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If somebody who’s never heard us says to me, ‘Oh you play in a metal band, I know exactly what you sound like,’ I can say in all confidence, ‘I’m not sure. I’m not sure that you do.’”
– Mårten Hagström, guitarist for Meshuggah
Meshuggah formed in Umeå, Sweden in 1987. In 1995, their second full length record, Destroy Erase Improve, completely reinvented the genre and is generally considered to be a masterpiece. I agree. When I first heard it in 1999, I knew I had found something really great. They have continued to produce extremely wonderful, innovative and confounding records ever since. They are one of those bands that I truly love but had never seen live, until February 5, 2009, when they played Slim’s in San Francisco. I went with my friend Niko Wenner, guitarist for Oxbow, which also happens to be my favorite band. So it was sort of perfect storm of my overly-enthusiastic fan-boydom. What follows are some blurry photos I took at the show, some of my own thought about Meshuggah, photos of the band taken by other people, clips of Meshuggah playing live, and some bits of interesting writing about the band.
“There’s as much rhythmic obsessiveness and intricacy in the relentless polyrhythms of Swedish metal maestros Meshuggah as there is in Reich or Ligeti – with the difference that Meshuggah use the supreme technical sophistication and overpowering volume of their 5-in-the-time-of-4 patterns to serve rather different expressive ends: Terminal Illusions as opposed to Different Trains”. – Tom Service from guardian.co.uk
It’s like a post-millennial, metal portrait of the collapse of one’s mind, the words and images adding the final blow to what is an all-out assault of a composition. Monstrous, prodigious, apocalyptic, “I” is quintessential Meshuggah, and some absolutely vital 21st century metal. – Adrien Begrand – Popmatters.com
Somehow, Meshuggah manage to be an oddly international phenomenon. They’re guys from a provincial Swedish town with a Yiddish name playing a jazz influenced, experimental form of music essentially invented by disaffected Florida teenagers, for an audience of nerdy white kids. It makes no sense. But it totally works.
These Swedes make music for clinically minded deconstructionists, and one really has to reduce Meshuggah’s sound to its individual elements before seeing the overall picture. Nothing, their fourth full-length slab, only further cements their place as masterminds of cosmic calculus metal — call it Einstein metal if you want — and, to their credit, they’re really the only ones to fall into said sub-subgenre. – John Serba – Allmusic.com
With Destroy Erase Improve, Meshuggah shattered any preconceived notions about what death, thrash, and prog metal could be with one astoundingly accurate, calculated blow. The Swedish outfit managed to surpass their startlingly original, if relatively immature debut, Contradictions Collapse, with a record so pure in concept and execution, it borders on genius. The album is a bona fide ’90s classic, a record boasting ideas so well-balanced — natural yet clinical, guttural yet intelligent, twisted yet concise — it muscled simplistic subgenres out of the way and confidently pointed toward the future of metal. – John Serba – Allmusic.com
One thing I love about Meshuggah is their play with structure. Like Catch 33 which is one song, cut into 13 more or less symmetrical parts, except for the asymmetrical song couplet In Death – Is Life and In Death – Is Death. And the EP I, which is one song, lasting exactly 21 minutes. And of course there are the multiple time signatures and odd meters throughout their work. It always feels like they are trying to push at the edge of the essential form of pop music.
Okay, after all this gushing, it’s time for me to say something about metal shows. They’re full of douchebags. So much great, interesting and innovative music and it’s like 95% jarheads with unironic prison tattoos or socially inept creeps who’ve just left the basement after three days of World of Warcraft. Who are these people, and how I did get involved with them? And does it say about me, that I am also here? I’m totally outnumbered. I feel like I am back in 8th grade gym. Where are all the cool kids? Why are they all down the street at a club watching a guy play records from the 60s? Am I the only one here who went to college? I want everybody to do their own thing, but shit, the world is so mixed up.
Anyway, back to the gushing about how cool Meshuggah is, with their 8 string guitars and all:
“I’m not suggesting that we’ll never use six-strings again,” offers Hagström, “but the eight-strings really have given us a whole new musical vocabulary to work with. Part of it is the restrictions they impose: you really can’t play power chords with them; the sound just turns to mush. Instead, we concentrated on coming up with really unusual single-note parts, new tunings and chord voicings. We wanted to get as far away from any kind of conventions and traditions as we could on the album, so the guitars worked out beautifully.” – Rod Smith – Decible Magazine
Meshuggah guitarist Fredrick Thorendal has a side project called Fredrik Thordendal’s Special Defects, with fellow Swedes Morgan Ågren and Mats Öberg. They released one record called Sol Niger Within. Morgan and Mats played with Zappa, so there is kind of a intense jazz/ fusion/metal/freakout thing happening. It’s good. Here is something from that:
Inspired in part by Sleep’s one-track marathon Jerusalem, Catch 33 is essentially a good old-fashioned album-length epic that sounds as though it could have been recorded live from start to finish—by 31st Century androids from Alpha Centauri. – Rod Smith – Decible Magazine
On some distant planet, in a dimension not ours, Meshuggah is the greatest dance band in the world—the most romantic, too. Giant flying jellyfish could fuck for weeks to 1995’s Destroy Erase Improve. – Rod Smith – Decible Magazine
Since I’ve said bad things about the crowd at the show, let me say some good things. You will not find much detached irony at a proper metal show. These are people who are seriously into it and not afraid of enthusiasm. When the lights go down in the club, people are literally screaming Meshuggah! over and over again. People are pumped and jumping up and down. This is the greatest band in the world, and they’re about to play live, just for us. People are so excited that they express unbridled enthusiasm for everyone to see. I love this, because I’m also utterly excited and not afraid to show it.
“We have kind of a weird situation, writing-wise. Tomas writes most of the lyrics, and he’s a drummer. So when he writes, it’s predominantly based around drums. Jens doesn’t play guitar in the band anymore, but he’s pretty adept at writing riffs. Everybody in the band has a pretty good idea of what everybody else is doing conceptually, and nobody thinks exclusively in terms of a particular instrument. We have this symbiosis thing; we’re kind of a single-celled organism climbing up the evolutionary ladder. “ – Mårten Hagström
This is Beneath, from Destroy Erase Improve. It is my favorite Meshuggah song.
“We’ve definitely moved away from traditional blues-derived rock guitar parts,” Harmonically, what we’re doing now is a lot more akin to some contemporary classical music. Of course it’s impossible for us to pinpoint exactly why we’re doing what we do, but some of it has to do with the fact that we’ve never been interested in creating something that sounds familiar. A lot of metal bands can say that, but we try to challenge ourselves. Not so much with the technical aspect—that’s a somewhat inferior motivation for playing music. I don’t think that’s at all the point; it doesn’t really matter if something is hard to play or not. The thing is, what does it do to your mind when you listen to it? Where does it take you?” – Mårten Hagström
This is Future Breed Machine. This is how they end most of their shows. So this is how I am ending this post.
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p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I’m going to imagine that my neighbor wasn’t banging angrily on the wall but rather accidentally bumping into the wall in his Play Therapy induced gyrations. I love coffee, but if it’s something you should avoid, do. It’s my only drug now (unless cigarettes count), so I’m all in. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I was going to ask you what in the world you meant by that, but, after the ensuing little mess, I’m going to leave it alone. ** Bzzt, Hey Quinn! Ah, remind me/us when your piece on Brontez goes up, please, or I’ll surely find it if you forget. They do say that illogical self-directed stuff like that — you’re the exact opposite of a burden and failure, sir, guaranteed — is explainable as childhood detritus, and, as kind of too expectable as that solution seems, there does seem to be some truth there. But, yeah, that kind of go-to self-doubt is hard to negotiate. Been there myself, obviously. It does seem to get easier to give yourself credit when you get a little older, for whatever good that observation does. Great about your story still-in-progress and the pitch. Stuff like that is your way free, probably. Saw all that East Coast snow on the news. Ah, so pretty. We’re still with a 6 pm curfew right now and basically no enter/exit France rules, but if we don’t get quarantined again maybe as soon as later this week, I’ll be shocked. Things are okay, but people are stressed and fed up with the pandemic. I think the big reason France hasn’t locked us down already is that there is guaranteed to be huge civil disobedience in the streets if they do. Take care over there. ** Dominik, Hi, D! Happy the post made what you think might be good suggestions. No, I don’t know that Ian Brady book, or that it existed. i didn’t know he wrote, if you mean the Ian Brady. Huh. Good move re: my love. And of course your love rules and I’m begging for it. Love that sucks the entire pandemic into a small building far, far away somewhere whereupon Yayoi Kusama sculpts it into an Infinity Room and donates the proceeds generated by the huge crowds going to see it to the Dominick Perfect Life gofundme page, G. ** brontez purnell, Hi, Brontez! So cool of you to come in here. It’s redundant to say I love your book, but I’ll say it anyway, or I guess I mean ‘did’ say. I’ll write to you at FB when I’m outta here. Much respect! ** Bex Peyton, Hi, Bex! Very happy you came back! My pleasure about the post, of course. Yes, I’ve read ‘The Devils’. I loved it. I think New Juche is amazing and kind of can’t do wrong. What did you think? Awesome, it’s great to connect with you too. What are your classes? What do you do, or what do you most like to do? Happy Tuesday! ** wolf, Wolfmeister! Well, yeah, I agree that assuming I can possibly know what other humans feel is a gross generalisation, and I hate generalisations and when lazily make them like the plague. Interesting, I guess, that I felt privileged enough to go there. Interesting to me, I mean. It sucks that if we didn’t generalise sometimes our brains would likely explode from overactivity. Well, you know, they say language is why we can think we understand each other. How it can clarify and how it can make things mysterious or confusing. I can sort of believe that, being a language nerd. I don’t know. I’m just tripping. Super happy that I was able to accidentally beef up your book pile. What would a blog, mine in particular, be without a roaming wolf, you in particular. xo. ** Alexandrine Ogundimu, Hi! It’s so nice to meet you, or I guess ‘meet you’. Thank you so much for coming in here. I really loved your book and everything I’ve read by you so far, really, and I’m excited to read a lot more. I hope you’re doing well through the whole covid hell. Much respect to you! ** jackson howard, Hi, Jackson. David’s Black, as Sypha said, but … yeah. Thank you for coming in here. And, since I think you are the person who sent me Brontez’s book, thank you very, very much for that. It was huge boon, obviously. Take care, all the best. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Can you identify the point or reason why/when you transitioned from a trangression-interested Sotos, etc. reader into more of an avoider of disturbing things? Just curious. Realise it could be an impossible question. I still don’t have ‘Hate’. Michael owes me a copy. I love ‘Sentimental Education’, as you know. ** Misanthrope, Ah, so Rigby’s a bit of a slave type. That makes a strange kind of sense. Ha ha. I would trade my weekend for yours lickety-split. Power chords! Maybe today’s post will be of help. ** Brian O’Connell, Hi, Brian. Thanks! The bookclub thing is really nice, so I recommend it. It’s nice with ours also because three of the participants are both really old friends/comrades of mine from back when we were aspiring young writers together as well as being great writers. So there’s lots to talk about even when thoughts on the assignment lags. Yeah, maybe the classes needing to occupy you is a good thing ultimately. Such weird days. Being focused can feel exciting, to me at least. The huge snowfall is dreamy from way over here where snow has pretty much broken up with Paris. My Tuesday: I need to work on that assigned thing. So I”m going to force myself to. Otherwise … ? How were your 24 all in all? ** liquoredgoat, hi, Douglas! Great to see you, buddy! The books you want to read are really worth reading, which I didn’t really need to say even, I guess. How are you? Are you working on anything that excites you? xo. ** chris dankland, Hey, Chris! I … guess I’ll let your post be a surprise? Why not. Good you’ve gotten the vaccine, or the first half. I’m counting the unknown minutes until I qualify over here. France is being stingier than where you are. Oh, dude, if I had had to do Zoom classes when I was in school, I would have done what I already did — skim everything and fake it — but to a much worse degree, and, yeah, surely blow off the classes as often as possible. It kind of amazes me when I hear of students actually doing the Zoom classes devotedly. Congrats on weed’s new local legitimacy! I didn’t realise you aren’t really involved in xray now. It does seem to be going great guns. It feels really alive and key. Big up to Jennifer. As I said up above somewhere, we’re on tenterhooks over here. Right now stores are open but no cafes, restaurants, bars, museums, theatres. 6 pm curfew, which is a huge drag. Threat of a third quarantine hanging over everything and maybe restarting as soon as late this week. It’s okay, but people here, who have been so diligent and good about the restrictions for the last year, are really fed up and stressed. But, for now, we’re alright. Same to you vis-a-vis your morning, pal! ** ae, Hi, a! The thanks are entirely mine. I’m using WordPress now, and a supposedly cool host, and they swear the blog is my property and they won’t fuck with it, but we will see. I’m okay. Trying to make myself work on something I need to work on. But good. Huh, I don’t know DistinctivelyDionysian. I’ll go look at the site. It sounds fascinating. I hope they survive. I’ll see if I can score as back issue or something. When do you think you’ll hear back from the press about the collaborative poetry + illustration zine? Fingers stranglingly crossed if you need them. If I ever get to your neck, I’m going to invite myself over for dinner somehow. Jeez, yum. I only ever went to that one Sikh restaurant, mind you, but, wow, it was amazing. The Golden Temple of Consciousness, it was called. And it lived up to that name even. Thank you for the link.That’s fascinating, isn’t it? Excited for the package, thank you so, so much! How was your day? Are you under the famous pile of snow? ** Right. I decided to restore this old post by Blendin aka the artist Brendan Lott. It’s old enough that Blendin may well have moved his enthusiasm onto a different Metal band by now, but no matter. He made his case, and it stands. Enjoy. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Great work Blendin. Metal has never reall interested me but you explicate its charms with great sensitivity.
Not sure what you mean by the “ensuing dust-up” Dennis.
Dennis,
I wouldn’t say I’m an avoider of disturbing books. I mean in the last number of years I’ve read you know De Sade, Ballard, a lot of the Amphetamine Sulphate/Infinity Land books… hell, I still read you, ha ha. I can handle TEXT just fine, my issue with the Szasz book was more the serial killer photography visual stuff. If it wasn’t for that I would have snapped it up in a heartbeat. My issues with Sotos are different: I don’t care for his depictions of animal cruelty mainly, and find his racism a bit much (and this from a guy who idolizes Lovecraft).
Having said that it’s true though that I don’t actively seek out aggressively “transgressive” stuff like I used to, partly because the subject matter often explored in such things I don’t have much interest in anymore. Also, keep in mind that I”ve been working on a collection of “Pleasant” tales, ha ha
@ Blendin, thank you for this intro to the work of Meshuggah, who were a new name for me until today. There is defo Jazz in there, which for Metal is a new and positive sound.
Got some very positive feedback from my writing tutor about the Candy Floss Mine of Aberpergwm short story. Think this might just be a winner, and have submitted it accordingly. A mere 400 words so it’s still Flash really but still, a definite good thing. Am certain the novel is coming, just a bit at a time for now.
Hi!!
Yeah, I mean THE Ian Brady – he wrote a book about the analysis of serial killing. It’s quite an interesting approach, to look at the topic from an “insider” point of view, but I don’t know what to think yet. I’ll let you know, then, if I think it’s worth a read!
Oh, wow, this is a spectacular and amazing love! I’d check that infinity room out myself if I knew I can’t bring the pandemic back by doing that, hah. I’ve never seen any of Yayoi Kusama’s work in real life, but I’d love to. Quite a shock to the senses. Love tattooing his eyeballs black and pretending to be your personal demon, Od.
Blendin – Really dug this post on Meshuggah. Great clips and nicely put together. Hadn’t heard their music in a while and nice to revisit it.
Dennis – Enjoyed the book post yesterday. So much good stuff coming out that it makes my wallet groan. I just saw the cover for ‘I Wished’ and it looks fantastic. So cool that they used Michael’s work for it. Did you have much input on the cover and design?
I watched your reading over the weekend and it’s haunted me. The horror and raw emotion and sadness cut with the subtle humor and absurdity is a potent combo. For some reason afterward the bits about crater and artist had me thinking of James Turrell, which hopefully isn’t an insensitive association. But mostly the unstable mix of melancholy has been swirling around my head.
Friend recently recommended the films of Angela Schanelec, some of which seem to be streamable finally. I think maybe you’re a fan? If so, you have any particular favorites of hers?
Dennis, doowapp-a-doo-D! Fuckin’ell, Meshuggah! Yeah, can’t go wrong with a bit of Meshuggah, I say. Goes nicely with a hot chocolate and ginger thins. Brendan’s thoughts on the gigs, the shitty politics of (#notall)metal crowds notwithstanding, is adding one more drop to my “just-about-to-burst!!!” balloon. FUCK! Give us the live music back already! I’ll never bitch about the overpriced water bottles and the sticky floors and the smelly armpits form the dude in front and the twats with their phones out again I promise, just gives us the gigs back… pleeeaaase… sob sob sob.
No, dude, you’re not tripping about language, you make perfect sense, of course. I mean, you would. Of all fucking people. Starry-eyed and twitchy-fingered obsession with language is the logical conclusion of a certain kind of humanism, I think. How else are you supposed to get right in there, in that messy collective brain-soup? It’s the most direct route. Root. Heh.🤘
Dennis,
I’m in this weird transitional space where I don’t really have a place of my own and it’s cramping my creative energy, or that’s the excuse I make. I would love to write a novel so at some point I’ll just have to buckle down, especially because writing helps me escape. I had a rough few months of mania and psychosis last year and have just been trying to get myself together. Trying to save to get my own place and get out of California with my fiancée who I recently proposed to. Are you working on anything now? Saw the cover art for I Wished and am even more excited.
Dennis, Ha! Yeah, these are good for power chords. Funny how many popular songs are just tons of power chords. My only problem is just training me wittle fingers to play them properly. But I’m a try try try.
Good shit re: the release of your novel. I’m thinking I might—might, I say—preorder it. 😉
Now, I gotta find something to do this weekend. Eh, nvm, just feel like chillin’ at home.
Me novel’s goin’ ’round the world, it seems. Been read by people in Scotland, London, Switzerland, and now New Zealand. Weird, no? Rigby’s friend in NZ asked to read it. Seems she likes it so far. Fingers crossed she feels that way when she’s finished. Shit, I might even send it to you some day and get Paris on the map. 😉
But yeah, seriously, I do need to query some more agents (no matter what other friends of mine about how one should never try to get an agent and they’re bad and all that).
I will see if I can ever get extra copies of DD to send your way – from the looks of it the project may now be lost – I may be able to scan the two issues i have eventually though! it’s a really lovely maudlin-gothic “anarchist iconoclastic individualist” newsletter that draws a lot from both philosophy and literature.
Any time you are in my neck of the woods, I guarantee a feast for you! I used to work as a private vegan / vegetarian chef for a bit, and love hosting friends for dinner and drinks. Not the same as Sikh restaurants but when you were in LA did you ever eat at the Hare Krishna temple in Culver City? By far some of the best vegetarian food to be had, wonderful atmosphere, and a short walk down from the Museum of Jurassic Technology ( have you been?)
I think J. and I will hear back soon from the publisher – they were waiting on our submission – I am new to the project (it’s more of J’s relationship with the publisher) so I am really hoping my contribution to the project isn’t too outside the realm of what they’re looking for.
Yes! It is quite snowy and cold here today, but I really enjoy being out and about in that – much more so than summer. Be well!
Maybe this is a region-blocking issue, but none of the embedded YT videos would play for me. Did anyone else have the same issue?
I have only heard Meshuggah’s relatively calmer music from the past decade, not the DESTROY ERASE IMPROVE era. But I saw a video on music theory recently that mentioned them in the same breath as James Brown as demonstrations of the inadequacy of Western music notation.
The blizzard yesterday was oddly calming, but tomorrow I have to go to Whole Foods’ Amazon locker to pick up a microphone (or it will be sent back to Amazon) and I’m not looking forward to walking there as the snow starts to melt.
Hey Dennis,
I’ve just finished The Devils and I have to say it was incredibly (profoundly?) numbing. Definitely despair-inducing in a way I’ve never read before, it was incredible, can’t wait to read more of his stuff. I’m in my last semester of film school, getting my degree in screenwriting. College has sucked out all of my passion for the medium though, so I’m a little lost right now, but I also think I just can’t commit to one form of art, you know? I write prose, paint, dance, and do collage, so I think I’ll just keep juggling them all until I can commit to something or get hit by a bus, whichever comes first! Great post again today, never heard of them, but will give them a shot. Later!
Bex
Hey, Dennis,
I’m not personally huge on metal but I still found this post highly interesting. Hats off to Blendin!
Today I turned nineteen. That feels weird, as all birthdays do. We celebrated modestly, but nicely: mainly we went out to dinner, and then I watched Akira Kurosawa’s “Dreams” with my brother, which he’d surprise-gifted me and which I’d never seen before, and which I found to be mind-blowingly great. (Any takes on Kurosawa? Favorites/least favorites? etc.) That was it. Also I got two books—“2666” and James Purdy’s “Narrow Rooms”, which I just started reading. It seems awesome. So that was my Tuesday. It was nice. How was yours? Telepathically transmitting the best of vibes your way.
It’s so nice to “meet” you as well! I’m glad you enjoyed what you’ve read, that is after all the whole point. COVID is rough but I’m making it and moving up, your post was a definite bright spot.
So cool to see you talk about Meshuggah. They were one of the first metal bands I got into, back in my headbanger days. I’ve always preferred the offshoot type of bands, the ones that don’t have the same 4/4, pounding sound that originated the death metal style, and I credit that in part to enjoying the esoteric, angular, jazzy sound of Meshuggah early on.
I don’t know why the cool kids haven’t colonized metal yet, but maybe it’s a good thing they haven’t. There are advantages to thrashing around with a bunch of dorks, somehow it puts the music front and center more than a lot of other scenes, where you’re so worried about what your fucking shoes look like while you stand and nod your head. Probably only a matter of time before they’re spinning Suffocation records at your local nightclub though, so enjoy it while it lasts.