Meshuggah is a long-running metal band which set off a lot of modern trends, especially the "djent" genre & timbres. Their music deals heavily in rhythm and groove via minimalist repetition, with textural additions from harsh vocals and additional guitar lines in the high registers. One of my favorite standout elements is Frederik Thordendal's atypical guitar solos, which sound almost completely alien from any guitar solo you've ever heard, but are perfectly intriguiging, fluid, and tasty. So... let's dive in!

“New Millenium Cyanide Christ” – Chaosphere, 1998

One of their hits, this is just a solid Meshuggah piece that establishes some of their vocabulary – their earlier stuff like this tends to have more thrash metal influence, and less introspection on the riffs. Regardless, that very first riff is representative of a salient characteristic of Meshuggah pieces. The drums outline a standard 4/4 beat, but everything else has unintuitive or polyrhythmic divisions in them to imply other ideas on top of that 4/4. I call this "metric superimposition" because one (or more) meters/rhythms is being superimposed on a base (that being 4/4). This lends a depth to the repetition, and is used to great effect in most all of their music; it creates a shifting and complex texture from dragging these wild colors across the regularity of the drums and the full piece's organization.

There's a simpler version of this concept at 4:19 as well, where you can hear the 'mismatched' rhythm repeat twice and then get cut off to fit in the 4/4 measures - when the beat kicks back in, you immediately hear the 4/4 return and feel the riff stretch against it. This is the Meshuggah qualia.

“Marrow” – Koloss, 2012

This one's a personal favorite of mine. It uses a pretty complex collection of mixed-meter riffs on top of their traditional 4/4 coupled with interesting guitar tonalities, but it's pretty accessible and grooves like a motherfucker. The riff in this one actually doesn't repeat cleanly within itself, so it's even more complex than some of their other superimpositions. One of my favorite Thordendal solos as well. This whole album is probably my first suggestion for anyone new to Meshuggah who wants a full course. (Also, fun fact, one of the lyrics to this is "Tar-black ejaculate".)

“Rational Gaze” – Nothing, 2002 (remastered 2006)

Another very percussive one, with less focus on tonality and more on just feeling the churning of a motive against 4/4. I think I might just end up mentioning that I love these guitar solos in every blurb... but I do, a lot!

“Future Breed Machine” – Destroy Erase Improve, 1995

From their first major album. You can really notice the thrash influence in this one, especially with those shouted vocals! However, this also shows more of their dramatic sensibilities in its midsection.

The Hurt That Finds You First – Koloss, 2012

I read this piece as a program mimicing the sensation of being stung or otherwise manipulated by a kind of physical or mental venom – Meshuggah's work as a dominating force is certainly easily established, and thus easily extended with their complex yet primal polyrhythmic vocabulary to any emotional response that you’d typically expect from a horror movie, such as the erotic. From this song’s lyrics:

   Euphoric state. You gag, you choke
   Words, virus. They echo in your ears
   True bliss through bondage and, oh, here come the tears

Regardless of that – this one is a lovely decrescendo of songwriting.

Bleed – ObZen, 2008

Perhaps *the* Meshuggah song. A definitive piece, taking their dominating repetition and metric superimposition to logical limits; a full work of cathexis. Speaks for itself.

(Updating after the 4/1/22 release of their newest album Immutable, I really want to include “Clockworks” from their 2016 album The Violent Sleep of Reason and “I Am That Thirst” from Immutable, but I don’t want to alter this primer too much so I’ll just add this footnote. I adore the production and live recording ethos of Violent Sleep and “Clockworks” personally surpasses “Bleed” for me as ‘the ultimate Meshuggah song’, as juvenile as that sounds; and Immutable is a tour de force with some really fantastic new ideas. Cannot commend these guys enough on this release.)