Live music review: Swedish metal legends Meshuggah packed ACL Live with Cannibal Corpse and Carcass
Heavy metal music doesn’t get the spotlight as much as it should in Austin. Multiple stacked tours skip Austin and opt for San Antonio and Houston. For a near-sold-out crowd that flocked to downtown to see legendary Swedish players Meshuggah, the metal gods made an exception for the live music capital. For Tuesday night at local premiere venue, ACL Live, the unbridled barrage of extreme metal didn’t let up across all three performing acts. You can tell when there’s about to be a metal show in your proximity when the black t-shirts start stacking up, an expectation that spans generations of metal past and present.
For Tuesday night’s billed talent, it was all the extremities of the current state of the genre packed into one kick-ass bill. Taking the stage first came Liverpool legacy death metal quartet Carcass. Known for their iconic blend of death metal and grindcore, the English group is a masterclass in heavy music, with several classic records in their growing discography since reforming after disbandment in 2007. Much to the evening’s early-comers’ satisfaction, the Bill Steer and Jeff Walker-led shredders unveiled classic track “Heartwork” as one of the opening set’s closing numbers.
Buffalo-Tampa Bay death metal pioneers Cannibal Corpse took the second slot, an occasion that is a rare occurrence for a band that takes headlining duties on a near-consistent basis. For those unfamiliar with the downtown Austin venue, shows of this nature aren’t a normal occurrence where they shoot the PBS live performance-based show, Austin City Limits. Built with a sound system equipped to handle any concert situation, the dialed-in sound for the metal assault did not disappoint.
Opening the Corpse set came in the form of “Scourge of Iron,” a selection off 2012 record Torture. The dueling guitars between longtime member Rob Barrett and recently added metal superproducer/multi-band member Erik Rutan came through with crisp fidelity, accompanied by the fluttering fingerstyle bass playing from Alex Webster and the blastbeat madness from drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz.
As usual, the onstage antics from vocalist George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher are a maximal delight. Despite not being a member during the period when the group produced its most recognized tracks, he has made each song feel like his own from the formative years. All the classics came through in the vein of “I Cum Blood,” “Hammer Smashed Face,” and “Stripped, Raped, and Strangled,” while also making room for later favorites “Evisceration Plague” and “Unleashing The Bloodthirsty.” You can try to keep up with the inhuman headbanging from frontman Corpsegrinder, but as he assures his audience, “You will Fail!”
After a lengthy intermission, Meshuggah took the stage in a calculated, literal line formation. Meshuggah got down to their drop-tuned madness right out of the gate with 2022 album Immutable opening number “Broken Cog.” The opening guitar chugs hit with lightning-strike intensity, also showcasing Meshuggah’s stellar light show that synced with the polyrhythmic instrumentation down to every syncopated beat. Meshuggah aren’t the type of artists to engage in performative stage presence; each member remained at their posts for the allotted duration, only taking time for the occasional greeting and minimal acknowledgment of the Austin tour stop. Noted for their extended, technical compositions, each setlist choice led into the next without delay, a presentation of utmost focus and mesmerizing precision. Frontman Jens Kidman is a menacing presence, and his screamed vocals compliment the pounding, titanium delivery with herculean force.
Drummer Tomas Haake approaches percussive duties with odd-tempo mastery. When you think the complexities can’t reach a higher ceiling, a fill or kickdrum pattern commences that boggles the cranium, driving the other performing musicians together in harmony, even if it is just a combination of baritone guitar chugs that meld together to craft their progressive know-how. Founding lead guitarist Fredrik Thordenal has been a main composer in the Scandinavian-bred group since their formation and can be enjoyed as a spectacle of his own. Whether he’s picking along with the rest of the stringed players or launching into a searing solo, the honed proficiency shows throughout every entry.
The career-spanning set was dominated by Djent genre-perfecting seminal album ObZen, of which any offering from the LP is a crowd-pleasing endeavor. “Combustion,” “Bleed,” and “Lethargica” all showed their heads met with flailing audience participation, with the only breaks between songs featuring ambient interludes before diving back into the onslaught at hand. For an April weeknight in Austin, Texas, the booked artists took the stand to make a statement on where the truest of metal stands in 2025. If the packed theatre was any indication, it’s alive and well.
Meshuggah continues down the road with Cannibal Corpse and Carcass through the end of April, then will head to Europe for a festival run of shows. Tickets can be found via the Meshuggah website.
All photos by Troy Gonzales
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