A CHUNK OF change

MESHUGGAH'S MÅRTEN HAGSTRÖM TAKES YOU INSIDE THE MAKING OF THE SWEDISH DEATH METAL MASTERS' UNRELENTING NEW ALBUM, IMMUTABLE, HIS WEAKNESS FOR SIMON & GARFUNKEL AND THE RETURN OF CO-FOUNDING GUITARIST FREDRIK THORDENDAL

- JON WIEDERHORN

"FREDRIK IS THE MAD GUITAR GENIUS. SO FOR HIM TO COME BACK WAS NATURAL AND MADE ME WANT TO GO ON WITH IT, TOO" -MARTEN HAGSTRÖM

WHEN THE CORONAVIRUS pandemic shut down the music industry in 2020, Swedish technical, experimental death metal band Meshuggah only had two tours left for their 2016 album The Violent Sleep of Reason. They were pretty much already scheduled to return to writing mode for what would turn out to be Immutable. But there were other obstacles, aside from Covid, that left the future of the band in jeopardy.

The cracks in the Meshuggah fortress appeared gradually and were largely due to co-founding guitarist Fredrik Thordendal’s waning interest in the band. Back in 1996, he started working on the side project Fredrik Thordendal’s Special Defects, and a year later he released the album Sol Niger Within. But he remained with Meshuggah the whole time and was back in full writing mode in time for 1998’s Chaosphere. For the next 15 years, he remained dedicated to his main band in the studio and on the road, but his desire to experiment more with shorter songs and psychedelic atmospheres nagged at his psyche.

In 2011, he started spending more time on the still-unreleased second Special Defects album. He wrote little for Meshuggah’s 2012 record Koloss and didn’t conjure a single riff for The Violent Sleep of Reason, though he tracked all his leads and agreed to tour. Eight months after the release of the record, however, he left the band right before a planned U.S. tour with Megadeth.