Meshuggah

This article is about the band Meshuggah, for the Terry Pratchett's Discworld character see Feet of Clay.

Meshuggah, named after the Hebrew (and not Yiddish as some think, including band members) word for "crazy" (the Yiddish term is "meshugge"), is a five-piece Scandinavian/tech metal band from Umeå, Sweden who use extended polymetric passages, complex drum patterns, odd time signatures, angular, dissonant guitar riffs, and harsh, non-pitched vocals.

Biography

Meshuggah was formed in Umeå in 1987; two years later, the band released their first record, an EP entitled Psykisk Testbild (which can be roughly translated as "psychological test picture", perhaps in reference to a Rorschach Test image). This recording displayed a straightforward thrash metal-influenced sound along the lines of Metallica's concurrent releases. What made the band unique, however, were hints at the more complex music that the band would later develop into their signature sound. As the group grew older, they further refined the technicality of their musicianship and songwriting. They also began recording more and more extreme music, influenced by both death metal and thrash metal, yet not similar to or categorizable as either.

Among the band's most recognizable qualities are lead guitar player Fredrik Thordendal's smooth, clean, Allan Holdsworth-esque type solos, the churning, dissonant rhythm guitars and the polymetric drum beats. In a typical Meshuggah song drummer Tomas Haake plays two separate rhythms: a standard 4/4 beat with his hands, and a completely different metrical subdivision with his feet. The guitars mostly follow the bass drum work, creating an awkwardly pulsating rhythmic pattern to work as the basis of the song.

To take an example, the main riff of the song New Millennium Cyanide Christ from their 1998 album Chaosphere follows the aforementioned blueprint. Haake beats a rather slow 4/4 rhythm with his hands, while the bass drums and guitars play a repetitive 23/16 rhythm pattern on top of it. As the subdivided pattern is repeated, the pattern's accents shift to different beats on each repetition. After repeating the 23/16 pattern five times, a shorter 13/16 pattern is played once. These patterns sum up to 128 16th notes, which equals exactly 8 measures in 4/4 meter. While obviously not abandoning live drums, a unique decision was made to use programmed drum patterns using the "Drumkit From Hell" sample library on the latest album Catch Thirty-Three to provide not just a more precise and mechanized drumscape to work with, but made drum beat creativity a more collaborative effort amongst all of the band members and cemented the album as one of the bands most complex works to date.

On their latest records, guitarists Thordendal and Hagström use custom-made Nevborn eight-string guitars. These guitars add two low strings to allow the crushing, heavy riffs to be played in the lowest register possible.

Discography

Studio releases

• Psykisk Testbild (EP, 1989)
• Contradictions Collapse (1991)
• None (EP, 1994)
• Destroy Erase Improve (1995)
• Chaosphere (1998)
• Nothing (2002)
• I (EP, 2004)
• Catch Thirty-Three (2005)

Other releases

• Selfcaged (Demo, 1995)
• The True Human Design (Compilation, 1997)
• Contradictions Collapse & None (Compilation, 1998)
• Rare Trax (Compilation, 2001)

Line-up

Current members

• Jens Kidman - Vocals (1987-)
• Fredrik Thordendal - Guitar (1987-)
• Mårten Hagström - Guitar (1992-)
• Dick Lövgren - Bass (2004-)
• Tomas Haake - Drums (1990-)

Former members

• Marcus Bigren - Guitar (1990)
• Gustaf Hielm - Bass (1998-2004)
• Peter Nordin - Bass (1987-1995)
• Niklas Lundgren - Drums (1987-1990)

External links

• Meshuggah Official Homepage
• meshuggarchive.tk - Comprehensive link archive for all things Meshuggah.
• Espen's Meshuggah Thesis - An essay discussing the various elements of the music of Meshuggah.
• Meshuggah Official Forum

Trivia=

There is a Dutch Robot Wars machine with this name Meshuggah. The team claims that the flywheel weapon is an adapted turbine wheel from an F16 Fighting Falcon airplane fighter.