Introducing bands that have had a huge personal impact/left a strong impression #60 Meshuggah

How much time has passed since metal/heavy music began to prioritize innovative sounds? In the past, melodic power metal and aesthetic beauty were preferred, but these days, heaviness, aggression, or diversity/innovation in rhythm/groove are preferred instead. The idea that "metal is music unrelated to trends or the mainstream!" is now an outdated value. If you don't constantly read the cutting-edge trends and update yourself, you'll be treated like an old fogey (although this value only applies to bands since metalcore; classic metal, power metal/thrash metal, and underground death metal/black metal are still genres unrelated to trends).

That said, even bands now treated as old school must have been sufficiently innovative when they debuted. Judas Priest and Iron Maiden were likely treated as cutting-edge bands when they debuted. Yngwie is a super-innovative artist from the 80s who created a new micro-genre as the founder of neoclassical metal.

Although something may be innovative at first, it is the way of the world that it becomes hollow once it is established as a style and time passes. Nu-metalcore and nu-core will likely be fossils in another 20 years. It is inevitable that even Bring Me the Horizon will be an aging band in 30 years. On the other hand, there are bands that have succeeded in creating innovative sounds that still pass as cutting-edge no matter how much time passes. Should we call them bands that can withstand the test of time? Today, I would like to introduce a big name that has never been swallowed by the flow of the times and is still moving into the future.

Meshuggah is a super-major band that should be called a living legend, formed in Umeå, Sweden, in 1987. Jens Kidman, who now only holds the mic as a dedicated lead singer, started the band as a singer and rhythm guitarist, which was the beginning of Meshuggah.

After producing several demos and EPs, their first full album, "Contradictions Collapse," released in 1991, was not yet Djent/technical death metal, nor even death metal; it was a sound with strong elements of thrash metal. That said, the guitar solos already showed a technicality with a strong fusion flavor, following in the footsteps of Allan Holdsworth and others, and the seeds of their later style were certainly present.

Although the band went through a frustrating period as drummer Tomas Haake, who had just joined, could not work as he wanted due to military service (this is why I am against conscription!), they released their second album, "Destroy Erase Improve," in 1995. This work, the first for Mårten Hagström, who joined as another guitarist while Jens Kidman focused solely on vocals, reduced the thrash metal elements and made heavy use of pounding single-note riffs. While some thrashy speed remains, it is a sound that is quite close to the later Djent.

Then, with the 3rd album "Chaosphere" released in 1998 and the 4th album "Nothing" released in 2002, the band's direction was determined.
Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström finally introduced 8-string guitars, and Meshuggah's trademark unique Djent sound was completed. At the time, however, the word "Djent" did not exist, and it was simply called "technical death metal."

That overly innovative sound was welcomed by the scene, and "Nothing" reached number 165 on the Billboard 200. Meshuggah became the first band in Nuclear Blast Records history to rank on the Billboard 200, and also the first band signed to Nuclear Blast to be reviewed in Rolling Stone magazine.

Once this happened, the band's innovation knew no bounds. The EP "I," released in 2004, consisted of only one 21-minute epic, and the 5th album "Catch 33," released the following year in 2005, was a 45-minute epic divided into 13 parts, with all drum parts reproduced by programmed sequencing. That drum sound source, called "Drumkit From Hell," is also sold as an expansion pack for Toontrack's "EZdrummer," which we DTMer use on a daily basis, and if you use this, it is possible to reproduce the drum sound of Meshuggah at that time (although since it is an old sound source, there are many higher quality sound sources now...).

Meshuggah, with its direction completely solidified, enjoyed the status of the most important band in the scene as the direct root of Djent. The 6th album "obZen," released in 2008, was particularly high-selling and can be said to be their best-known catalog. Currently, their latest work is "Immutable," their 10th album released in 2022. They continue to pursue a stoic Djent/technical death metal filled with extreme minimalism through single-note polyrhythmic riffs.

Meshuggah is famous as the most important band in modern extreme metal/heavy music in both name and reality, crossing the barriers of death metal and metalcore as the founder of Djent. Strictly speaking, there are many who say that Misha Mansoor of Periphery, who studied and tried to imitate Meshuggah's sound, is the founder, including the fact that he coined the word "Djent," but if you trace the roots, Meshuggah is the originator.

The wave of perverse polyrhythms created by persistently repeating different rhythms between guitar/bass and drums might be dismissed as just "Djent" now, but it is easy to imagine that it was a very novel and fresh sound at the time. That unique mechanical heavy sound is formed by having the bass and kick (bass drum) unison with single-note riffs using open strings (commonly referred to as chugging 0s), and then finely chopping the waveform on top of that. At first listen, it sounds like it's full of odd time signatures, but it's famous that they are actually throwing strange phrases at strange timings within a 4/4 format. If you actually listen while counting, you can confirm that it fits perfectly into 4/4 time.

That heavy sound was successfully systematized as Djent by Misha Mansoor later, as mentioned above. The extreme sound production, which raises the highs, thoroughly cuts the lows, and strictly separates the frequency bands of the guitar, bass, and drums (bass drum), became the foundation of modern metal/heavy music sound since metalcore. Many bands aspire to this sound, and we amateur DTMers also look it up on social media to try and reproduce it, setting the EQ according to the manual, but it never sounds like Meshuggah or Periphery, and we end up disappointed... that's the whole set. Actually, it's better not to cut the lows too much. You can tell how difficult this kind of sound production is because there are even "low-cut police" (lol) who advocate for a total ban on low-cutting.

Although Meshuggah has a strong impression of rhythm, their guitar solos, which have a fusion taste represented by Allan Holdsworth and others, are also a major feature. The solos, which showcase fluid shredding with a weak attack and a tone that is as close to a clean tone as possible, create a sense of floating as if in contrast to the hard and inorganic riffs/rhythms. Rather than a melodic style, it is filled with an intelligence that leads to post-metal.

The raw and powerful screams by Jens Kidman are also a hallmark of Meshuggah. The vocal quality, which has a strong natural voice, suggests their thrash metal roots, but the unique roar, which is slightly different from hardcore-style shouting, leads to the production of rawness and physicality in the inorganic Meshuggah sound, and functions as the band's flavor.

I myself, as a small-time DTMer aspiring to modern extreme metal/heavy music, have been greatly influenced by Meshuggah. Or rather, isn't there probably no one who plays modern metal and is a DTMer who hasn't been influenced by Meshuggah? As mentioned above, everyone tries to aim for the Meshuggah and Djent sound at least once and fails. In terms of composition, if you don't play it yourself and just use sequencing, difficult polyrhythms are easy. I also incorporate these Djent-like chugs and rhythms as accents in various projects, or intentionally introduce non-Djent polyrhythms, outputting the influence from Meshuggah directly or indirectly.

However, the drawback of having created a unique Djent/polyrhythmic metal is that I cannot break away from it, and perhaps because the sound is fully focused on rhythm rather than melody, it is difficult to differentiate between songs, and the biggest drawback is that every song and every album ends up sounding similar... Should I call it great mannerism? Just as Yngwie is, Meshuggah cannot escape the extremely unique sound they created. If they escaped it, they would no longer be Meshuggah. It is truly harsh to have to keep facing one's own identity.

That said, the awesomeness and greatness of Meshuggah, the originator who later created a genre called Djent, is universal even as time passes. Even though they are also an originator, the neoclassical metal created by Yngwie feels like it has become a thing of the past in modern metal/heavy music (there is a theory that it has been absorbed and merged into technical death metal and survived stubbornly), but Meshuggah's sound shines even more precisely because modern metal has come to prioritize heaviness, rhythm, and innovation over melody and speed. The pinnacle of innovative metal that easily shrugs off the test of time. No matter how much it becomes a mannerism, Meshuggah's achievements will never fade.