The Violent Sleep of Reason

Album: The Violent Sleep of Reason (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • The title track to Meshuggah's eighth album, "The Violent Sleep of Reason" deals with newsworthy events that were unfolding as they were writing the album. The band's drummer, Tomas Haake, was the main lyricist for the album, and was dismayed at the Syrian refugee crisis and political turmoil in the Middle East.

    "The events of the last few years and the effects that it's taken and the whole misery of it is something that is easy to tap into because it is something I personally get emotional looking at," he said in his Songfacts interview. "It really gets to you. So it's easier to be inspired by those things."
  • The title came from an etching by Francisco Goya called "The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters."

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