Swedish Metal juggernaut Meshuggah has just released its eighth studio album, The Violent Sleep of Reason, via Nuclear Blast Records. The album is true to the band’s pummeling, polyrhythmic pedigree. Definitely not easy listening, but well worth the journey for the truly progressive metalhead.

“Clockworks,” the album’s jarringly massive opening track, clocks in at over seven minutes, so naturally they made it also the first official video. The visually morphing landscape of the clip is a perfect analogy for the music that accompanies it. But then trying to describe either the music or the visuals is roughly equivalent to trying to describe the power and devastation of a hurricane to someone who’s never been through one.

Meshuggah is widely considered to be one of the most important bands in the extreme metal world. Amongst the first bands to use eight-sting guitars and featuring chaotic polyrhythms and dissonance, Meshuggah’s music has redefined what it means to be “heavy” in the 21st century.

It has been over four years since the Swedish powerhouse has graced us with a new record. But that’s all about to change on October 7, 2016 when the eighth album of their nearly 30-year career drops. The disc is titled The Violent Sleep of Reason and will be released via the Nuclear Blast label.

Sweden’s Meshuggah may be the most important metal band of the new millennium. Their use of polyrhythms, 8-string guitars, extremely low tunings and nontraditional song structures have pushed heavy metal into new and uncharted territories. The entire genre known as Djent (so named for the song that the muted strings and chugging rhythms produce) owes its existence to Meshuggah’s sonic exploration and experimentation.

If one can judge a band’s influence by the sheer amount of imitators, then we need look no further than this song lyric by metal legend Devin Townsend in his song “Planet of the Apes”: