The Meshuggah Thread

by **pinback** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 10:53 pm

Quick update. Coming up on the first anniversary of this thread and I still haven't listened to much else since other than Meshuggah albums over and over.

I've gotten into the whole "djent" scene and have even enjoyed quite a bit of it.

Then after two or three tracks I flip on ObZen again or whatever.

For me, they broke music. I'm almost glad I just discovered them last year otherwise I wouldn't have listened to anything else for the last 20 years.

by **pinback** » Tue Aug 27, 2013 5:34 pm

Here is my list of all Meshuggah albums, ranked from most-liked to least-liked. Note: I think they are all great. I still haven't hardly listened to anything else since I discovered them. Better late than never.

These opinions are awesome, so think twice before disagreeing:

1. Nothing
2. Catch-33
3. Chaosphere
4. Koloss
5. Obzen
6. I
7. Destroy Erase Improve
8. None
9. Contradictions Collapse

Thank you.

by **lethargic** » Wed May 08, 2013 12:09 pm

My drum program has a bunch of Meshuggah full song drum tracks in it. I thought it would be fun to take those drum tracks and write new music to the drums and nobody would be the wiser. Then I listened to them. Nobody can write music to this non-sense!!!!

by **pinback** » Fri May 03, 2013 6:14 am

A little from column A...

by **Flack** » Fri May 03, 2013 4:11 am

Did you find this while searching for "Meshuggah clones" or "sugartits"?

by **pinback** » Thu May 02, 2013 9:33 pm

Here is "Flight of Reason", which is actually just a guy in his bedroom, doing a passable Meshuggah ripoff:

And by passable I mean better than anyone I've heard so far:

by **pinback** » Fri Apr 26, 2013 10:19 pm

In a drunken stupor I had Catch-33 sent to my mother, with the warning to never actually play it.

She got it, put the top down on the mustang convertible, and blasted it all around Conway, SC. She said she got thumbs up from a bunch of teenagers driving past.

She enjoyed that greatly, and then kindly asked me if there were more than those two notes.

I'm embarrassed by the whole thing, but mom's kinda cool, ya?

by **RealNC** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 6:14 pm

Most will disagree, but for me Meshuggah and Nevermore sound similar. Totally different vocals (I *mean* it; Darrell Wane's vocals are unique compared to *everything*), but the feeling I get from the instrumental work is extremely similar. And Nevermore happens to be one of the best bands in the world, of course ;-)

A single song:

A complete album:

by **pinback** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 9:43 am

I have not checked out four question marks, but have checked out many of the bands listed under the "djent" genre. More fun is to be had listening to people argue about whether that's an actual genre or not than listening to the music.

by **Flack** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 4:29 am

Back when I was writing for WTD I know I received a few CDs in the mail that were "Meshuggah-like" ... maybe I can dig some of them out when I get back home in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately due to the nature of the music business, there aren't a lot of signed bands that sound like Meshuggah because quite frankly there's no money in it.

Have you checked out Four Question Marks yet?

Check Wikipedia for "djent" for a list of a few bands in the genre. Four Question Marks are not listed on there but Animals as Leaders are.

by **Tdarcos** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 3:53 am

pinback wrote:Speaking of which, I think I've found the perfect litmus test to find out if you may be a Meshuggah fan!

Turn on the aforementioned "I" and listen to the first 90 seconds!

If you didn't turn it off in some mixture of boredom or disgust before the full 90 seconds had elapsed... you may be a Meshuggah fan!

I listened and was considering turning it off after 12 seconds, but I was fair and gave it the full 1:30 until blood started spurting from my ears, and you know what, again, it's another 90 seconds of my life I'll never get back!

Basically 90 seconds of someone running a jackhammer. The first 12 were representative of the other 68, it's all the same. If you're wondering about the other 10 seconds, well, I forgot, it's made me that much stupider from listening to it.

Death metal music minus the music or the metal, just pure death. Use of this in place of capital punishment will probably cause "the State Supreme Court later ruled listening to this music, even in place of lethal injection for prisoners sentenced to be executed, violated the 8th amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment, and suggested death by stoning or torture would be more humane. The same case would also declare it was also unconstitutional as "excessively harsh, reprehensibly cruel and inhumanely barbaric" to send prisoners such as convicted rapists and child molesters to that YouTube video, even if they didn't have to listen."

by **pinback** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 9:09 pm

And the thing is, and I'll stop talking about this eventually, 19% of the threads I've found on the internet now are about "I like Meshuggah, what bands sound like them", and without exception so far, anything mentioned afterwards is terrible.

Is this really a band that carved out their own thing that absolutely nobody has been able to successfully copy/improve upon?

The closest I've found is "Animals as Leaders", which has no vocals, a lot more melodic/virtuoso guitar playing, but a few of the same down-tuned, bended riffs that you could mistake for a Meshuggah song if you tried hard.

What the hell is going on here?

by **pinback** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 9:12 pm

Speaking of which, I think I've found the perfect litmus test to find out if you may be a Meshuggah fan!

Turn on the aforementioned "I" and listen to the first 90 seconds!

If you didn't turn it off in some mixture of boredom or disgust before the full 90 seconds had elapsed... you may be a Meshuggah fan!

[youtube][/youtube]

by **pinback** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:01 pm

I just got "I", the 21-minute single-track EP from 2004. Amazon doesn't even sell it, but Google somehow has it for 99 cents, since it's just one "track".

It is the best 99 cent 21-minute track of all time.

by **pinback** » Thu Apr 18, 2013 11:21 pm

Just watched "Alive", the Meshuggah DVD recorded during the ObZen tour.

The best DVD I have ever watched.

From now on, I will only enjoy Meshuggah-approved notes.

Also Catch-33 is my favorite, mainly because I think it makes me cool to say Catch-33 is my favorite.

by **pinback** » Thu Apr 18, 2013 9:55 am

Yes, LoG sounds closer to actual music.

I don't care for that.

by **RealNC** » Wed Apr 17, 2013 9:35 pm

Well, Justin Bieber runs circles around both of them, so that can't really be an argument. I like both of course, though with a slight preference towards LoG. Might be because they sounded somewhat similar to Machine Head, which is the band that introduced me to this kind of metal. (Before that, I was pretty much living in a universe that only consisted of Metallica, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and AC/DC.)

Edit:
Though I must say I definitely can pick up melody lines in LoG. I don't think they gave that up. But then again, I hear melodies in Slayer too, so maybe it's just me or you need a trained ear :P (Yeah, it's not Jazz though.)

by **pinback** » Wed Apr 17, 2013 9:22 pm

I mean, check this out. Lamb of God sounds like Meshuggah's retarded cousin:

[youtube][/youtube]

To sum up, I guess I can't put it better than one of the commentors:

MrRiiikard wrote: Meshuggah ffs!
More brutal, which the booth band will!
An Meshuggah is the band which succeed best!

Can't argue with that, my man. Can't argue with that.

by **pinback** » Wed Apr 17, 2013 8:43 pm

I dunno yo, that's the thing. For me there's this incredibly fine line with this sort of "heavy" music, where on one side for me it's amazing and the greatest thing ever, and, just inches away, on the other side it's tiresome, grating, and boring.

I guess I'd sum it up thusly: If you're going to do away completely with melody, something equally involving has to take its place. With Meshuggah (and mostly with Dillinger Escape Plan, although Greg still likes to sing "notes" occasionally, that crazy kid), melody's place is taken completely and marvelously by rhythmic insanity and "how can anyone play instruments like that" technicality. I'm a rhythmic guy, and a musician, so these appeal to me.

If you're just gonna get rid of melody and replace it with chugging 16th notes in 4/4, blast beats and growling about corpses and shit, just doesn't work for me.

Thanks for taking my call.

by **RealNC** » Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:27 pm

What's next? You're gonna tell us that you're also unaware of Lamb of God?

But, well. Can happen. I didn't know Tool existed, remember? ;-)

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