Full, pro-shot video of Meshuggah’s set at Summer Breeze 2024 has been published online.
The tech-metal pioneers played a 13-song set at the German metal weekender on August 14, which can now be streamed in full via the player below. The setlist includes such fan-favourite tracks as Bleed, Demiurge and Future Breed Machine alongside newer cuts from latest album Immutable.
Meshuggah’s Summer Breeze set was part of a summer European festival tour that also saw the Swedes perform at Arctangent in the UK, Motocultor in France and Hellsinki Metal Festival in Finland. Metal Hammer named Meshuggah as one of the 12 bands who defined Arctangent this year.
“Does this even need explaining? Meshuggah have been a legendarily incredible live force for years now, the precision of their tech-metal matched only by the light show,” wrote journalist Matt Mills. “During their headline set, every polyrhythm and guitar chug was accompanied by a new formation of blinding spotlights. Plus, the audio was faultless and the setlist flaunted such fan-favourites as Bleed and Demiurge. No holes can be poked.”
Meshuggah singer Jens Kidman recently guested on the soundtrack to the second season of Amazon TV series The Lord Of The Rings: Rings Of Power, composed by Bear McCreary (God Of War, Godzilla, Marvel’s Agents Of Shield, etc.). The vocalist can be heard screaming on the song The Last Ballad Of Damrod. He previously appeared on McCreary’s 2024 solo album The Singularity.
Meshuggah formed in 1987 and released their debut album, Contradictions Collapse, four years later. The band’s 1995 album Destroy Erase Improve saw them switch from thrash metal to a much more demanding and polyrhythmic sound, which eventually inspired a who’s-who of 21st-century prog metal bands, including Gojira, Periphery, Tesseract, Animals As Leaders and Vildhjarta.
In a 2024 Metal Hammer interview, Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor spoke about the influence Meshuggah had on him. “I thought Meshuggah were absolute noise, just trash!” he said. “I didn’t understand them until I spoke to a friend of mine, who was a very talented bassist, and asked, ‘Why’s everyone obsessed with Meshuggah?’ He went, ‘Their thing is that everything they do is in 4/4, it just doesn’t sound like it.’ That’s when I was like, ‘Oh, Jesus! I think this may be a big shift in my life.’ And it was!”
Meshuggah setlist: Summer Breeze festival, Dinkelsbühl, Germany – August 14, 2024
Broken Cog
Rational Gaze
Perpetual Black Second
Kaleidoscope
God He Sees In Mirrors
Born In Dissonance
Mind’s Mirrors
In Death – Is Life
In Death – Is Death
Humiliative
Future Breed Machine
Encore:
Bleed
Demiurge
