"There Is New MESHUGGAH Coming" – Band Cancel Festival Dates To Focus On Finishing New Album

The good news: There is new Meshuggah coming! I repeat, there is new Meshuggah coming.

And, now the bad news. It's not coming for at least another year, if not more. And double bad news, the band is canceling all their summer festival appearances in 2021.

The reason for the festival cancellations is two fold. First, the band originally committed to 2020 dates, but with all the festivals rescheduling to different weekends in 2021, it no longer made logistical sense to be able to do the tour for the band. Additionally, they are deep in the writing process of the new album, but had to push back production because of coronavirus restrictions. As such, they feel they will now need to keep next summer clear to finish their new album. Oh hell yeah.

With some analysts predicting shows don't come back until fall 2021 the earliest, and some estimating as far as 2022, perhaps this is much ado about nothing.

Here is the band's full statement:

As previously communicated our intent was to keep our commitment to all festivals and shows planned for summer 2020, that couldn't take place due to the Covid-19 pandemic, by re-confirming them for the same dates in summer 2021. Full Force Festival is one of these festivals that has already been re-confirmed and re-announced. However, after seeing some of the other festivals move to completely different weekends in 2021, we eventually found it impossible to go ahead with the tour next summer due to logistical reasons. Which also means that Meshuggah have to cancel their planned appearance at Full Force 2021.

Another influential part of the decision to not tour in summer 2021 is that Covid-19 restrictions have also affected Meshuggah's progress with a new studio album, to a point where we now see the need to keep summer 2021 clear to put finishing touches to the album.

Meshuggah and their management would like to apologize to all fans and promoters being affected by this.

Some good news is to be found in here though: there is a new Meshuggah album coming…