MESHUGGAH Recorded 'The Violent Sleep Of Reason' Live In The Studio

MESHUGGAH drummer Tomas Haake says the band recorded its forthcoming album, "The Violent Sleep Of Reason", live in the studio — marking the first time they have done that "in 20-25 years."

The band's eighth full-length effort will be released on October 7 via Nuclear Blast. The disc was inspired by a Goya painting called "The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters".

"The Violent Sleep Of Reason" was produced by the band and was engineered by Tue Madsen of Puk Studios in Kaerby, Denmark.

Haake tells Metal Hammer: "This album is recorded live. It's the first time we've done that in 20, 25 years. It was time limitations that stopped us doing it before. And it's been interesting.

"If you put it all together using computers, then you often have to fix problems after the fact. I've gone back to records where I've not known every drum part. And once you do that, you can start with drums and then just add layers of guitars and then bass and it all sounds perfect.

"'Obzen' and 'Koloss' are great albums, but, to me, they are a little too perfect. It didn't really capture what we sounded like honestly. But where we recorded live, you get to hear the push and pull, one person might be a little ahead and the other might be a little behind. If you kill that, you can kill the energy."

He adds: "So for us it was just about going back to those albums that inspired us when we were growing up, that were important to us in our formative years, and all of those bands had that energy. The albums in the '80s and early '90s had the rawness that I'm talking about — that's what we wanted to recapture."

For "The Violent Sleep Of Reason" cover, MESHUGGAH once again enlisted Keerych Luminokaya who created the artwork for "Koloss" and "The Ophidian Trek" as well as the new images for each of the seven albums and three EPs featured in the "25 Years Of Musical Deviance" box set.