Meshuggah's new record Immutable clocks in at a nearly 67 minutes long, making it the band's longest album they've ever done. Which is exactly the opposite of what guitarist Mårten Hagström had in mind when starting to write the music.
In an interview with Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn's podcast No Fuckin' Regrets, Hagström said he originally wanted to write a Reign In Blood-style record that ran for just over a half an hour. Hagström added that writing a longer record felt useless considering the emphasis on singles in the age of streaming, but y'know – things didn't go as planned.
"It's a double album, if this was a vinyl. It's 13 tracks; 66 or 67 minutes of music. It's the longest album we've put out so far, to this date. And it's a bit funny, 'cause when we started writing, I was really adamant that, 'Let's try to make a Reign In Blood album' — like the Meshuggah Reign In Blood album; just short but sweet. Not maybe 27 minutes, but keep it just over half an hour. 'Cause albums aren't what they used to be anyways; it's singles.
"So, obviously, we went the opposite direction and made a double album and just built it as an album and thought of it as, like back in the day, very important with the track listing and all that shit."
Anyone else feel like they want Meshuggah to cover a Slayer song now?
