What do you think of Meshuggah?

[|AoD|CorpseSquatch]

This post is for people who play guitar, drums etc. & that can respect hard work...



Meshuggah play a sort of metal music. Their single most distinguishing feature is their rythmics. Their riffs are basically thrash metal-riffs, but the complex rythms and song-structures indicate some influences from fusion and progressive rock. Sound-wise Meshuggah continure to develop the concept that Metallica invented in the 1980s, with huge guitars and clicking drums up-front in the soundscape. This sound has become very popular in the '90s with bands like Pantera and Sepultura.

ten years ago the Heavy Metal genre was a very vast catgory of music, covering many different bands. This led to a further sub-categorization of the music. The metal-genre around 1990 was divided into many sub-genres like death metal, thrash metal and speed metal, mostly on on stylistic premises, but also on lyrical. The last couple of years there has been a tendency of crossing over between these sub-groups, and I therefore find it suitable to talk of Meshuggahs music as 'Metal', without any further genre-categorization.


Contradictions Collapse - 1991
Abnegating Cecity 25sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/cc03.mp3
Qualms of Reality 48sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/cc05.mp3
Choirs of Devastation 1.29sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/cc08.mp3


None - 1994
Humiliative 39sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/none01.mp3
Sickening 28sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/none02.mp3
Gods of Rapture 34sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/none04.mp3


Destroy Erase Improve - 1995
Future Breed Machine 25sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/dei01.mp3
Soul Burn 29sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/dei03.mp3
Inside What's Within Behind 22sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/dei07.mp3


Chaosphere - 1998
Neurotica 58sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/chaos04.mp3
The Mouth Licking What You've Bled 59sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/chaos05.mp3
The Exquisite Machinery of Torture 1.13sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/chaos07.mp3
Elastic 1.16sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/chaos08.mp3


Nothing - 2002
Perpetual Black Second 34sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/nothing03.mp3
Closed Eye Visuals 38sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/nothing04.mp3
Glints Collide 20sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/nothing05.mp3
Organic Shadows 32sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/nothing06.mp3
Straws Pulled at Random 24sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/nothing07.mp3
Spasm 30sec - www.meshuggah.net/samples/nothing08.mp3

[|AoD| Horvath]

hey Tron, I got a friend down here who studies drums at an university called Unicamp, one of the best music schools of Brazil, and they were studying some meshuggah songs, but right now I can't remember which term he used to describe it, but it was sort of 'milimetrical played' shit. Ima dl some full songs and then we can discuss it more

[|AoD|SiN]

If I had to put a label on Meshuggah, I would have to say they are 'Abstract Metal'?

Very complex, yet, offbeat (and I mean that in a good way) and artistic. They raise the bar in what you'd expect Metal to be...

There's only 1 Meshuggah, that's for sure...

[|AoD|CorpseSquatch]

A short description...
Meshuggahs music is aggressive and intense. The polyrythmics, the time-changes and the odd time-signatures make it hard to see the structures of the songs. The sound is tight and hard and in-your- face...

Playing-techniques and instrument-use...
Meshuggahs music, and nearly all other metal-music, is based on the guitar-riff. Consequently the guitar has a central part in the soundscape. The riffs are rather linear than accordic. Since Black Sabbath and other hard rock bands of the '70s the "Power-chord" has been the most common guitar-chord in the metal-music's riffs. The power-chord basically consists of only two notes, the root and the fifth, and is not an accord in the real sense of the word. Some guitarists play it with just these two notes, some with three (root,fifth and the octave of the root), and others, for instance Fredrik Thordendal of Meshuggah, play it with four notes, ie root and fifth in two octaves.
The power-chord is not used in a harmonic context, it's usage is rather related to the sound it creates. When the guitar-amplifier is over-driven this consonant interval (opposite of dissonant) generates a full,clear tone. Too many dissonances and too much distortion create an unclear, muddy tone. Even though a metal-song might follow a clearly defined tonality the fifth of the power-chord remains a perfect fifth, and is not necessarily altered to fit the scale. In a song in G major, for example, the chord on the seventh note of the scale would be F# (root) and C# (fifth). We see that the fifth is not C, which would be the diatonically "correct" in G major. This perfect fifth has become a principle, with the sound generated by the power- chord being of the greatest significance. The guitar-playing of Meshuggah can roughly be divided into three categories: Riffing , Arpeggiated chords, Leads.
Both guitarists play riffs (rythm-guitar), usually in unison. Fredrik Thordendal takes care of the leads, and Mårten Hagstrøm does the chord-playing. For each of these three playing-styles the guitarists use a special technique and a special setting on the guitar amplifier.

When they play the riffs the play through a distorted amplifier, and an equalizer is used to remove the mid-tone frequencies.They both play a Marshall Valvestate stereo head amplifier, through a 4x12" Marshall Valvestate cabinet (smaller than the regular Marshall cabinets). The Valvestate uses tubes for the preamp and transistors in the poweramp, hence the name 'ValveState'. This gives a distinct, rythmic sound, often refered to as "Crunch". By muting the strings with the palm of the picking-hand close to the bridge, a short, percussive tone is created. This technique is called "Palm Muting" and is notated "pm" in the transcriptions. This technique is very central in the riffing.
The riffs are mostly played on the four deepest strings. Both guitarists in Meshuggah play an Ibanez Universe guitar, which has seven strings instead of the usual six. The extra string sounds a perfect fourth lower than the sixth string, and adds further depth and heaviness in the riffing. Moreover, Meshuggah detune the guitars by a minor second, so the deepest string sounds a B flat. The riffing is a very dominating factor in the music and is used almost all the time.
For the arpeggiated chord-playing they use a clean,clear sound, which allows every note of the chords to ring relatively freely. This sound, often called "Clean", is in sharp contrast to the raw "Crunch" of the riffing, and enables more complicated harmonies and dynamics. The guitar signal is also run through a Chorus-pedal. The chorus-effect mixes the original signal with a tone derived from the freqency of the original signal. The derived tone cycles around the original note within a radius of a few cents (this paramter can be adjusted). Using the chorus moderatly makes the signal sound fuller, almost like doubling it with another guitar. The "Clean"-playing is usually used to vary the dynamics, as a contrast to the distortion- sound, as accompany for leads and some times in relief to the distortion-guitar.
For leads Fredrik Thordendahl uses the Mesa/Boogie studio preamp. This all-tube amplifer preserves the original harmonics of the instrument, which creates a warmer, mellower tone. A lot more mid-tone is used for this sound than for the rythm crunch. Thordendahl has a fluid, legato leadstyle, often utilizing modal improvisation. He sometimes plays very freely harmonically. His "outside" playing is often based on the whole-tone scale (C-D-E-F#-G#-A#-C) or the octatonic dim-scale (C-C#-D#-E-F#-G-A-Bb-C).
He obtains the legato tone by using a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs, and not picking too many notes. He often taps with his right hand on the fretboard, too.
Fredrik uses a so-called "Breath controller", a device originally made for controlling MIDI parameters on synthesizers. He has had it modified to be able to handle analogue signals instead of digital. By blowing in a mouth-piece he is able to control the amplitude of his guitar-signal. If he doesn't blow, no signal reaches the amplifier (unless he bypasses the effect, of course). This enables him to copy some wind-instrument techniques that it would be otherwise very difficult to perform on a guitar.

When playing live the two guitarists each use two different amp-settings. Fredrik switches between the riff-crunch and his lead-sound, and Mårten between his riff-crunch and the clean-sound.
Bassist Peter Nordins job is mainly to double the guitar-riffs one octave deeper to fill out the soundscape. As chord-playing is very difficult on a bass guitar he usually plays a "root"-version of the riffs. His sound is a mix between a clean and a distorted signal. He plays with a pick and therefore has a clear and distinct touch. When the guitars are clean he too plays with a clean sound. I am note sure what amp he uses but he played through a vintage silver-clad Ampeg cabinet in Oslo April '95.
Jens Kidmans vocalstyle is focused on the rythmic, and seldom on the melodic. He only sings melodic phrases on a few songs. He mainly recites the lyrics in a harsh, aggresive voice, mostly on one note over several syllables. He sometimes changes the register to further intensify the singing.
A central part of Meshuggahs concept lies in the drumming of Tomas Haake, the odd rythm-patterns upon the backdrop of the ordinary rock-beats. He very often plays the rythm of the guitarriff on the kick-drums while playing a straight 4/4 on the cymbals and the snaredrum.
Generally speaking, one can say that he plays the regular beats, the 2-beats (2/4, 4/4 etc.), with his hands, while he plays the odd rythms with his legs. His groove is very driving and tight. He plays very focused and disciplined, and he doesn't play a lot of fills, but rather concentrates on keeping the drive and promoting the guitar-riffs. His drumkit has two bass-drums, one for each leg, which is rather normal in the metal- music since the mid 80's.


Meshuggah & there 8 string guitar's... www.nevbornguitars.com/

[|AoD| Horvath]

dude I got some songs... its kickass!!!
I'll be searching for the whole albums for sure

[|AoD|CorpseSquatch]

horvy said:

dude I got some songs... its kickass!!!
I'll be searching for the whole albums for sure

If ya need some song's I've got a shit load just sitting here...

[|AoD| Horvath]

According to my buddy's high school teacher, meshuggah is 'math metal' lol
I think I got all of them albums, I'll post what I got later and if there's something missing then I'll want some of your 'collection'