Meshuggah

Meshuggah
Hagström (r.) And Thordendal (l.), June 2008 in Prague
General information
Genre (s)	Progressive Metal , Technical Death Metal , Experimental Metal
founding	1987 (as Meshuggah), 1987 (by renaming the band Calipash to Meshuggah)
Website	www.meshuggah.net
Founding members
Guttural vocals , guitar , studio bass, lyrics	Jens Kidman (guttural vocals & guitar: until 1992, guttural vocals: since 1992, also studio bass: 2005)
Guitar, studio bass, guttural studio backing vocals	Fredrik Thordendal (also studio bass: 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008 and guttural studio background vocals: 1991)
bass	Peter Nordin (until 1995)
Drums	Niklas Lundgren (until 1990)
Current occupation
Guttural vocals, studio bass, lyrics	Jens Kidman (guttural vocals & guitar: until 1992, guttural vocals: since 1992, also studio bass: 2005)
Guitar, studio bass	Fredrik Thordendal (also studio bass: 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008 and guttural studio background vocals: 1991)
Guitar, studio bass	Mårten Hagström (guitar: since 1992, also studio bass: 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008)
bass	Dick Lövgren (since 2004)
Drums, studio singing, lyrics	Tomas Haake (drums: since 1990, also studio vocals: 1995, 1998, 2002, 2005, 2008)
former members
bass	Gustaf Hielm (live / studio bass: 1995–1998, bass: 1998–2001)

Meshuggah (from Hebrew מְשׁוּגָּע meschuga for, crazy ', see also meschugge ) is a Swedish metal - band from Umeå , whose music is hard to classify into musical categories. It contains elements of various metal styles (e.g. Thrash and Death Metal ) with strong jazz influences (especially in the solo passages). Due to the complex rhythms and tempo changes, classification as Progressive Metal is also common. The band itself classifies itself as experimental metal .

history

Tomas Haake, 2005

1985–1989: creation

The origins of the band lie in the band Metallien, which was founded in 1985 by singer Roger Olofsson, guitarists Peder Gustafsson and Fredrik Thordendal , bassist Janne Wiklund and drummer Örjan Lindmark. After a few demos Metallien dissolved and Fredrik Thordendal continued to play with a different line-up and under a different name.

The band Meshuggah was originally founded in 1987 by singer Jens Kidman, guitarist Johan Sjörgen, bassist Jörgen Lindmark and drummer Per Sjögren. Jens Kidman left this line-up of Meshuggah after recording a few demos and founded the band Calipash, together with guitarist Torbjörn Granström, bassist Peter Nordin and drummer Niclas Lundgren.

While the remaining members of Meshuggah separated, restructuring also took place at Calipash. Fredrik Thordendal replaced Granström on guitar and, along with Thordendal, Kidman decided to take the name of his original band, Meshuggah.

1989–1995: Contradictions Collapse and Destroy Erase Improve

In 1989 Meshuggah released their first recording, a 12 "vinyl EP limited to 1000 copies called Psykisk Testbild , and signed a record deal with the German record label Nuclear Blast in November of the same year . Tomas Haake then took over the drums, replacing Lundgren first studio album , Contradictions Collapse , was released in 1991.

From now on Jens Kidman concentrated exclusively on the vocals and another guitarist was needed. One found this in Mårten Hagström, who had already played with Haake in his youth. In 1993 the EP None was launched in this new constellation . In 1994 the recordings for the EP Selfcaged began , which was only released in 1995 due to two accidents. The carpenter Thordendal had severed the tip of his left middle finger while working and Haake injured his hand with a grinder . Due to these circumstances, the band could not play for a few months.

At the beginning of 1995 their second album Destroy Erase Improve was recorded and afterwards began a two-month European tour with Machine Head . During this tour Peter Nordin fell ill and was forced to return to Sweden. Meshuggah decided to end the tour for four, despite being offered to fill in on short notice by Machine Head bassist Adam Duce. At some concerts, the bass was provided by Thordendal, who played through a guitar rig, or Hagström, who played his guitar an octave lower with the help of a pitch shifter . In May 1995 Destroy Erase Improve was released. In the autumn of the same year they went on a short tour through Scandinavia and Germany with Clawfinger . They played the first concerts of the tour without a bass player, since Peter Nordin left the band. Gustaf Hielm, who had previously played with the Swedish punk band Charta 77 , stepped in for the concert in Hamburg . In late 1995 Meshuggah also went on a month-long tour with Hypocrisy .

1996-2002: Chaosphere and Nothing

Thordendal worked almost exclusively on his solo album in 1996 , which was released in March 1997 in Sweden under the name Sol Niger Within . The True Human Design , the fourth EP, was released in the fall of 1997 after some postponements by the record label. At the same time, Sol Niger Within was also launched in America .

In January 1998 Gustaf Hielm finally joined the band after playing for Meshuggah as a live and studio musician for more than two years . The album Contradictions Collapse was re-released with four bonus tracks from the EP None via Nuclear Blast. In May, the recordings for the third studio album Chaosphere began, which was released after a few delay by the record label in November of the same year. Meshuggah then went on tour through Scandinavia with Entombed .

A tour of the United States was announced in early 1999, but was later canceled. With Slayer it happened some time later but to a US tour. The American press paid homage to Chaosphere and their performances and numerous magazines became aware of the band.

In 2000 the compilation Rare Trax was released after the first rumors about a new album by the band were denied for the time being. This is a collection of demos and rare recordings such as the Psykisk Testbild EP. Bassist Gustaf Hielm left the band in July 2001. Meshuggah toured again with Tool through the United States, where they played their first concerts in front of more than 100,000 people.

In 2002, three songs were recorded in the in-house studio with programmed drums using the Drumkit from Hell , a software synthesizer , and released as a demo. In May the recordings for the new album began. This took about 5 to 6 weeks. Shortly afterwards the band played again in America on the Ozzfest tour. In August, the fourth studio album Nothing was released. At the end of 2002 Meshuggah went on tour again with the band Tool.

2003-2010: Catch Thirtythree and obZen

Jens Kidman, 2013

After a short break, EP I was released in 2004 , which consisted of a single 21-minute song. The following year the fifth studio album Catch Thirtythree followed , which turned out to be Meshuggah's most demanding album for the time being. As in the previously published demo, the drums were played using a drum computer . In 2006 the album Nothing was reissued with a bonus DVD and provided with completely new guitar tracks and some new bass tracks. In the same year the band went back to the studio to record for their new album, which was released in March 2008 under the name obZen . This time, however, Haake took over the drums again. The band then went on a world tour, which began in America as an opener for Ministry and then continued as a headliner in Europe , Asia and Australia .

2011 – today: Colossus

Meshuggah live at Rock am Ring 2018

In early 2011, the band went to the studio to record their seventh studio album, which was released on March 23, 2012 under the name Koloss . This was followed by a European tour in 2012 and a North American tour in 2013. On February 5, 2013, the EP Pitch Black was released. It contains an unreleased track of the same name recorded by Fredrik Thordendal in Stockholm in 2003 and a live recording of the ObZen track Dancers to a Discordant System , which was recorded at the Distortion Fest in Eindhoven, the Netherlands on December 9, 2012.

style

Meshuggah's influences range from Metallica to folk and jazz . While the first EP (1989) and the debut album (1991) can still be assigned to Thrash Metal , more and more progressive structures are added later. On Destroy Erase Improve (1995), the musical features that were later seen as typical for Meshuggah are found again for the first time. With the Chaosphere , released in 1998 , the band “got a sound where they [established] in the following twenty years. At that time the term Math Metal is one of the terms associated with the Swedes ”.

The most noticeable stylistic feature of the band were the unusually complex bar structures, which are referred to in music theory as polymetrics or polymetric subdivisions (subdivisions) . While the hihat or the cymbals form the foundation for a slow but straight beat with constant beats, fast, complicated patterns are played on the bass drum and snare in 3/4 or 5/4 time, for example. In this context one speaks of polyrhythmics . These patterns are repeated until 8, 16 or 32 beats of the hihat have elapsed, so until the beat finally "comes up". The stringed instruments usually play the same intonations as the bass drum, and the singer also adapts his words to the complex figures. Only rarely do you find continuous odd time signatures in the songs of Meshuggah. What is just as striking and typical for genres such as Death and Thrash Metal is the free tonality of the songs. So there are no keys , functionally harmonious or modal structures and no guitar riffs that can be traced back to major and minor.

Since the album Nothing will achtsaitige electric guitars used. These allow the lowest string to be tuned to F # (in standard tuning ), but Meshuggah also tune another one or two semitones (F or E) down, i.e. almost or a whole octave lower than usually tuned guitars. First the Meshuggah guitarists played eight-string guitars from Nevborn Guitars , today they only play eight-string custom guitars from Ibanez .

reception

Meshuggah have become known for their innovative style of music that evolves between each album, bringing heavy metal into new territory, as well as the band's technical skills. Rockdetector said about the album Destroy Erase Improve : "The band reduces the metal to the bare essentials before rebuilding it in a completely abstract form." The polyrhythms can make the sound of the band cacophonic , as if each member was playing a different song at the same time. The Rolling Stone called Meshuggah "one of the ten best hard and heavy bands" and the Alternative Press called them "the most important band in metal".

Meshuggah have been described as virtuoso and called musicians on the verge of genius. In 2007 the band even got a deep analysis in the academic magazine Music Theory Spectrum . Meshuggah has had little success in the mainstream, but is considered a very significant and powerful influence for other metal bands in extreme underground music . Meshuggah developed the onomatopoeic term Djent for an "elastic, syncopated guitar riff". The term now also describes its own subgenre, the origin of which is often traced back to Meshuggah's song Aztec Two-Step (1995).

Discography

Studio albums

year	Title music label	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, music label , placements, weeks, awards, notes)						Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US	SE
1991	Contradictions Collapse Nuclear Blast	-	-	-	-	-	-	First published: January 1, 1991
1995	Destroy Erase Improve Nuclear Blast	-	-	-	-	-	SE43 (1 week) SE	First published: May 12, 1995
1998	Chaosphere Nuclear Blast	-	-	-	-	-	-	First published: November 9, 1998
2002	Nothing Nuclear Blast	-	-	-	-	US165 (3 weeks) US	SE41 (3 weeks) SE	First published: August 6, 2002
2005	Catch Thirtythree Nuclear Blast	-	-	-	-	US170 (1 week) US	SE12 (1 week) SE	First published: May 31, 2005
2008	obZen Nuclear Blast	-	-	CH99 (1 week) CH	-	US59 (3 weeks) US	SE16 (2 weeks) SE	First published: March 11, 2008
2012	Colossus Nuclear Blast	DE48 (1 week) DE	AT46 (1 week) AT	CH39 (1 week) CH	UK93 (1 week) UK	US17 (2 weeks) US	SE12 (3 weeks) SE	First published: March 27, 2012
2016	The Violent Sleep of Reason Nuclear Blast	DE18 (1 week) DE	AT31 (1 week) AT	CH21 (1 week) CH	UK32 (1 week) UK	US17 (2 weeks) US	SE17 (1 week) SE	First published: October 7, 2016

Live albums

year	Title music label	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, music label , placements, weeks, awards, notes)						Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US	SE
2010	Alive Nuclear Blast	-	-	-	-	-	SE43 (1 week) SE	First published: February 5, 2010
2014	The Ophidian Trek Nuclear Blast	-	-	-	-	-	-	First published: September 26, 2014

EPs

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		SE
2004	I.	SE33 (5 weeks) SE	First published: July 13, 2004

Further EPs:

• 1989: Psykisk test picture
• 1994: None
• 1995: Selfcaged
• 1997: The True Human Design
• 2013: Pitch Black

Compilations and Remixes

• 1998: Contradictions Collapse / None ( re-release )
• 2001: Rare Trax
• 2006: Nothing (re-release)

Demos

• 1989: Ejaculation of Salvation
• 1991: All This Because of Greed
• 1993: Promo 1993

Web links

Commons : Meshuggah  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website (English)
• Meshuggah band profile at Nuclear Blast
• Meshuggah at Allmusic (English)
• Chart sources: DE / AT / CH / UK / US / SE

Individual evidence

1. ↑ genre . facebook.com/meshuggah; Retrieved April 30, 2013
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Meshuggah . In: Bård G. Eithun (ed.): Orcustus . The Shadow of the Golden Fire. No. 2 , 1992, p. 13 .
3. ↑ Tomas Haake . In: drummerworld.com . Retrieved January 18, 2012.
4. ↑ Meshuggah: New Album Title Revealed . In: blabbermouth.net . November 12, 2007. Archived from the original on December 13, 2007. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 18, 2012. 
5. ^ Meshuggah Biography . In: meshuggah.net . Archived from the original on January 24, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 18, 2012. 
6. ^ Meshuggah Biography . In: Allmusic . Retrieved January 18, 2012.
7. ↑ Michael Edele: Meshuggah at laut.de .
8. ↑ Tour 2012 and 2013 . ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 24, 2013 
9. ^ Pitch Black . Retrieved April 24, 2013
10. ^ ^{A b} Rodney Fuchs: Meshuggah - Reissued & Reimagined . In: FUZE # 73, Dec. 2018 / Jan. 2019, p. 10.
11. ^ Greg Pratt: Meshuggah Are Breaking the Silence.Retrieved July 18, 2016
12. ↑ Patrick Slevin: Meshuggah: Challenges Collapse , reviewed on July 18, 2016
13. ↑ John Serba: Destroy Erase Improve review , checked 7/18/16
14. ^ Jon Wiederhorn: Meshuggah Deliver Something For Nothing , reviewed 7/18/16
15. ↑ Garry Sharpe-Young: Meshuggah Rockdetector Biography ( Memento of the original from December 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , checked on 07/18/16 
16. ↑ Adrien Begrand: Nothing (Special Edition) , checked on 18 July 2016
17. ↑ Nuclear Blast: Meshuggah ( Memento of May 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), checked on July 18, 2016
18. ↑ Jill Mikkelson: Meshuggah's One-Track Mind , reviewed 7/18/16
19. ↑ Ben Ratliff: Meshuggah obZen ( Memento of May 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), checked on July 18, 2016
20. ↑ Revolver: "Bleed" Video Hits The Web ( Memento of December 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), checked on July 18, 2016
21. ↑ Jonathan Pieslak: Re-casting Metal: Rhythm and Meter in the Music of Meshuggah . In: Society for Music Theory (Ed.): Music Theory Spectrum . tape 29 , no. 2 , October 1, 2007, ISSN  0195-6167 , p. 219–245 , doi : 10.1525 / mts.2007.29.2.219 , JSTOR : 10.1525 / mts.2007.29.2.219 (English, 27 pages, scribd.com [accessed on July 18, 2016]).
22. ↑ Jamie Thomson: Djent, the metal geek's microgenre , reviewed on July 18, 2016