ben Chasny has spent his musical life firmly rooted in the undergound. If you’re an avant aficionado, you might be familiar with his project Six Organs of Admittance. Or his band 200 Years. Maybe Rangda, New Bums, Badgerlore, or even Comets on Fire?You get the point. Chasny is prolific. Over the past couple decades, he’s proven to be an unwavering devotee of the musical fringe. He’s a noise-rock experimenter, and his acoustic work is revered by the heaviest of metal communities. He’s even created a vastly complex system for composition and improvisation that you can learn about in his 2015 PG interview.But Chasny is changing his M.O. with The Intimate Landscape. The first album to be released under his own name, it’s a collection of beautiful, melodic, and accessible acoustic fingerstyle songs. And they were all recorded in hopes that marketing agencies would buy them. Seriously.Ben Chasny “Second Moon” (Official Song Visualizer)How does a psychedelic noise warrior who grew up on the Melvins and built a career in dissonance end up here? According to Chasny, it goes back to one of his early, understated guitar heroes. “I actually played bass in punk bands. I never wanted to play acoustic, but when I heard the first few chords on [Nick Drake’s] Five Leaves Left, it blew my mind. It wasn’t the lyrics. It was the sound of his playing. He’s doing syncopated stuff between his thumb and his fingers that I’ve never heard anybody do. He’s someone with his own thing. You know immediately when it’s him. That’s when I wanted to play acoustic guitar. That’s what changed everything.”Drake’s influence helped shape Chasny’s debut recording, 1998’s Six Organs of Admittance, an album he initially tried to keep on the down-low. “At the time, I was getting very into ’70s cult stuff, like Comus and the Incredible String Band,” he explains. “I wanted to create that illusion of an anonymous acid-folk cult band, so I released it myself. And for the first couple of Six Organs releases, I didn’t put my name on them. Nothing’s really a mystery now, but back then you could do a mystery LP and there were distributors that would distribute it. Then it would be written about in ’zines and no one really knew who it was.”After a few releases, Chasny settled on the Six Organs moniker. It became the banner under which he cultivated new styles of haunting experimental music using dark harmonies and drones as well as atmospheric synth and vocal sounds. As he fearlessly shaped his rock and punk background into a captivating form, his acoustic playing, specifically, found an audience among the biggest names in stoner, doom, and black metal. Improbably, he was soon sharing bills, tours, and festivals with artists such as Om (with whom he released a split 7″), Wino from the Obsessed, and Neurosis.“It’s funny, because everyone wants me to play acoustic guitar,” he says. “The heavier dudes seem to prefer it. It’s like, ‘No, no. We’ll do the heavy stuff, kid. You play the acoustic guitar or something.’”“My favorite guitar players are the ones who are, as they say, in the service of the song: guys like Richard Thompson or Lindsey Buckingham.”Even within such an unpredictable career, Chasny’s latest veers like a left turn into outer space. The Intimate Landscape was initiated when KPM Music—a production music business with a large catalog that specializes in commercial placements—reached out with an invitation to create a set of library music. The only catch, he says, was that, like the metal guys, KPM wanted his acoustic side.“I had visions of doing a soundtrack, some weird, horror, Blade Runner record. But they said, ‘No, no. We want acoustic guitar,’ which was a little disappointing. But I said, ‘Okay. I can do that.’”Wary of simply knocking out a handful of jingles, Chasny decided to create an artistic album—which would also be released by the Drag City label—that suits commercial use. “When I hear music that could be used for a fishing show or something, I don’t think that it’s an artist putting everything into it,” he explains. “One of my ideas was to try to record nice music, not production music. Even though that’s what it would be used for.”Conceptually, this runs counter to what Chasny has done across his Six Organs discography. “I’ll do acoustic that’s often smeared with dissonance, or noise, or something,” he explains. “This was my chance to not do that. But I had to fight against my instinct to subvert the melodies. It’s a challenge to make music that is a little more pretty. I want to start doing music under my name that will be a little more on this side of things. And I’m hoping to steer Six Organs into more of the experimental side. It’ll be easier for people to know, ‘This one’s going to be a little more mellow, and this one’s going to be a little tougher to listen to.’”If words like “pretty” make it sound like Chasny has sold out, don’t worry. He was free to pursue his own vision. “I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t know I was going to have so much freedom,” he says. “I gave them a little sample and said, ‘This is what it would sound like.’ They said, ‘That’s great. Make a record like that.’ And it was cool because I was working for somebody else, in a way. I knew exactly what I needed to do instead of sitting around wondering.”“I had to fight against my instinct to subvert those melodies. It’s a challenge to make music that was a little more pretty.”The result is focused and warmly listenable. Every piece on The Intimate Landscape puts Chasny’s guitar melodies front and center, while his touch and tone fill out his sonic vision. On “Cross-Winged Formation,” the intimate sound pulls you in. It’s as if you can hear the guitarist’s fingerprints on the strings. And just when you’re lulled into the moment, the song’s chorus expands with a low-string melody and open-string ornamentation.Then there’s “Water Dragon,” a minor-key dirge that blends classical picking technique with an ominous vocal backing. It’s the one song that bridges the gap between his past and present work. “‘Water Dragon’ is a little nod to Six Organs,” he admits. “It has that more modal playing and the vocal drone. I did want to have a little window to something that ties it to previous records.”Ben Chasny’s GearGuitarsAlvarez Yairi Bob Weir modelMartin 00C-16DBGTE (with LR Baggs Anthem pickup system)StringsD’Addario .010 setsWhile mainly a new direction, this album doesn’t sound like someone stretching for something new. It sounds more like an artist drawing on familiar influences to paint a new picture. But Chasny did mine one influence that, until now, he’s kept close to the chest.“There’s this one record that I absolutely love that I never hear any acoustic players talk about, and that’s A Shout Toward Noon by Leo Kottke,” he reveals. “I love that nobody talks about that record, and I’ve never talked about it. I always try to keep it a secret because that’s the one that always inspires me for melody. The melodies on that record floor me.”In addition to Kottke’s influence, we hear Chasny’s consistent fingerpicking technique and how he pushes and pulls time to suit the moment. And we know how much work it takes to get there. “I practiced a lot when I was younger,” Chasny says. “It was serious. I had very part-time jobs, and I practiced guitar for a long time. I’d try to learn as much as I could. I don’t really practice acoustic guitar. So, the actual technique stuff maybe comes from playing electric guitar. That gets ported to the acoustic a little bit, like some fretboard, left-hand stuff.”“One of my ideas was to try to record nice music, not production music. Even though that’s what it would be used for.”His electric playing had an influence on Chasny’s choice of acoustic instrument, which for about a decade or so was his trusty, highly playable Alvarez Yairi Bob Weir model. “I love it because of the neck,” he says. “It’s easy to go from electric to acoustic because it’s really fast, like a shredder neck or something. I fell in love with that before the tone. I used to have some ‘real tone’ friends that would give me shit about it. But I really liked that guitar a lot.”Unfortunately, the decade did a number on that guitar, and it started showing its age, so Chasny has moved onto a Martin 00C-16DBGTE that he says is “not that much different than the Alvarez.” That guitar had a rough start, developing cracks after one tour, but it’s now become his go-to acoustic. Paired with a set of dead, bronze guitar strings, it’s the sound of The Intimate Landscape. “It was only that Martin on this record. I think I changed the preamp plug-in for a song. The rest of it was one preamp emulation and that guitar.”Much of The Intimate Landscape’s charm is in the immediacy of Chasny’s simple, DIY production and arrangements. From “The Many Faces of Stone” to “On the Way To the Coast,” it’s as if you’re sitting in front of the guitar’s soundhole. Though KPM offered to send him to a professional studio, he chose to keep things as straightforward as possible. “I did it by myself, at home, with my gear. And it’s all mono,” he points out. “The stereo is from the reverb, but I didn’t do any stereo recordings. I start getting freaked out about phase cancellation. Then I start wondering, ‘Can I even hear phase cancellation? What am I doing? Maybe I need to go to a studio?’”Resisting the urge, Chasny pushed himself to get the most from a single, affordable microphone in an untreated room. “It was recorded with this really cheap mic called a CM3,” he says. “It’s a little pencil condenser made by Line Audio. It was one of those things where you go on the forums and look for ‘the best mic for acoustic guitar’ and everyone’s arguing. Five pages later, I found out about it.“I angle it down a little bit, and it’s pretty close. I like close-miking at home because my rooms are not treated very well. Which is another reason why I don’t do any ambient mics.” Once it hits his DAW, he continues to keep it simple. “I do EQ, but I don’t do compression with fingerstyle. I leave that to the mastering person if they want. I just smack some reverb on it.”Chasny prefers to stay rhythmically unencumbered when recording solo playing. “None of this record was done with a metronome. It’s all free time,” he says. “I think it might set it apart from other production music a bit.” This allows Chasny to manipulate the feel of each section on the fly. A case in point is “Second Moon.” Listen as he pushes and pulls the time, matching the emotional flow of each song.“When I heard the first few chords on [Nick Drake’s] Five Leaves Left, it blew my mind.”This level of control only comes through practice and commitment to craft and genre. Yet Chasny avoids labelling himself a fingerstyle guitarist. He’s more inspired by players who put the music before the playing. “I’ve got a few tricks and I probably could learn some more,” he says. “But my favorite guitar players are the ones who are, as they say, in the service of the song: guys like Richard Thompson or Lindsey Buckingham.”If it sounds like Chasny has abandoned his electric side, fear not. While he already has plans to record another acoustic set for KPM, he’s also conjuring a cranked-up vision for the next Six Organs album. “It’s definitely going to be electric, and I’ve got some ideas about it.”Explaining Ben Chasny as an artist isn’t going to get easier any time soon. His music is all over the place, and he purposefully avoids classification. But there is a common thread that ties his entire career together. Look too hard and you might miss it, but it’s always there.“This sounds cheesy as fuck, but I really love guitar,” Chasny says. “I remember when I was young, playing one note. It was so exciting. It was so fucking good. I still have that every once in a while. Maybe that’s why the varied stuff. I love absolute noise guitar, but I also like Paul Gilbert! I don’t know why I love guitar so much. I ask myself that all that time. I don’t know what it is, but I love guitar.”Six Organs of Admittance – Shelter From the AshGet a feel for Chasny’s dark and droney fingerstyle sound in this intimate living room performance of the title track from the 2007 Six Organs of Admittance album, Shelter from the Ash.

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On this week’s episode of 95.5 KLOS’s “New & Approved” show, VOLBEAT frontman Michael Poulsen discussed what it was like for him and his bandmates to play several shows with former SLAYER and TESTAMENT drummer Jon Dette in late January and early February after the group’s regular drummer Jon Larsen, tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It was very early on [our U.S. co-headlining] tour [with GHOST]. Suddenly Jon got hit by COVID and we had to get him out of the building and then get him into a hotel. And he was there for — I don’t know — five, six [or] seven days.

“The worst thing is always to cancel shows because you really don’t wanna let down the fans,” Michael explained. “But at the same time, Jon is the original drummer and he played every single VOLBEAT show there’s ever been. So we were, like, ‘Okay, what are we gonna do? Are we gonna cancel some shows or are we going to see if we can come up with a Plan B?’ And the Plan B was to see if we can come up with a drummer that could learn, like, 16 VOLBEAT songs in less than 24 hours. And Jon Dette was the guy. And we called him up and he was very excited about it. And he’s a very good friend of ours for a very long time. And he always said, ‘If I can ever help you guys out, just call me.’ So that’s what we did. And I don’t know how he managed to pull it off, but he learned those 16 songs within 24 hours. And he did very well. He ended up playing three or four shows; I don’t recall now.”

VOLBEAT canceled its show on January 29 at Ford Idaho Center Arena in Nampa, Idaho as a result of Larsen’s diagnosis.

VOLBEAT’s tour with GHOST will conclude tonight (Thursday, March 3) in Anaheim, California.

VOLBEAT’s “Shotgun Blues” single, which is taken from the band’s latest album, “Servant Of The Mind”, recently topped both the Billboard Mainstream Rock and Mediabase Active Rock charts, the Danish/American group’s tenth top-charter, and cemented VOLBEAT’s record for having the most No. 1 singles on the Mainstream Rock chart by an artist based outside of North America.

Revolver called “Servant Of The Mind” “excellent… the darkest and heaviest VOLBEAT offering yet.” For the LP, the band, which consists of Michael Poulsen (guitar, vocals), Larsen, Rob Caggiano (guitars) and Kaspar Boye Larsen (bass), took its signature heavy metal, psychobilly and punk ‘n’ roll sound up a notch while showcasing Poulsen’s keen ability for songwriting and storytelling. “Rarely has such a successful band sounded so ravenous,” says Kerrang! magazine of the album.

“Servant Of The Mind” was written and recorded during the shutdown and quarantine necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The LP includes the “double barrel” of summer songs the band released this past June: “Wait A Minute My Girl” and “Dagen Før” (featuring Stine Bramsen), the former of which became the band’s ninth number one single on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart.

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