Few bands have influenced the modern metal landscape quite like Meshuggah, both in terms of sound and gear. Now, guitarist Mårten Hagström has reflected on how the band changed the face of metal guitar – and blew Tosin Abasi’s mind in the process.

There’s a whole generation of metal and prog-adjacent virtuosos currently changing the guitar game that get woozy when it comes to the Swedish heavyweights. Periphery’s Misha Mansoor, Polyphia duo Tim Henson and Scott LePage, and Plini, who “grew up” on Meshuggah, are all big fans.

But Meshuggah's impact wasn't felt overnight, nor was it immediately accepted by the wider metal world.

“Sometimes we still see ourselves as the upstart oddball band that we were as kids when everybody was side-eyeing us and going, ‘What are you guys doing?’” guitarist Mårten Hagström tells the ProgCast (via Blabbermouth). “Even in the progressive genre, it was, like, ‘Dude, what are you up to? What's going on?’”

The band's vicious polyrhythms soon became the foundation for djent, thall and beyond. After being met with some skepticism from the wider metal scene, Meshuggah finally earned their flowers, cementing their reputation as the band who changed the face of metal guitar.

“Tosin [Abasi, Animals as Leaders] told me once, the first time he heard us, he said, ‘This music is broken,’” Hagström adds.

It was Meshuggah that introduced Abasi to the wonders of the eight-string guitar – something he’s since made his signature weapon. They were experimenting with the twice-extended range guitars as far back as 2002, and it redefined their sound.

“We quickly figured out that powerchord chugging and riffing didn’t really work; it wasn’t as simple as transposing ideas down to the eighth string,” Hagström once told Guitar World of their early experiments. “The tone of the instrument lent itself better to the single-string stuff we’re known for. It was like, ‘Wow, this is a new tool that makes us sound different!’”

Abasi's own adventures saw him launch the high-end Abasi Concepts in 2019. They are builds designed to “encourage people to play complex things” and write their own 'broken music'. Everyone from Spiro Dussias to Dante Swan have been doing exactly that, pushing boundaries and developing freakish new techniques as they go.

In modern metal, down-tuning to eight-string depths in such a way has helped usher in key changes to the sound of the genre. And, without Meshuggah’s influence, who knows what the modern metal landscape would look like today.

Founded in Japan all the way back in 1957, with roots stretching to the Hoshino Gakki company in 1908, Ibanez stands today as one of the key players in the guitar market.

The brand has always been synonymous with high quality – so much so, in fact, that there’s even a now-collectable ‘lawsuit’ period of instruments from a time when American brands felt threatened by their Eastern imitators.

And while it’s easy to think of Ibanez as a company that’s at the cutting edge of metal machines for the modern age, it's also innovated much further afield: producing timeless acoustics, semi-hollows, and hollowbody instruments – not forgetting, of course, some of the world’s best-selling overdrive pedals in the Tube Screamer series. Which is exactly why this list of the 25 most important Ibanez players crosses through various genres and styles.

It's become the go-to brand for all kinds of players, from original jazz cats like George Benson and fusion pioneers like Pat Metheny to acoustic renegades like Jon Gomm and Marcin and modern trailblazers like Nita Strauss and Yvette Young.

Steve Vai

Could Steve Vai be the most quintessential Ibanez player of them all?

After all, it was his first JEM signature in 1987 that inspired the RG series, which quickly became a bestseller for the company. And then just a few years later, his Universe signatures made history as the world’s first mass-produced seven-string electric.

More importantly, however, Vai ended up cementing his name as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, from his stints with Frank Zappa, Whitesnake, and David Lee Roth and game-changing solo records like Passion And Warfare, Real Illusions: Reflections, and his latest instrumental masterpiece, Inviolate.

Joe Satriani

How many guitarists can say they taught the likes of Steve Vai, Kirk Hammett, and Alex Skolnick? Joe Satriani is truly one of a kind in that sense, but more significantly, he took rock guitar to new heights with the double Grammy-nominated album, Surfing With The Alien, and continued to innovate on the releases that followed, most notably Flying In A Blue Dream and The Extremist.

The legato-loving legend has also been prolific as a collaborator, having conquered arenas as part of Mick Jagger’s band and Deep Purple, as well as starting the G3 supergroup alongside Steve Vai. More recently, he’s been busy working with ex-Van Halen members on the Best Of All Worlds tour.

Paul Gilbert

Alongside Vai and Satch, Paul Gilbert completes what many would consider to be ‘The Big Three’ of Ibanez shredders.

His work in Racer X and Mr. Big sets him apart as one of the most advanced minds to pick up a guitar, as well as one of the most ferocious alternate pickers the world has ever seen, fusing the neoclassical edge of Yngwie Malmsteen with the impromptu bluesiness of Edward Van Halen.

He’s had all kinds of Ibanez signatures through the years, from the PGM series to the Fireman models he’s usually seen with today, having designed the latter, reversed-body model himself.

Pat Metheny

Since the release of his debut album in 1975, Pat Metheny has continually proven himself to be one of the most revolutionary minds to ever work in jazz, cross-pollinating elements of the traditional with more worldly and experimental meditations.

He currently has two Ibanez signature models, the PM200 and PM3C, and his most famous works include Still Life (Talking), Letter From Home, and Bright Size Life.

As well as these sizeable contributions to the world of electric guitar, he’s also recorded unaccompanied acoustic albums like 2003’s One Quiet Night and last year’s MoonDial release, which saw him wielding a custom-built baritone guitar made by the luthier Linda Manzer.

Tim Henson and Scott LePage

The genre-smashing guitarists from Polyphia could very well be two of the most ground-breaking names in the company’s roster of signature artists, at least in terms of recent additions.

Their most recent album, 2022’s Remember That You Will Die, was voted as the best guitar album of that year by GW readers and was also notable for featuring fellow Ibanez endorsee Steve Vai on its mind-melting closing track, Ego Death.

By that point, both guitarists already had their own signature electrics, but what really got the industry talking was Henson’s TOD10N nylon-string electric, as prominently featured on the album’s lead single, Playing God.

Ichika Nito

As the very first Japanese guitarist to become an Ibanez signature artist, you could say Ichika Nito is making history for all the right reasons.

Much like Tim Henson and Scott LePage, his take on guitar is an incredibly contemporary one – combining the sounds of tech-metal with spanky and funky cleans while dazzling listeners with an array of legato and two-handed techniques.

He currently has two Ibanez models, the Talman-inspired ICHI00 and the headless Q Series-style ICHI10.

John Scofield

Having worked with everyone from Miles Davis and Charles Mingus to Herbie Hancock and Weather Report, John Scofield’s jazz credentials are as impressive as they come.

His most famous works include 1986’s Still Warm, 1994’s Hand Jive, and 1997’s A Go Go, as well as 1994’s I Can See Your House From Here – which saw him team up with fellow Ibanez signature artist Pat Metheny for an absolute tour-de-force of modern jazz. He’s also ventured into bluesier sonic pastures, having collaborated with John Mayer and Gov't Mule.

Josh Smith

Continually featured in lists of the best blues guitarists in the world today, it’s no wonder that Josh Smith ended up being recruited by Joe Bonamassa and has become a regular face in the blues giant’s backing band. The pair also work together regularly as producers, lending their expertise to fellow blues powerhouses like Eric Gales and Larry McCray.

The guitarist/singer currently has two T-style signatures, the FlATV1 and FlATV2, and is also highly regarded for his informative tutorials, some of which he has authored for this very publication.

Manuel Gardner Fernandes

As the driving force behind progressive metal band Unprocessed, German guitarist Manuel Gardner Fernandes is someone who knows how to blend the power of gargantuan riffs with blistering lead work.

Last year he was awarded his own signature guitar, the MGFM10 – a stunning headless model in Obsidian Black Low Gloss, boasting the same advanced switching system he uses to make his guitar go from apocalyptic roars to spanky cleans.

This year’s latest Unprocessed album, titled Angel, served as yet another firm reminder of his all-encompassing talents.

George Benson

Now at 82 years old, George Benson is one of the dyed-in-the-wool veterans of jazz guitar – a multiple Grammy-winning master who influenced the sound of an entire genre and ended up inspiring countless players that came after him.

Over the years, as well as releasing an extensive solo discography, he’s worked with mainstream greats such as Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin, and Frank Sinatra, making him one of the most prolific jazz artists of all time. He currently has six Ibanez signature models, all of them hollowbody designs.

Yvette Young

There’s a wonderfully abstract quality to Yvette Young’s sound – of course, there’s plenty of dexterity and technicality, but the real magic lies in the sheer amount of personality the Covet guitarist throws into every note she plays.

Part of this comes down to her alternate tunings, which she has often cited as a secret weapon for yielding interesting results, as well as her experimental approach to tone, but then there’s also her piano background – which has led to her unique sense of phrasing and ear for melody.

Marcin

Having just turned 25, it would be fair to say Polish wunderkind Marcin Patrzałek is spearheading a new generation of daredevil acoustic guitarists.

He rose to fame partly thanks to his viral videos that shocked listeners in how they were able to blur the lines between classical and contemporary music. This all led to the release of his first signature in 2022, the Ibanez MRC10, and a major label deal that started with last year’s debut full-length, Dragon In Harmony.

Nita Strauss

In 2018, Nita Strauss made history as the first woman to have her own Ibanez signature model, which she named the JIVA. It was certainly well-warranted, given her background playing in Alice Cooper’s band, as well as the all-female tribute band The Iron Maidens.

Since then she’s worked with pop sensation Demi Lovato and has also released two solo albums, the latter of which featured an array of high profile guest stars, including Marty Friedman, David Draiman, and Lzzy Hale.

Andy Timmons

When it comes to tasteful shredding, Andy Timmons is up there with the likes of gold-standard legends like Eric Johnson and Steve Lukather.

He knows how to impress people, but more importantly, he knows when to focus on the melody. Which is exactly why he’s worked with high profile names like Olivia Newton-John, Paula Abdul, and fellow Ibanez endorsee Paul Stanley.

He currently has three Strat-style Ibanez signatures, which come fitted with three DiMarzio humbuckers, including his own AT-1 pickup in the bridge.

Jon Gomm

English guitarist Jon Gomm became one of the early standouts in the modern percussive acoustic scene thanks to the 2011 track Passionflower going viral, which led to both national and international coverage.

In 2020, he announced he’d joined the Ibanez roster, and two years later he unveiled a pair of signature models – the JGM5 and the JGM10 – tailor-made for wanting to implement two-handed ideas based on open tunings, while also using the body of the guitar for drum beats.

Lari Basilio

Over the last decade or so, Brazilian virtuoso Lari Basilio has established herself as one of the most tasteful players of her generation – striking that perfect balance between technical wizardry, emotional phrasing, and an inimitable sense of feel.

Her Seymour Duncan-equipped LB1 signature was debuted in 2021, making her the third female signature artist for Ibanez, with the latest update being this year’s version in black.

Her latest album, Redemption, was also released earlier this year, with no shortage of dazzling fretwork and earworm melodies.

James ‘Munky’ Shaffer and Brian ‘Head’ Welch

Steve Vai may have helped invent the world’s first mass-produced electric seven-string with Ibanez, but it was Korn who took that extended range to new (or nu) metallic heights, inventing a whole subgenre in the process.

For guitarists Munky and Head, the extra low-end only intensified the heaviness and helped them reinvent guitar music in the mid-90s.

Head left Ibanez for ESP back in 2016 but made his official return to the fold earlier this year with the launch of the K7 series.

Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström

Much like Munky and Head from Korn, Meshuggah guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström were early adopters of the seven-string, as demonstrated on the 1995 tech-metal landmark, Destroy Erase Improve.

Other releases like Chaosphere, Nothing, and Obzen would also become hugely influential on the tech-metal scene, with bands like Animals As Leaders, Periphery, and Tesseract taking metric modulations and polyrhythmic concepts to new sonic horizons.

The Swedish pair would later move onto eight-strings, leading to signature models like the M8M, M80M, and FTM33.

Paul Stanley

It’s easy to think of Kiss as a Gibson band, given the kind of instruments usually seen in the hands of lead guitarists like Ace Frehley and Tommy Thayer.

Singer and rhythm guitarist Paul Stanley, however, has been using Ibanez guitars on and off since 1977 – most notably the company's Iceman offset – which led to the five signature models that currently bear his name, including the striking Cracked Mirror PS1CM.

Kiko Loureiro

There’s a golden rule for anyone who plays lead guitar in Megadeth – you have to be, without question, one of the best shredders on the planet.

Brazilian virtuoso Kiko Loureiro had already proven his merits in Angra and was a perfect fit for the thrash titans when he joined in 2015. He recorded two albums with the band, 2016’s Dystopia and 2022’s The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!, before announcing his departure in 2023.

He currently has three Ibanez signature models, all of which feature his custom DiMarzio pickups and a double-locking tremolo system.

Dexter Holland and Noodles

As the two guitar players in The Offspring, Dexter Holland and Noodles are well-known for dialing in tones that are guaranteed to cut through any mix.

The pair were at the very forefront of the 90s punk rock scene, with key albums like Smash and Ixnay On The Hombre setting them up for the mainstream success that followed with the 1998 bestseller Americana, which yielded hit singles like Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), Why Don’t You Get A Job?, and The Kids Aren’t Alright.

Holland sticks with ARZ and RG models while Noodles has had several signatures, the latest being 2020’s NDM5.

Daron Malakian

Joining Paul Stanley, Fredrik Thordendal, and Tom G. Warrior in our list of Iceman devotees, System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian is someone deeply connected to the striking offset shape.

“I went to Guitar Center, and I saw this Iceman sitting there, and I was like, ‘You know, that’s a guitar that not too many people use’,” he once explained.

The Armenian-American group became one of the biggest bands of their generation thanks to the world-conquering success of tracks like Chop Suey!, Toxicity, and Aerials.

Nili Brosh

Well-renowned for being one of the most versatile musicians in the Ibanez roster, Israeli-American shredder Nili Brosh has performed with Danny Elfman, Cirque Du Soleil, Dethklok, The Iron Maidens, and Tony MacAlpine – a list which perfectly demonstrates just how well-rounded her skillset is.

Her third solo album, titled Spectrum, was released in 2019 and her main guitars include an Ibanez LA Custom RG770 and a Desert Yellow RG550.

Jake Bowen

The sole Ibanez endorsee in Periphery’s trio of hotshot guitarists, Jake Bowen is also their longest-serving member after founder Misha Mansoor.

Over the course of seven full-length albums, they’ve become torchbearers for the modern tech-metal scene and in many ways typify the ‘djent’ wave of bands that arrived roughly 10 years after the new millennium.

He currently has three signature models: the JBM9999 and JBM10FX six-strings as well as the JBM27 seven-string.

Martin Miller

Martin Miller is a man of many talents. The German musician is a highly respected educator, with books and video courses to help rock guitarists expand into fusion.

He also writes, records, and tours original music, but his biggest calling card has been a series of live studio performances that find him enrolling guitar heroes old and new to cover hits of every kind. Hey Jude with Paul Gilbert, Kiss from a Rose with Lari Basilio, and Get Lucky with Kirk Fletcher are just three prominent examples.

He has a pair of Ibanez signatures to his name, the most recent being the MMN1, which was released in 2023.

What is it?

If you’re a metal guitarist, you probably listen to Meshuggah. Of all the heavy bands to reach global fame over the last three decades, these Swedish virtuosi are among the most influential.

Their unique, off-kilter style helped create the blueprint for many of the best-known metal acts of recent years, and the crushing, percussive, down-tuned guitar sound of Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström remains iconic among metal guitarists.

Can that really be boiled down into a pedal? Fortin Amplification reckon so – and since it's built the amps that Thordendal and Hagström have used since 2016, perhaps it has a better claim than anyone else.

The Meshuggah Preamp/Distortion, as the name suggests, is based on the preamp and gain structure of Meshuggah's amps – which were only released in very limited numbers, destined to be forever out of reach of most players. In theory, then, this is as close as it gets to their sound in pedal form.

Specs

• Price: $349/£349
• Type: Preamp/distortion pedal
• Controls: On/off footswitch, Green/Red channel select footswitch, Lo/Hi gain toggle switch, MVC master volume, Gain 1, Gain 2, Zuul noise gate, Bass, Middle, Treble
• Features: Two channels, four modes, built-in Zuul noise gate
• Connectivity: Guitar input, amp output
• Bypass: True
• Power: 9V, approx. 125mA (power supply only)
• Dimensions: 63x55x112 mm
• Weight: 330g/11.6oz
• Contact: Fortin Amps

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★★

That chunky price calls for build quality to match, and that is certainly the case - every pot, jack and switch feels unimpeachably solid. The stealthy black-on-black Meshuggah logo suggests this pedal means serious business.

The jacks are mounted on the top to suit tighter pedalboards, alongside the 9v input - due to the relatively high current draw, around 106mA, this is the only way to power the Meshuggah.

Usability

Usability rating: ★★★★☆

Fortin is no stranger to modified Marshall circuitry, and here - a bit like a Plexi with a jump-lead between channels - we have two gain controls. There are two foot-switchable ‘channels’ here, Red and Green, indicated by a nuclear-symbol jewel light. On the Green channel, only Gain 2 is operative. Gain 1 and 2 are cascaded on the Red channel.

Next is a master volume for overall output, and a three-band active EQ. Fortin makes a point of mentioning that these controls are heavily interactive – judicious tweaking may be required to hone in on a preferred setting.

By the master volume, we find a two-way mini switch toggling Hi and Lo modes, another feature adapted from the Meshuggah amp. Lo is voiced for ‘chimey’ vintage tones, while Hi, naturally, promises sonic devastation.

Finally, next to Gain 1, a small knob marked ‘Zuul’. For the uninitiated, this is the name of Fortin's noise gate, available as a pedal in its own right and already popular for metal.

Two footswitches (on/off, channel selection), on a single-sized pedal, puts space at a premium - there's a danger of stomping the wrong switch in the heat of a live set. But it's possible that the Meshuggah will be a studio weapon for many buyers, so this mightn't be such a limitation.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

Fortin suggests running directly into the effects return of an amp for the best results, so I plugged into the back of my Laney VH100R - a British-voiced amp running four EL34s.

That active EQ is monstrously powerful, the Treble control so potent that some users will want to dial it back almost to nil. This isn't dissimilar to dialling in a classic Marshall though - you must set it with your ears, not your eyes. There's gigantic volume on tap too, unity being only around 9 o'clock on the pedal's volume control.

Right across its huge gain range, things stay characteristically defined and clear. Though Fortin mentions vintage sounds, and there’s some bright, Plexi-esque punch to be had in Lo mode, one suspects that such things won't be a priority for many users.

Flicking to Hi mode, I'm greeted with album-ready metal tones. Even the Green channel, with its lower gain ceiling, is utterly vicious. With the EQ perfected, and both Gain 2 and Zuul controls up high, there's instantaneous, violent punch from humbuckers and scalpel-like attack from single-coils. My drop C-tuned Blackmachine B6 mightn't have met another high-gain pedal that suited it so well. In between notes… nothing. Dead silence. That gate is extraordinary.

Metal guitar sounds aren't always about having the most gain, especially if you tune low - and there still aren't many lower-tuned bands than Meshuggah. With its lightning-fast attack and powerful EQ, the Hi-mode Green channel of the Fortin would suit any seven/eight-stringer seeking optimal clarity and aggression.

The Red channel is smoother, the second cascaded gain control allowing for more saturation. It retains tightness and power – and that gate is no less effective. Metalcore and extreme metal guitarists should want for nothing here.

If anything, this is the more versatile and adjustable of the two channels, although the glorious snarl of the high-gain Green channel is so compelling I keep returning again and again.

Verdict

The Meshuggah isn't a cheap guitar pedal, but really – this kind of quality, in both development and build, isn't cheap. This is a flexible, feature-rich pedal – not another conventional distortion, a true preamp unit with an enormous range of gain and adjustment.

Despite its other potential uses though, its core brief is clear. It excels, positively stuns, at summoning the tight, immediate and percussive guitar tones of modern metal.

Guitar World verdict: There's little access to the unobtainium amp that inspired it, so it’s difficult to know exactly how close Fortin have managed to come to replicating it in a pedal. But on its own merits, the Meshuggah Preamp/Distortion is a job very well done.

Also try

Hands-on videos

Fortin Amps

Ola Englund

Tone Wars

• Best distortion pedals for metal 2025: standalone and stacked gain stages, plus 'amps in a box'

Godfathers of djent and stank face riffs Meshuggah have teamed up with Fortin Amps for a namesake signature pre-amp and distortion pedal for “unrelenting and aggressive tones” aplenty.

Crafted in collaboration with Meshuggah’s guitarists Fredrik Thorendal and Mårten Hagström, and Mike Fortin, the Meshuggah pedal “embodies the raw power and precision of one of metal's most legendary bands,” bringing all the fun of the band’s signature Fortin amp into a more compact format.

Fine-tuned controls are designed to tighten heavy guitars and blend precision with chaos, delivering extra excitement and grit to a player’s guitar tone.

A three-band EQ with active circuitry helps manipulate two built-in channels which follow the same gain structure as the band's well-loved signature amp. That means the EQ adds desired frequencies rather than simply eliminating the undesirables.

Fortin's Zuul noise gate, a key part of Meshuggah's calculated ferocity, is also present to stop things getting out of hand, and there's Lo/Hi mini-switch “to take the pedal from classic rock to a fire-breathing high-gain monster”.

This is especially useful when switching between uses, with the pedal serving pre-amp, signal boosting benefits, and more hairy, face-to-the-concrete power in equal measure.

At the bottom of the pedal are two footswitches, for switching between its two channels and a standard on/off switch.

There's also a glowing nuclear symbol slap bang in the middle, which is either a neat aesthetic touch or proof of how radioactive this small but beastly pedal is.

“Imagine the roaring intensity of Meshuggah’s live performances echoing through your rig,” Fortin commands. “Layer your riffs with complex harmonic excitement and dive into a world where your guitar can express the chaos and beauty that metal embodies, and take your tone to unprecedented heights.”

Music Man signature artist Rabea Massaad is clearly excited by Fortin's latest drop. He's reacted to the firm's Instagram post with “Oh shiiiiiit”.

Built in the US, the pedal rocks true bypass, a standard 9V power supply for easy pedalboard inclusion, and a one-year warranty for all players.

Speaking in his demo of the pedal, Ola Englund says: “It's got the Meshuggah amp growl of the real amplifier, and I love how simple it is.”

The Fortin Meshuggah Pre-Amp - Distortion pedal is available to order for $349 and ships worldwide.

Head to Fortin Amps to get yer djent on.

Born in 1970 in Umeå Sweden, Fredrik Thordendal formed Metallien, the band that would become Meshuggah in 1985.

Initially influenced by Metallica, the band evolved its sound by experimenting with rhythmic phrasing, incorporating concepts similar to King Crimson and Tool to create a a brand of progressive metal riffing which later became synonymous with the word ‘djent’.

Most of the musicians associated with the ‘D word’ however distance themselves from the term. Fredrik’s lead playing adds an extra dimension to Meshuggah’s music. It is heavily influenced by Allan Holdsworth, with fusion inspired legato and tapping lines and angular tapped flurries of notes.

Although Meshuggah music is typically played on seven and eight-string guitars, for the purposes of this lesson a standard tuned six-string is all you need. We will look at riffing and lead techniques employed by Fredrik and, as with most Meshuggah music, all of the examples can be rhythmically understood in two ways.

Technically everything is in 4/4, but the bars can be divided into odd numbered groupings which syncopate against the backbeat and patterns repeat across multiple measures.

It’s well worth taking the time to understand the basic arithmetic of each example in order to aid memorisation. The concept is that there are 16 16th notes per bar and our examples are three bars in length, giving us 48 notes to play with. These 48 notes can be divided into odd numbered patters, essentially ignoring the bar lines.

Our first example divides the 16th notes into threes, fives and sevens, with the added ingredient of starting each group with two 32nd notes for a more Thordendal style approach. Although this makes the riff more challenging to follow, gluing it all together is a solid 4/4 backbeat on the cymbals and snare, allowing the audience to nod their heads to this hypnotic style of metal.

Our challenge is to keep track of the odd groupings, while simultaneously staying in time with the 4/4 bars. Example 2 is a legato lick with alternating seven and five-note groups with each group played on a new string, so the pattern should be relatively easy to execute.

Fredrik’s note choice usually derives from symmetrical diminished scales such as half-whole (1-2-b3-4-b5-#5-6-7), or whole-half (1-2-b3-4-b5-#5-6-b7), but these are just starting points. Fredrik also adds chromatic intervals outside of these scales for more angular and atonal effects. As the backing riffs are usually single notes or static powerchords, this leaves the tonality door wide open for any intervallic experiments.

Example 3 is a single-string tapping lick phrased in fives, while example 4’s tapping lick is phrased in threes on multiple strings. Fredrik often uses his fretting hand to repeat notes while the tapping hand explores various intervals on different strings. To finish, example 5 expands on this concept using five-note phrases across the strings.

Play each example slowly, counting the odd groupings, before practising feeling the licks across a 4/4 backbeat, before playing up to speed along with the backing tracks.

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 8, Bass 3, Middle 5, Treble

Fredrik uses his signature Ibanez eight-string guitar with Lundgren M8 pickups providing the punch for the down-tuned riffs and legato soloing. Frerdrik’s amp is built by Fortin Amplification, but any modern high-gain tone should give you the sustain required for the examples, and you could add a chorus pedal and delay to give a more ‘fusion’ tone for the lead examples.

Example 1

Use the side of your picking hand to palm mute the strings at the bridge and play the 32nd and 16th-note subdivisions with alternate picking throughout.

The three bars are split into rhythmic subgroups which you can think of as four groups of three, three groups of five, and three groups of seven.

Example 2

This legato lick is based in B whole-half diminished scale (B-C#-D-E-F-G-G#-A#). Use hammer-ons, pull-offs and light picking to play through the notes evenly. Each string alternates between seven and five-note phrases played through straight 16th-note phrasing.

Example 3

This lick is based on a repeating five-note phrase comprising one tapped note and four legato notes. Across the three bars, Play the five-note phrasing nine times with a three-note phrase to finish. The key is to keep the 16th-note phrasing even throughout, even though the phrases always repeat on different off-beats.

Example 4

Use your fretting hand to hammer-on, pull-off and fretting-hand tap between the 9th and 10th frets. Between these two notes tap at the 15th and 16th frets to create groups of three 16th notes which repeat across the three bars. All being well there should be a total of 16 tapped notes across the three bars.

Example 5

This lick expands on the same techniques used in Ex 4 but this time uses a repeating five-note pattern played across the 16th-note phrasing. As you tap with the fretting and picking hands, keep your fingers light on the strings to enable the notes to flow smoothly.

Thall is one of metal’s newest, darkest and most inventive movements. From Sleep Token and Spiritbox to Animals As Leaders – check out Red Miso for a savage centerpiece – the sound is now spreading into mainstream metal.

It’s full of weird tunings, robotic techniques and a dichotomy between crushing distortions and frosted clean tones. But what are the mechanics at the heart of this fast-rising sound?

What is thall?

Vildhjarta guitarist Calle Thomér describes thall as “djent’s colder younger brother.” Both movements grew out of a love for Meshuggah, with thall emphasizing evil atmospherics and a wider, more nuanced sonic spectrum.

There are two core components to the sound: melancholic cleans and winding, seemingly random riffs that meld together neck-breaking chugs with swarms of intricate hooks and banshee-esque noises.

Like djent, it builds on easy-to-follow 4/4 drum beats – typically at spacious slower tempos – with riffs placed over the top that are anything but. They’re overloaded with quick-fire motifs and bursts of melody that will repeat in different ways, broken up by laser-tight syncopation for an angular but memorable aural assault.

Origins of thall

Alongside Meshuggah’s influence, Korn’s penchant for high-low riffs is a core impactor, with both sounds mutated into Vildhjarta’s debut album, Måsstaden.

Founding guitarist Daniel Bergström and 15-year veteran Thomér wanted to oppose djent’s poppier elements by crafting a more nightmarish world while playing discordant high notes against low-tuned aggression.

Importantly, they retained the spasmodic grooves and chugging violence of djent as core ingredients, which is why the two movements will forever be intertwined.

Who are the biggest thall bands?

Vildhjarta are thall’s forefathers, and still its biggest band. They take the machine-like riffs of Meshuggah but add greater intricacies into their grooves. There’s also an extra coldness via ambient clean guitars that sound like cutting winds in a graveyard – a quirk most thall bands draw from. Those elements have continued to evolve with their later releases.

Humanity’s Last Breath (HLB), the brainchild of Buster Odeholm, blends thall’s slow-motion violence with deathcore’s viscerality. With an emphasis on polyrhythms, gut-wrenchingly low guitars, and acres of space for their heavy emotions to weigh the listener down, they deliver brutal walls of sound on every song.

Nebraska’s Catsclaw are making waves with frenetic, almost-hardcore energy icing their thall contructions. Finland’s Indistinct and Wisconsin guitarist Olympus Lenticular offer accessible takes on the sound, while Mirar lurks on thall’s darkest, most extreme fringes.

Creepy Cleans

There’s an element of horror tropes to thall; when creepy cleans chime in, you know something far more gruesome is just around the corner.

Thomér says these riffs, typically arriving with other instrumentation, create a spacious but threatening ambiance that accounts for “more than 50% of the sound. The parts are minimal; it's letting the delay do the work rather than picking lots of notes.”

In terms of tones, he adds that you “just need a clean signal with a little reverb and delay. It's more in the actual notes and how it's played than the gear. And just go straight for feel, rather than melody.” Although, stealing a trick from Tesseract, removing the cab sim when using plugins or modelers can make those clean tones even more chilling.

Thall riffs

After cleans have set the mood, it’s time to get heavy. Importantly, those cold cleans typically continue underneath the riffs – another reason to focus on minimalism and feel.

Thomér explains: “What I do is put down a 4/4 drumbeat and riff until I can hear a cool hook, and start progressing with that idea. I always think my riffs suck in the beginning, so I have to keep on polishing them – that’s how I end up with tonnes of intricacies.”

Writing thall riffs is a meticulous process that taps into the benefits of bedroom recording over jamming in a room with other musicians. It’s less about nailing full takes as it is piecing motifs and disgusting noises together – pick scrapes, whammy pedal squeals and harmonics.

As Thomér says, “It’s like building a puzzle more than writing a riff. You can’t really write this kind of music in the studio. You have to do it at home. I can’t remember the last time I recorded a take that was longer than two or three bars.”

Low and slow 

With thall bands usually down-tuning to disgusting depths, Youtuber and guitarist Nik Nocturnal feels slowing pace is a necessity.

“The lower the tuning, the more groove is involved – the faster you play, the muddier it gets,” he says. “So everything should be more spacious. And all that space combined with modern production elements, and the intricacies of the riffs, are what makes it so heavy.”

That cavernous space, he adds, allows for the drums to be extra weird, playing against the riffs.

“Vildhjarta’s drums kind of go against the groove – it’s wild. That realm is very technical, but it has this extra level of heaviness because of how things are rhythmically accented with the guitars. It sounds futuristic.”

Robotic tightness

Like in djent, Thomér stresses that “tightness is extremely important.” He continues: “I do so many retakes when tracking it’s ridiculous. I double-track my guitars with the same tone left and right. I want it to be so tight it sounds like mono.”

That quest for tightness is also why you won’t see Thomér using vibrato. He believes that stripping what is a very personable technique from his music helps glaze his riffs with an extra coldness. “I try to mimic robots playing guitar,” he says. “it’s supposed to sound like a machine.”

High notes

“Going from really low notes to really high notes is like a breath of fresh air,” Thomér believes, emphasizing his band’s desire to use “the full spectrum of notes.” These higher parts are typically played across two strings, with the notes a semitone apart.

HLB tune those strings a semitone apart to make fretting the diads easier. They’re essential to the coldness of thall – see Mirar's Dégenèse for a seismic example of those opposites in action.

Extending the fretboard 

Thomér says he “thinks horizontally instead of vertically, so 90% of the time I’m using the two thickest strings. I like the timbre of them, especially high up on the neck. When you pick the 24th fret on the lowest string and bend it, that can be a really satisfying sound.”

That’s led to Thomér collaborating with Arizona’s EIR guitars on a custom 28” baritone six-string with 27 frets. For Thomér, “those extra three frets changed how I write music. I utilize them in almost every riff I write.”

An extension of the horizontal outlook sees him thoroughly abusing the pitch-shifting abilities of his DigiTech Whammy DT. It opens up more of the fretboard, avoiding the need to play a higher note on a thinner string, and extending the lower range of the guitar.

The feature may only be used for one or two notes at a time, so MIDI automation is a key assistant here.

Tunings

Having used seven and eight strings previously, Vildhjarta have been utilizing baritones more recently, as “they're easier to play” and are typically tuned to E1-C2-F2-A#2-D#2-G#3 – a standard tuning, save the lowest string dropping one-and-a-half tones.

HLB’s main tuning – E1-B1-E2-A2-Ab3-A3 – is a take on another standard, albeit an octave lower. The thickest two strings provide drop-tuned fretting, while the higher strings are all about ease of dissonance. Everything in between is tuned a standard fifth, apart from the next string, so it’s not a world away from familiar tunings.

Odenholm is left-handed but plays a right-handed guitar strung upside down, so the thickest strings are at the bottom. His downstrokes therefore equate to upstrokes for most players, so when he rakes chords the last note to sound is the dominant.

Tones

Vildhjarata remains loyal to Line 6's Pod XT modeler and its Big Bottom amp mode, which was the sound of their favorite Meshuggah record, Catch 33. Their guitars naturally offer a lot of low-end and high mids, so they seek to EQ out some of the harsher scratchy sounds. They’ll use a boost pedal to push the mids further accentuating the clickiness of the tone.

Their gain usually just sneaks past the halfway point, with the bass rolled off, the mids and trebles cranked, and presence at midrange. A compressor is typically set to offer a slow attack and fast release.

Odenholm also has several presets on Neural DSP’s Fortin Nameless Suite plugin, which are paired with PODs on HLB records.

Pickups

Lundgren pickups – popularized by Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal – may be too sterile for some, but for they’re perfect for thall. That’s why you’ll see Thomér’s beastly baritone, Odeholm’s Hapas Judge 628 HLB ET and Bergström’s Ibanez Prestige RG1077XL loaded with M6s and M7s respectively.

As with djent, though, expensive gear isn’t crucial. Thall is a sonic mindset where skin-tingling cleans and growling but hook-filled riffs reign supreme. By embodying the chilling spirit of the movement, players can make even a child’s guitar thall hard as hell.

When Taylor Swift wrapped up the US leg of her Eras tour in Los Angeles last year, she received a mammoth eight-minute standing ovation. Metalheads, however, have a rather different way of showing their appreciation. Conjuring a stank face with riff is something Spiritbox’s Mike Stringer says “can be one of the highest forms of praise.” 

You know the expression: all contorted like you’ve just popped the world’s most sour piece of candy in your mouth. It’s a phenomenon seemingly exclusive to the metal genre and its nastiest riffs. But why do we react in such a way, and what are the secrets to creating that reaction?

The science of stank face

According to British music academic Milton Mermikides, there’s scientific reasoning behind a response which, in other styles of music, may convey the complete opposite meaning. 

“Stank face is perhaps just a modern term for a long-documented musical experience which falls somewhere between deep visceral pleasure and a sort of physical engagement, irritation or even repulsion – an ecstatic ‘pleasurable pain,’” he says.

“It relies on music’s unique ability to trigger a host of physical and emotional responses in the listener. These include our response to dissonance, such as the roughness of a sound – a scrunchy chord, an angular melody or a syncopated rhythm. 

“When coupled with the dopamine release from satisfying predictions and bodily engagement, these can produce ‘cross-modal’ responses. It’s as if the music is so rich, flavoursome and satisfying it bleeds into our other senses. Not only do we hear it, we can almost taste and smell it – hence the characteristic facial and bodily responses.” 

Non-verbal communication

For Periphery’s trio of guitarists Misha Mansoor, Mark Holcomb and Jake Bowen, it’s also a form of communication. “Sometime it just takes a few seconds of hearing a riff and the face appears; no words need to be said,” Holcomb says. “In the writing room, stank faces are the nexus of our language because they’re non-verbal.”

“It’s like a reflex,” Mansoor adds. “It’s one of those things that you react to and then you think about.” Importantly too, it’s a way of communicating appreciation – a primal, unconscious reaction and an honor bestowed upon only the best riffs.   

“I remember Plini and Tosin Abasi coming over to hear a demo of Wildfire,” Holcomb says. “It was when that second riff comes in; I remember looking at their faces to see how they honestly felt about the music. When you get that stank face reaction from someone you respect, as silly as it sounds, it holds a lot of weight.” 

Hooks

As filthy as stank face riffs need to be to twist a listener’s face, the value of a hook shouldn’t be overlooked.

“Hooks contribute to heaviness in a way that people don’t expect,” says YouTuber and guitarist Nik Nocturnal, who’s learnt a hell of a lot from his Heaviest Riffs video series. “Take a band as extreme as Knocked Loose; people will listen to those riffs and think it's just 2-3-1-0 with dissonant notes.

“They don’t realize that even though it sounds so caveman, it’s still a hook. Everything is chromatic and dissonant, but it’s a rhythmic hook that gets stuck in your brain.”

Mike Stringer echoes that sentiment. “It’s obviously all situational, but you’re usually playing off of a melody,” he says. “I think if you can have the listener hum along to the riff, and have it stick in their head, you’ve done a great job. It might be metal, but it still has to have a hook. You have to give the listener something to grab onto.

“The riff is the foundation of the song, and grooves and hooks are what give it life, so having those memorable groovy riffs is one of the most important parts of writing a metal song in 2024.”  

Simplicity vs. complexity 

Holcomb says rule number one is that “stank face riffs can’t be too notey. It needs to have a Neanderthal element to work.” 

Enterprise Earth’s disgusting riff machine Gabe Mangold agrees with the caveman argument: “Stank face is a feeling; it’s not a tangible thing – it has to induce some sort of primal feeling within you. The way the tone of your guitar is coming out of your hands is very important. If you’re palm muting, you need to be hitting the strings in a certain way; the low end needs to be blooming.”

Stringer adds: “It all comes down to what the overall goal of that song is. When I was younger I used to be very concerned if a song I wrote was too easy to play. I’d try to cram as many notes in as I could – that’s not rational thinking. If a filmmaker utilizes a ton of CGI, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be better than the slow-zoom Stanley Kubrick shot. We’ve all seen The Hobbit!”  

For Leprous’ eight-string Aristides-wielding guitarist Tor Oddmund Suhrke, streamlined writing needs to be combined with “a little X factor that makes it stand out – like a long slide, a slow bend or some dissonance which helps give you that physical reaction to the sound waves.”

He continues: “It can definitely send shivers down my spine, but not in an uncomfortable nails-on-a-chalkboard way. It can add a good kind of filthy in an otherwise technical and tidy soundscape.”

Nocturnal says: “It’s all about how you deliver those riffs and finding that balance of rhythm and melody. Take Bleed by Meshuggah – it’s one note, but it’s one of the chunkiest, hookiest riffs in the whole world.

“Generally, the more notes or rhythms, the harder it is to control. But if you can control the chaos in either direction and find a balance, you can make the heaviest music in the world and it’ll throw down.”

Does tuning low guarantee heaviness?

Both Stringer and Nocturnal are eager to point out that, contrary to the belief of some, drop tuning a riff isn’t a cheat code for guaranteeing heaviness. 

“If you rely on down tuning for impact every time, you’re going to have a bad time,” says Stringer, believing that it’s a technique to be used “sparingly.”  

Nocturnal adopts a more technical outlook: “The lower you go, the more frequency ranges you’re exploring. Keys are all relative – it doesn’t matter if a song is in drop C or B; it’s more how the frequency ranges change when chugging that low string, and people’s preferences to those ranges.” 

Context

The bigger picture is important, too. This includes a song’s structure, production, and how other instruments play off of a riff. 

“It’s something I’ve noticed doing so many videos,” says Nocturnal. “I’ll isolate a riff and sometimes I’ll be like, ‘That’s not really a heavy riff.’ People have the misconception that it's just the guitar that contributes to the heaviness, but the drums, vocals, and production are just as important.

“With Mick Gordon’s Rip and Tear, it’s the pumping drums and the synths going wild that makes it demon slaying music. Otherwise, it’s just a cool riff.”

Leprous are lucky to have one of the world’s best modern metal drummers in their ranks in Baard Kolstad, who has “a very important role when it comes to stank face reactions from the audience,” says Suhrke.

“It’s good to have a versatile drummer who can handle so many different grooves, because if you play the stanky stuff all the time it loses effect,” he adds. “It’s important to relieve that feeling. It’s like candy; it’s always best if you’ve had to wait a while for it – if it’s there all the time it gets boring.”

Mansoor says: “If you’re trying to craft a stank face you wanna build into it. It’s more about the section that leads into it and what choices you make at the end of that – does it have a cool fill or a stop so that when it hits, it really hits?”

 “It all depends on the canvas,” Stringer believes. “Ambience and bringing back overall themes can really push a heavy part. If I’m writing something with a recurring melodic theme, I know I can usually bring that over the heavy part and use what was a melodic theme as dissonance.

“I also love experimenting with samples and synth layering, sending them through pedals to get unique results and putting it overtop of riffs. That can bring some very cool results.”

As Suhrke points out, sometimes it can be a case of saving your stank face trump card until the very last moment. 

“The ending of The Sky is Red – which I feel is maybe one of our creepiest sections – hasn’t been hinted at earlier in the song,” he says.

“So when it comes, it gives me a very visual thought of something creepy unknown rising, starting with that small sound which then builds and builds to a very epic structure.”

Of course, there isn’t a failsafe trick to create a stank face-inducing riff every time, and that’s part of the magic of it. Music is relative – there are some people who unironically love St. Anger. But one important thing to take away is that stank face riffs can come in all shapes and sizes. 

Says Nocturnal: “We live in a world where Knocked Loose, Vildhjarta and Sylosis can all write the heaviest parts, and they all come from very different worlds of metal and play in very different tunings. It’s fair game.”

Google ‘djent’ and you’ll be hit with over 2.5 million search results. On Instagram, #djent has been used well over one billion times. So, with players pushing the boundaries of the style of guitar playing for nearly two decades, it’s safe to say that djent isn’t a passing fad.

From its origins with metal titans Meshuggah to its influence on contemporary, world-conquering acts like Sleep Token and beyond, the style’s impact on the guitar has been monumental.

So what exactly is djent? Where did it crawl out from, what makes something ‘djent’, who are its main players and what are the techniques driving one of modern metal’s most influential sub-genres? Here, with the help of some of the genre’s key players, we’ll reveal all.

What is djent?

Djent is an onomatopoeic term first coined by Meshuggah guitarist Fredrik Thordendal as a way to describe his guitar tone. Rumour has it that a few alcoholic beverages had been consumed.

“In particular, it describes the sound of a power chord with an extra fifth stacked on top,” Tesseract guitarist Acle Kahney explains. “The extra fifth is the ‘-nt’ of the djent sound. It’s adding that metallic sound when played with a tight low-end.”

Djent bands can be characterised by their watertight, high-gain guitar tones and often heavily palm-muted, odd time signature riffs which snarl over 4/4 drum beats. This particular approach creates weirdly grooving polymeters that make riffs both angular and accessible.

Where did djent come from?

Djent quickly evolved into a term to categorize the bands who draw heavily upon Meshuggah’s unique sonic template. These bands cut their teeth in online fan forums in the mid-‘00s, where guitarists like Kahney, Misha Mansoor (Periphery) and Paul Ortiz (Chimp Spanner) gushed over the Swedes’ guitar tones, traded tips for emulating those sounds and shared their own djenty jams.

“It was tone-chasing for people who couldn’t afford real amps and nice microphones,” says Kahney.

Mansoor adds: “Guitar nerds love to pursue tones and understand how people do things with commonly available gear. It was this kind of beautiful mystery. Everyone had their own way of trying to get that sound, so it evolved in different ways.”

Production gear was becoming affordable, too. The emergence of Line 6’s quirky kidney-bean shaped POD floor modeller and DAWs for the everyman were game-changers. Suddenly, your bedroom became a studio – which was vital to djent’s budget-stricken development.

Who are the biggest djent bands? 

Despite not classing themselves as djent band, Meshuggah are the movement’s undisputed forefathers. Atop Tomas Haake’s relentless drum grooves, the band’s penchant for crunching machinery guitar riffs, disorientating dissonance and Allan Holdsworth-indebted leads has helped inspire a flood of idolizing bands.

Tesseract can be viewed as a purist djent band, with polymetric riffs, glassy clean tones and Daniel Tompkins’ skyscraping clean vocal hooks sticking closely to the stylistic template born from those forums.

Self-identifying as a prog metal band, Periphery’s sonic soup is a little more widescreen. They weave in dizzying fretboard runs alongside jazz, electronic and orchestral elements into their tapestry of dislocated riffs and searing solos.

Chimp Spanner’s acrobatic instrumentals, SikTh’s maniacal chaos and After the Burial’s deathcore grunt are all fine examples of early djent.

Monuments, meanwhile, blend metalcore elements into their tight rhythmic attack. Animals as Leaders are the genre’s most successful instrumental band; Tosin Abasi colors their near-algorithmic rhythms with innovative techniques, including thumping and the rainfall-like tonality of selective picking, often via surprisingly low-gain tones.

Honorable mentions also go to The Contortionist, whose 2014 album Language is adored by the djent community; and Car Bomb’s noise-ravaged ‘stuck in a washing machine with a bag of gravel’ aesthetic.

So… is djent a genre?

It’s a discussion that’s raged on since the movement started gaining traction. The debate was immortalized in the title of Periphery’s tongue-in-cheek fifth album, Djent Is Not a Genre – but Mansoor is actually a little more pragmatic.

“Genres are usually named by the fans,” he says. “Like it or not, this style of music is called ‘djent’ and we've retroactively been named a djent band. It doesn’t bother us. If it helps you find us and other bands, then it’s doing its job.”

What are djent guitar techniques?

A strong picking hand is paramount – huge emphasis is placed on both rhythmic accuracy and tightness of sound. As Mansoor says: “You’re going to be obsessing over stamina, how you hold your pick, and how you extract the most out of your palm muting.”

While stamina will naturally come over time – it’s good to practice fast, intricate picking patterns like Meshuggah’s Bleed to build up muscle memory and hone your skills – palm-muting is equally as important.

Djent rhythms are made up of extremes; when a note is played it should be hard and aggressive, but when a note is not being played, there should be no bleeding out. Think of it like a strobe light; it is either on or off, never somewhere in between.

A lot of this is trial and error. Try adjusting how you hold your pick, the angle at which you hit the strings and where on your instrument your hand rests. Periphery’s Jake Bowen notes: “A big part of it is understanding how your playing interacts with these inanimate objects.

“I spent a lot of time with very specific pickups and string gauges to learn how it feels in my hands. Connecting with your instrument is what’s gonna push your playing over the edge.”

However, the value of the left hand should also not be overlooked. Mansoor calls it “an underrated aspect,” explaining: “It helps you get the rhythm out of a lot of those tight parts. You don’t want it be too robotic – it’s like you're playing drums on guitar, and the left hand can almost be your ghost notes.”

“If you’re low on the learning curve,” Periphery’s Mark Holcomb adds, “focus on creating silence with as little elements as possible in a high-gain context, like noise gates. Once you can perfect that, the rest comes very naturally.”

In terms of solos, there are no hard-and-fast rules except: serve the song. Tesseract prioritize texture, while Periphery aim to recreate that scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark with theirs. The choice is yours.

Polymeters 

Polymeters are when two instruments play different time signatures at the same time. The drums typically hold down a 4/4 beat, while the guitars play an odd time riff. It keeps the prog element grounded.

Kahney calls them “typewriter riffs.” He says: “You have the pattern, and then, ding! Like a typewriter, it goes back to the start.” But he emphasises that players shouldn’t overthink them.

Speaking to Total Guitar in early 2024, Kahney said players wanting to master djent should “throw traditional looping out the window, learn a phrase or pattern and learn to feel it.”

The rule of thumb is that the guitars will play in a certain set of subdivisions and loop for four or eight bars, creating a nice tidy full measure. The last loop of guitars will either cut short or extend to fit nicely into the 4/4 loop.

To number-crunch: there are 32 eighth notes in four bars of 4/4. Therefore a guitar riff in 7/8 can repeat four times, leaving a spare four eighth notes to ‘finish off’ a riff and sync back up with the drums after 32 notes.

For an easy listening exercise, check out the intro to Tesseract’s Lament and try to count or feel where the phrase loops. It’s just a little shorter than a full bar of 4/4, with a very clear slide down marking its end.

Once you recognize that loop, listen to how there’s a push-and-pull with the drum beat beneath it. The drums will remain solid, while the beat on which the one-count of loop lands will change. The push-and-pull effect is quintessential to the djent groove.

Which guitars djent best? 

Of course, it’s a matter of preference – but extended range guitars are a common weapon of choice. This is because players can benefit from a lower note range without compromising the high end, which is needed for solos and atmospherics.

When starting out, Mansoor had to order a custom seven string from “a luthier that didn’t think I was insane,” while Bowen sourced his from a “really faraway musical swap meet.” Thankfully, djent has helped popularize these instruments, hugely increasing their availability and affordability.

That being said, many djent bands still play six string guitars. Periphery’s Marigold and Scarlet are in Drop C. A number of songs like Prayer Position and The Bad Thing also employ an A G C F A D tuning, which is essentially a seven string tuning down a whole step, with the sixth string missing.

Lowness isn’t everything, though. The main riff of Bleed is a D#, half a step down from a standard sixth string. With the tightness of the attack so important, it’s essential to play a guitar that’s comfortable. You can make anything djent with the right attitude.

How do you get a djent guitar tone?

There are two key tone types in djent: rhythms and cleans. In both instances, amp modelers have proven to be far better suited than tube amps.

With clean tones, a key trick is removing the cab sim on an amp modeller. Acle Kahney first did it by accident with his POD XT, and ended up loving its “thinner, more piano-y” tonality. The sound became known as the Milton Keynes Clean, in honor of his UK hometown.

To build a clean tone like this from scratch, Kahney recommends a Fender or Roland JC120-style clean amp, minus the cab sim. Then, control the compression and EQ to cut out some of the pick attack. Reverbs and delays can be added as per your preference and help give the tone sparkle and depth.

Rhythm tones 

With rhythm tones, it’s all about high-gains without damaging tightness. Luckily, you don’t need a crazy budget to achieve this. Says Kahney: “Even with a cheap EQ pedal, if you crank the volume and cut the lows, you’ll get a fairly tight, Meshuggah-y sound.

“You’re altering the tone of the pickup before it hits the amp – getting rid of all that sludge. If it sounds too thin, you can always crank the bass up on the amp.”

It’s important not to suffocate your tone, though. Periphery’s live rig involves settings of varying tightness which allow the tone to breathe and bloom where it’s needed, only squeezing it when necessary. This can sometimes kick in mid-riff and comes via different EQ variations of the same rhythm tone.

Guitar tricks

Setting up your guitar the right way can help find that Holy Grail of tightness. Tesseract use humbuckers with split coils and are constantly jumping between different positions during songs. Experiment with your guitar to find what works best for you.

“I’ll use the neck pickup on split coil a lot,” Kahney explains. “It can give you a much twangier sound. Then I’ll EQ some of the harshness of the single coil sound out.”

String gauges and scale length also play their part, too. Longer scale-length or baritone guitars allow for thinner strings without sacrificing tuning stability, which again emphasizes the twang of the instrument.

The empowering thing about djent is that it was born from musicians trying to achieve tight, high-gain sounds on budget equipment – and succeeding. That means you don’t have to break the bank to sculpt the perfect tone. So grab whatever you have to hand, and get creative...

Released in 1995 on Meshuggah's Destroy Erase Improve album, Future Breed Machine's 172 BPM maze of nightmarish polymetric riffs and over-the-bar-line figures is so maniacally complex, it can leave the most sophisticated listener wondering, “What the hell just happened?”

The syncopations are occasionally so severe that the track sounds like it's skipping uncontrollably, but the execution is eerily flawless. The most common reaction is simply, “How is that even possible?”

The possibility began in Umea, Sweden, back in 1988. Original Meshuggah bassist Peter Nordin (who was with the band until 1995) connected with singer Jens Kidman, guitarist Fredrik Thordendal, and drummer Tomas Haake to form the lineup that eventually recorded Future Breed Machine.

They met at a progressive local ‘pop music school’ and began experimenting. “Riffs that wandered in 4/4 and then got back to the original location fascinated us,” Peter Nordin told Bass Player. “We started with pretty simple stuff and then got used to that kind of thinking.”

“We rehearsed three nights a week, plus weekends. And when we created a riff that had a wandering rhythm in 4/4, and someone had trouble understanding it, we slowed down the tempo and rehearsed it until all of us got the right feel for it. We were totally committed.”

Nordin cites Allan Holdsworth, Steve Vai, John Scofield, and Stanley Clarke as influences that, when mixed with early Metallica, created the unique Meshuggah compositional sound. 

The first pattern of Future Breed Machine requires 17 16th-notes to complete (you'll also need a 5-string bass guitar tuned down a half-step). It occurs three times and then realigns with the 4/4 meter near the end of the fourth repetition. The devilishly tricky riff could be considered as consecutive bars of 5/16, 5/16, and 7/16, but that wasn't how Meshuggah saw it. 

“Some say our music has polyrhythm, but we never do. It’s simply 4/4.” Nordin went on to explain that if they'd wanted to play it ‘straight,’ they would have cut off the final 16th-note, thereby creating an accented 4/4 figure. Meshuggah purposefully did not, and instead let it flow repeatedly over the bar line.

The verse groove isn't as bad. It's three repetitions of a chunky, five-quarter-note riff that crosses the bar line each time, with a short turnaround at the end. Listen out for the 5/4, 5/4, and 6/4 inside the 4/4, but remember that Meshuggah always feels it in 4/4.

The pre-chorus is merciless. Starting on beat three, a series of five 16th-note syncopations stretches over the remainder of two bars, and at 172 BPM, it's what entering a time-bent wormhole sounds like. “I love how Tomas plays there. He really kills the flow, and I guess it confuses anyone who hears it for the first time.” The chorus leaves 4/4 in a spinning series of odd-time riffs. 

Amazingly, Nordin tracked Future Breed Machine with relative ease, overdubbing onto existing rhythm guitar and drum tracks. “I was pretty relaxed and it all went well. If I record something today, I'm more fearful and certainly more rehearsed! I guess it has something to do with the youthful sense of immortality.”

For those willing to take up the challenge of playing along with the recording, we've got three words for you: slow it down. Any way you can. What sounds impossible at 172 PM makes more sense at half-speed.

“This is a pretty fast song, but not that technically difficult. The most important thing is to really get the rhythms. The song is all 4/4 except the chorus. Just listen to the drums. Try to count one-two-three-four and listen how the figures move.”

A content creator has found a new way to make your lunch break djent – by turning an empty Tupperware-style container and elastic band into a full ensemble and using them to rip through Meshuggah’s Bleed.

In a story that feels made for the internet, Devin Taylor, who goes by the username Fountane on Instagram, has transformed the humble food vessel into an electric guitar, bass guitar, and drum kit with the help of some nifty plugins. 

First, he stretches an elastic band across the container's top and plucks away for a bass-y timbre. This is put through Neural DSP’s Fortin Nameless X plugin, resulting in an admittedly-rather-great guitar tone.

By pulling the two strands of elastic apart, he's able to alter its pitch. He then pitches the band to key, and drops a second track down an octave to create a bass using Neural DSP’s Parallax bass plugin.  

For drums, he lets the elastic band slap onto the plastic box's base, which is then put through a vocoder to create a snare sound. This track is also doubled with an octave down to give it more body. 

By scratching his fingernails on the box and putting the result through a vocoder and a spectral resonator, he’s able to conjure a crash-like cymbal sound, while the kick drum comes from tapping on its bass with his fingers. 

The result is surprisingly quite spectacular, and will certainly make all Guitar World staff see lunch breaks in a different light. 

Naturally, the comments section is rife with comedy gold, but our favorite has to be: “Some guy on the internet has a better djent tone than anybody I’ve heard and his secret sauce is literally pasta remnants.” 

It truly is a wild creative experiment – one that seemingly proves tone is in the hands in a slightly more ridiculous fashion than usual. 

In a recent clip, Revolver asked a diverse group of rock and metal musicians performing at the Louder Than Life festival to pick the heaviest riff of all time. 

If you’re going to take on the controversial topics, it makes sense to go to the authorities, and indeed, the list of players interviewed includes members of everyone from Halestorm, to Baroness and Gwar, right through to punishingly heavy acts like Suicide Silence.

As you might expect, the resulting nominations are as wide-ranging as the musicians that made them. However, one riff comes up repeatedly: Metallica’s Sad But True. 

“As far as like heavy, weighty and aggressive – Sad But True,” comments Halestorm’s Arejay Hale, following a prompt from Lzzy Hale. “That is one of the heaviest riffs of all time.”

Orbit Culture’s Niklas Karlsson and Richard Hansson agree. “I’m an old schooler, but I have to go with Sad But True,” says Karlsson. “Hearing that riff 30 years later, it’s like the best riff you can write.” “If Lars can pull it off!” adds Hansson, with a grin. 

Aussie hard rockers Airbourne agree on the Metallica side – but cast the net a bit wider: “Fuel’s pretty fucking heavy. Master Of Puppets is heavy. The entire Metallica discography is the heaviest riff of all time. There you go! Except for the whole Lulu thing…”

Other artists involved in the picking felt different, and the likes of In Flames, Spiritbox, We Came As Romans, Wargasm, Bloodywood, Tetrarch, Vended, Crown The Empire, Cherry Bombs, Taipei Houston, and Jose Mangin all throw in their two cents. 

Pantera arguably get more overall nods, but the musicians are split on which riff to pick – with Walk, Domination, and Cowboys From Hell all getting shout-outs. Lamb Of God and Gojira get a lot of love, too – as does Meshuggah’s crushing Bleed. Spiritbox vocalist Courtney LaPlante makes an excellent justification for the latter.

“The thing that makes [Bleed] so heavy to me isn't just how fast the double kick is and how low the guitar [is], but it's also the way that the riff speeds up and slows down,” says LaPlante. “The way that the double kick is interfering with the guitar… 

“That song has no business being over two minutes long. No human can do that for more than two minutes and there's just like, it's seven minutes of that annihilation!”

The influence of Sad But True, however, remains irrefutable. Royal Blood, St. Vincent and even Jason Isbell have all shared their own covers in recent years, proving just how far it has permeated the mainstream consciousness. 

Finally, if you’re tackling it yourself, check out our guide to the tonal secrets behind Sad But True.

To hear the full list of heaviness, check out the clip from Revolver above.

Meshuggah are one of the most influential heavy metal bands of all time, their devilishly drop-tuned guitar riffs and mind-bendingly complex arrangements inspiring waves of young metal acts since 1985, and almost single-handedly giving birth to the djent movement.

The Swedish tech metal stalwarts – more specifically, guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström – are renowned for their gloriously technical electric guitar work, so when we found out this dude on YouTube managed to play 86 of their riffs – one from almost every song from each of their studio albums – in one take, we couldn’t quite believe what we were seeing.

In a new video entitled “The Evolution of Meshuggah”, Greg Desmurs plays riffs spanning Meshuggah’s nine-album discography – from Paralyzing Ignorance, the opener from 1991’s Contradictions Collapse, to Armies of the Preposterous, the penultimate track from 2022’s Immutable – in a Herculean single playthrough that lasts well over 15 minutes.

And, of course, like his heroes, Thordendal and Hagström – he does so using an 8-string guitar: his ESP LTD H-1008.

While Desmurs’s effort is, without a doubt, one of the most ambitious guitar projects we’ve seen on YouTube of late, creators on the platform routinely opt to embark on similarly monolithic undertakings in a bid to ride the algorithm’s wave.

Earlier this month, Dutch YouTuber Thomas Zwijsen reworked the entirety of Iron Maiden’s Powerslave album – from opener Aces High to closer Rime of the Ancient Mariner – on nylon-string acoustic guitar.

And last year, another creator – Bradley Hall – set off on a quest to transform the entire first Lord of the Rings movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, into a three-hour metal song.

To see more Meshuggah-inspired antics from Greg Desmurs, head to his official YouTube channel.

Polyphia’s latest recent album, Remember That You Will Die, was celebrated for two reasons. One, it featured yet more of Tim Henson and Scott LePage’s boundary-pushing progressive electric guitar playing, and two, it called upon a range of high-profile guest musicians.

Key among the crew’s collaborators were Chino Moreno and Steve Vai, with the latter joining forces with Henson and co for one the best guitar tracks of the year, Ego Death. In fact, it gained so much traction, it was voted by you as having the best guitar solo of 2022.

And though we had to wait four years for Remember That You Will Die to arrive after 2018’s New Levels New Devils, Henson has confirmed the wait for Polyphia’s next material will be much, much shorter.

Not only that, the Ibanez signature artist has also namechecked his next cohort of dream collaborators who might be featuring in the band’s forthcoming musical drop.

Speaking to Metal Hammer, Henson teased new music would be arriving this summer – that’s only six months away, people – and hinted at potential guest appearances for Swedish extreme metal quintet Meshuggah and bass guitar extraordinaire Thundercat.

“Hopefully we can get everything cleared legally,” Henson said of the prospective link-ups. “There are going to be a lot of features. The sky’s the limit.”

The prospect of Henson trading licks with Thundercat and throwing down riffs with the help of Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström certainly is an enticing one, and is yet further evidence of Polyphia’s seemingly endless sonic versatility.

Likewise, it’s indicative of the band’s desire to continuously evolve beyond their current state and push the boundaries of their respective genre, with Remember That You Will Die exploring rap shred with Lil West, R&B with Brasstracks and more contemporary pop with Sophia Black.

Therefore, if Polyphia can sort out and pull off these Meshuggah and Thundercat team-ups, you can be sure they will make for some unique listening experiences.

2022 was a busy year for Polyphia, and for Henson especially. Not only did they release a new album, Henson also released two new Ibanez signature guitars: the nylon-string TOD10N and Fishman-loaded TOD10. His bandmate LePage was also bestowed a new signature axe: the KRYS10.

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest copy of Metal Hammer, which features a full rundown of the metal acts destined to steal the spotlight in 2023.

When the coronavirus pandemic shut down the music industry in 2020, Swedish technical, experimental death metal band Meshuggah only had two tours left for their 2016 album The Violent Sleep of Reason. 

They were pretty much already scheduled to return to writing mode for what would turn out to be Immutable. But there were other obstacles, aside from Covid, that left the future of the band in jeopardy.

The cracks in the Meshuggah fortress appeared gradually and were largely due to co-founding guitarist Fredrik Thordendal’s waning interest in the band. Back in 1996, he started working on the side project Fredrik Thordendal’s Special Defects, and a year later he released the album Sol Niger Within. 

But he remained with Meshuggah the whole time and was back in full writing mode in time for 1998’s Chaosphere. For the next 15 years, he remained dedicated to his main band in the studio and on the road, but his desire to experiment more with shorter songs and psychedelic atmospheres nagged at his psyche.

In 2011, he started spending more time on the still-unreleased second Special Defects album. He wrote little for Meshuggah’s 2012 record Koloss and didn’t conjure a single riff for The Violent Sleep of Reason, though he tracked all his leads and agreed to tour. Eight months after the release of the record, however, he left the band right before a planned U.S. tour with Megadeth.

“I can’t say it completely took us by surprise,” shrugs guitarist and main songwriter Mårten Hagström from his home in picturesque Umeå, Sweden, about 400 miles from his bandmates in Stockholm. “He just stayed with us until one day he said, ‘I’m sorry. I need to step off to build a studio for this project. I can’t tour.’ 

"We weren’t excited about it, to say the least. But then again, we know Fredrik and we understand how he works. He’s like a stubborn dog. When he gets a bone in his mouth, he’s not letting go of it.”

With little time to prepare for the Megadeth tour, Meshuggah recruited Per Nilsson (Scar Symmetry, Nocturnal Rites) to fill in. He quickly learned Thordendal’s parts and, being with a new band member who was stoked to be on the road, everyone had a good time. To paraphrase Nilsson, he said his stint in the band was “the best time I’ve ever had at summer camp”. 

But when camp was over, Meshuggah faced an existential crisis. They were right back in the position they were in when Thordendal bailed. The main problem was that his departure was open-ended. When he stepped away from Meshuggah, he told his bandmates to give him three and a half years to work on Special Defects, and then he’d decide whether or not he wanted to rejoin.

“I think he didn’t actually know he was going to come back,” Hagström says. “And we didn’t know if he was going to come back. And then I realized, ‘Fuck, man, we’ve been doing this for 30 years.’ That really messed with my head. I started questioning whether I wanted to continue or if I really wanted to quit doing the band.”

With the world on hold due to Covid, Hagström and his bandmates decided they had nothing better to do than start writing a new album as a four-piece before figuring out what the future held for them and Thordendal. 

Ironically, the situation created the right amount of tension for Hagström and Meshuggah to write their most creative, eclectic and emotionally expressive release since 2005’s Catch Thirtythree. 

“We actually wanted this to be kind of like a Catch Thirtythree for 2022 – a long ride that’s kind of like a soundtrack that has parts that are a little bit surprising, and every song moves you into the next part,” Hagström says. “And what’s kind of funny is that this album and Catch Thirtythree are the only two of our albums that basically wrote themselves. What I mean by that is not that it was an easy process or that we didn’t redo stuff. 

“I think we worked maybe more than ever on arrangements, really not letting anything go. Never. ‘Is this good enough? Is it really good enough?’ We were asking that question constantly through this process. But at the same time, there wasn’t a point where we said, ‘What are we doing? Where are we going?’It was all about emotion. 

“As we were doing it, we knew it was flowing the way we wanted it to and we knew the parts worked together and were still instantly recognizable as Meshuggah.”

From the staccato opening gut-punch of Broken Cog to the off-kilter chuggery and desperate single-note squalls of Ligature Marks, Immutable is unrelenting, undeniable and of the moment – a fragmented thunderstorm that rolls like an apocalyptic soundtrack, matching the images of war, contagion and treachery that splash across cable news 24/7. 

Thordendal’s reeling, swerving leads spiral through The Faultless – disorienting and as digestible as broken glass. At the same time, the nine-and-a-half-minute-long instrumental They Move Below crosses dark, Tool-style atmospherics with crushing psychedelic hooks redolent of Neurosis. And the undistorted album closer Past Tense is a balmy wind across a barren wasteland inhabited only by David Gilmour; what it lacks in volume, it makes up for in intensity.

During a poignant, revealing conversation, Hagström explains how working in isolation during a quarantine was artistically invigorating, the few paths Meshuggah sought to follow for Immutable, his weakness for Simon & Garfunkel and the return of Thordendal.

You’ve never been the kind of band to decide in advance what kind of an album you wanted to make. Was that the case this time or did the conditions in which you worked guide your decision to create a bleak, cinematic journey?

“No. We didn’t have a mission statement or a planned direction. But we did say we do not want anything to be filtered out early. Sometimes we’ve done that. We’ve pitched ideas and someone says, ‘Oh, maybe this is not 100 percent where we want to go,’ so we throw it away. This time everything was on the table. Granted, some stuff got left out because it wasn’t suitable. 

“But for the most part, we decided there would be no strict rules. We said, ‘Don’t think about whether something is too long or too short or doesn’t fit what we’re doing. Just think about every song as something that puts you in a different room, a different atmosphere.’ And we figured if we did that, it would make for an interesting journey.”  

Immutable is an interesting journey, for sure, but it doesn’t pull punches for the sake of melody or cohesion. Even some of the soft stuff is brutal.

“We have always wanted to keep the music instantly recognizable as Meshuggah, but to do different things within that framework. When you finish the entire album you should know what band you’ve been listening to, but we always want every album to have a different flavor. And with this it felt like, ‘Okay, we’re not 22-year-old guys with mustard in our ass, just going rabid all the time. We are an older band now and we want to reflect that.’” 

As a guitar player, what keeps you excited? 

“The writing process is still the most exciting part for me. When we did Nothing [in 2002], we started using eight-string guitars, which was a real big deal. It’s those kinds of changes that inspire me. For this, I guess I was really interested in putting in a lot of melodic stuff from things I used to listen to back in the day. I brought a lot more of that in and opened myself up to deliver a wider variety of what I am as a writer.”

Can you be more specific?

“Broken Cog and Ligature Marks have some riffs in them that are not standard-type power chords or single tone playing. These have more of a palm mute and then you mute with both hands. It’s almost like playing the slap bass but on four strings on the guitar. And for the clean parts, I didn’t want to limit myself at all. I just went for stuff that comes naturally to me when I sit down and get the guitar and noodle. So it was very intuitive that way.” 

Did you record the clean parts on a six-string or did you do everything on an eight-string?

“I played the acoustic parts on an eight-string because I’m so used to that, but it hasn’t got a lot of the bass tones. Most of it could be played on a six-string. But in Past Tense there’s a lot of eight-string all the way through, especially the beginning part. 

“I write a lot of clean stuff and I have computers loaded with them. I’ve got at least one entire album’s worth of atmospheric stuff. And some of it felt right to use on this album. It’s a long album. You want places to breathe in order to create that dynamic you’re looking for.”

Were there certain points of reference for the clean parts? 

“When I was growing up I played a lot of acoustic guitar. I really enjoy Simon & Garfunkel for the guitar work, where there’s so much harmony in it, but it’s not overstated. And there’s such a light touch to the tone but it carries so much weight in your stomach. 

“We’ve done that kind of thing before, but mostly in the interludes. That’s where I tossed that in, but it’s always been like, 'Okay, here we have a pummeling album and then we toss this in at the end for two minutes or if we need a breather in the middle.' I wanted to expand that approach.” 

Did you write your parts separately and then get together in the studio to work them out together or did you get together and collaborate?

“Fredrik was out of the picture for the writing of this one. He recorded leads on four tracks, but he didn’t hear those songs until he got them from the studio rough mix, just so he would be able to play on this album. 

“So it was basically me on my own, and [drummer] Tomas Haake and [bassist] Dick Lövgren worked together in Stockholm. We sent demo files back and forth. And then we had meetings. I drove down to the studio in Stockholm to work with them. Because of Covid, I didn’t go by train. 

“I drove six hours away from other people. This pandemic catered to my working style, luckily enough. ’Cause going into a bubble and just being in a lockdown mode is when I write my best stuff. I have a little shed out in the yard where I have my home studio. So I go up in the morning, bring a pot of coffee out there and then I just start hammering away, dive deep into the rabbit hole and just get lost in my mind.”

What was the first song you wrote for Immutable? 

“I originally wrote the intro riff for Broken Cog [in 2007] for Obzen. But I didn’t manage to pull it off. I thought, “This is not good enough. I don’t want to have it here.” I tried it again for Koloss, and it didn’t work. 

“But this time around, I had an epiphany and I figured out what it needed. I was always intrigued by how it moved and how it sounded almost like a broken tank just rolling along awkwardly over the 4/4 beat. But I always tried to ratchet it up so that it would go from that riff into something more intense and pummeling.”

How did you make the song work?

“One night when I was actually not working on Broken Cog – I was messing around with some clean stuff for Light the Shortening Fuse – I went, ‘Wait a minute. Instead of using something heavier for Broken Cog, I’ll use this cool atmospheric verse.” It has the same 6/4 timing, and I went, ‘Yes! This is where it needs to go!’”

Did you collaborate less on this album since you were more isolated? 

“Well, yes and no. We really tried to stay out of each other’s songs as much as possible. We normally do that to some extent, but this time the guy who wrote the song was really in charge. 

“Suggestions were welcome, but the final say went to the main songwriter. And the reason for it was because we knew we would end up with a more dynamic album if less than four guys’ filters were applied to all this stuff. That’s why it’s an interesting journey from beginning to end.”

When did you all agree that Fredrik would tour with you again?

“Here’s how it went down. We decided to start making the album, and then three-and-a-half years point-blank from the day he said he wanted that much time off rolled around. So, we went over to his studio, had coffee, and played some pinball. 

“We were just shooting the shit – no big deal. And he said, ‘How do you guys feel about me playing again in the band?’ And we said, ‘Well, how do you feel about it?’ And he said, ‘I’ve kind of been missing it. And this is my band and I feel I’m up for coming back. Is that okay?’”

How did you react?

“We were like, ‘Fuck, yeah! We’re family.’ We’ve been together for so long. We’ve done so much shit together. We’ve been through so much. And he’s such a big part of the lead guitar style of this band. He’s the mad guitar genius. So for him to come back was natural and made me want to go on with it, too.” 

• Immutable is out now via Atomic Fire.

In 2022 the art of eight-string guitar is in rude health. This was once an incredibly obscure instrument, with roots going as far back as 19th-century classical music. But since 2007, when Ibanez launched the RG2228, the first mass-produced eight-string, its popularity has grown and grown.

You can easily find an eight-string in most first-hand guitar shops. This popularity is mainly thanks to metal bands who called for lower and thicker tunings to take their imaginations to the extreme – foremost among them Meshuggah, math-metal pioneers from Sweden, and Animals As Leaders, masters of instrumental tech-metal from Washington D.C.

In both bands' new albums, the extended range of the guitar is explored by two guitarists: Märten Hagström and Fredrik Thordendal on Meshuggah's Immutable; Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes on Animals As Leaders' Parrhesia.

In conversation, Märten and Tosin reveal the secrets to mastering this instrument – and what it gives them in terms of creativity.

What have you both learned about getting more mileage out of an eight-string?

Tosin: “That’s an important question, because a lot of people might be looking at their guitars from a six-string perspective. Ultimately, the six-string can be the core of how you understand an eight-string, especially if you retain standard tuning. 

“We often tune our eight-strings to drop E, so you can still perceive it as a six-string in standard tuning. All scales and shapes repeat per octave, so it’s good to acknowledge the repetition within the fingerboard. 

“Imagine if you’re playing an A power chord on the fifth fret on your sixth string – with our tuning, if you barre all the way down, you have another fifth interval and a low octave. 

“It’s like drop D, because those three strings give you a functional chord. That helps retain orientation. You can use lower notes in the same positions, while also finding higher notes to create more width and distance.”

Märten: “We didn't have an engineering masterplan or any idea how to go about using eight-strings. With Meshuggah, it's always been about finding unique sounds. So we learned how to play eight-strings as we were learning how to compose with them. Our technique is something we manufactured as we went along. 

“The best advice I can give is find how the extended range can benefit your style. That's what worked for us. It affected how we attack the strings and how we write riffs. It was all about new atmospheres and avenues that weren't available on a six-string. Start thinking about what the extended range can actually enhance. 

“To be honest, we would have loved to continue using baritones and seven-strings. We didn't neccessarily want to add extra strings, but we knew we liked the tone.”

A lot of players find the jump from six to seven easy enough, but eight is an entirely different ball game...

Mårten: “I think the beauty of eight-strings is that it takes away the normal aspects of guitar playing – they can feel huge, like playing a piano. There are a lot of adjustments in terms of angles, like with your wrist and picking technique... all these small things you have to get used to. 

“As you said, if you play a six-string, everything will transpose pretty nicely onto a seven. Eights are a different matter. For me, it’s all about being comfortable with the tone. Sometimes I hear eight-string stuff and it sounds like someone’s just detuned something. And other times I will hear someone actually utilising what the instrument can do.”

Tosin: “It’s all about taking the chord voicings you know and adapting them to the eight-string, and using octave displacement. You can also have a lot of fun using the low E as a pedal tone in your riffs, using other chords to superimpose against it, like a G major. There are a lot of options out there.

“I like to make use of the full range of the eight-string, almost like a piano or harp. You get this huge spread that’s not possible on a six-string. Think of it as an opportunity to use three-octave chords. Other times, it’s fun to just turn it up and play your favourite Meshuggah riffs!”

Mårten, you were experimenting with eight-strings as far as back 2002 – they were the stuff of legend back then.

Mårten: “We started discussing different ways to come up with new things after touring the [1998] Chaosphere album. We wondered what would happen if we recorded three bass guitars, for example. Just to see how different the band would sound. 

“Randomly we ended up talking to a guy from Nevborn Guitars, who wanted us to try out their eight-string prototypes, though we were actually already working with Ibanez on custom seven-strings at the time. It was far from finished, but me and Fredrik found that his eight-string lent itself well to playing differently.”

In what sense?

Mårten: “We quickly figured out that powerchord chugging and riffing didn’t really work, it wasn’t as simple as transposing ideas down to the eighth string. The tone of the instrument lent itself better to the single-string stuff we’re known for. For us it was like, ‘Wow, this is a new tool that makes us sound different!’ 

“We sounded deeper and started to write unusual things that seemed to capture the imagination, with this whole other kind of sound. We then started write things for the eight-string before we even owned one. We would tune down our seven-strings, the entire [2002] Nothing record is an eight-string album recorded on seven-string guitars... which was a bitch! We would play four bars and then need to retune, again and again.”

Tosin, you launched your own guitar company, Abasi Concepts, in 2019 and with great success – most of your models are currently sold out. What have you learned about making extended range instruments along the way?

Tosin: “Manufacturing high-end instruments is a challenge. The standard that guitarists expect is very high, and it should be! We’ve created an eight-string design that feels more approachable and guitar-like than the others out there. That was the starting point: a guitar that didn’t feel like playing leads on a surfboard. 

“It had to encourage people to play complex things, sounding incredible both clean and heavy. It also had to look modern – it’s hard to introduce a new body shape that doesn’t turn players off, so we designed something that felt bold and noticeable but not too alien. 

“We’re trying to distill what makes a guitar desirable. What is mojo? Why would you choose an Abasi over something else? It boils down to wood selection, like more stable and lightweight roasted woods which translate as a guitar that feels more alive, and pickups like the [Fishman] Fluence stuff, where you get a noiseless single coil with multiple voicings. It’s been fun. Gary Clark Jr. bought one of our guitars [a six-string Space T] and we didn’t even know. I had to reach out to him afterwards!

Both of your bands are known for unusual time signatures – or at least odd-time riffs against steady 4/4 beats...

Mårten: “A song like Bleed [from 2008 album obZen] sounds tricky but it’s actually pretty simple. It’s triplets in odd groupings over a 4/4 beat, with added strokes to make the rhythm move. That’s something we do a lot in our riffs, it’s that the awkward, funky groove that comes out when we write. 

“The problem with playing triplets for seven-and-a-half minutes is consistency. Being technically able to play them in a relaxed manner for that long, as if you were playing an AC/DC song, is the challenge. So the hardest thing isn’t the timings themselves, it’s the parts that are like 92 notes in a row that never repeat, like we did on [2005 album] Catch Thirtythree. 

“It’s the faster songs that have 16 full bars before coming back to the one. It can be tricky for the mind, especially when they only change ever so slightly. It might sound like the same riff over and over, but there are subtle differences. You can easily get lost. It’s like, ‘Man, is this the one here or do we have another bar to go?’ Keeping track is the hardest part, but it’s often over straight 4/4... just like AC/DC!”

Tosin: “There’s a thing I do quite a lot which is play in 4/4 but I’ll make the end a little longer, maybe for another quarter note, so now you’re in a measure of five. But the general sense of the phrase feels like it’s in 4/4 and repeats evenly. 

“It’s all about arbitrarily extending or shortening the length of certain phrases. I like to do it because it rubs expectation. The evenness of rhythm is something so deeply intuitive that we all expect to be able to tap along or nod our heads. 

“But I love rhythmic and melodic surprises. I’ll come up with something that feels graspable, then I might add the complexity in, maybe every other repeat there’s one less quarter note than before or I might extend the phrase a few more notes into the next octave. It can technically be 4/4 but exploring these ideas means you can sound like it’s something way outside. The trick is to count in longer chunks.”

Both of you have new albums out. What gear are we hearing on the recordings?

Mårten: “In the studio, most of our albums have fallen back on Dual Rectifiers. Those are the go-to amps for us. This time I found the EVH 5150 III 100-Watt heads to be exactly what we were looking for. They had the gain, control and Mesa/Boogie-ness we needed, but with a more raw and unbridled kind of tone. They sounded less predictable, more organic. 

“Instead of the usual Fortin 33 pedal as a booster, I actually ended up using Misha Mansoor’s Precision Drive. That was suggested by our singer [Jens Kidman], as he had one. The gate on it isn’t really all that good, it’s cool for live use but in the studio it needs some work. 

“But the sound of the Precision Drive going into the EVH was super. I would use the preamp of the EVH’s second channel and run it through the power amp of a Mesa/Boogie Roadster, then out through EVH cabs. For the clean parts, I used my Roland JC-120 head.”

Tosin: “We began production for this album with my Neural DSP plug-in, but when it came time to mix we decided to take the DIs and see what kind of results we’d get by experimenting with real amps, cabs and mics. We started with my Morgan SW50R, which is a single channel tube head that I use as a pedal platform, with my Friedman BE-OD overdrive and the Bogner Harlow and Ecstasy Blue pedals. 

“Those were the main drives we were running into the clean head. The Friedman pedal into the Morgan was perfect for all the slap tones and articulate stuff, even some of the heavier stuff. For the lead tones, it was my Abasi Pathos pedal going into the Morgan. We also ran a modded Soldano SLO from the 90s, which added this great character in the midrange when blended in.”

And how about the actual eight-strings themselves?

Mårten: “I’d say 95 percent of the guitars were recorded with my M8M Ibanez Custom. It’s basically our signature M8M but with a bolt-on neck and it’s a little shorter in scale with a piezo mounted on it. It’s my favourite instrument. I use it as much as I can, but not live because I’m scared of destroying it. 

“For the clean parts, I used my Roland JC-120 head. I don’t know what Fredrik used because he recorded in his studio. He wasn’t around for any of this album and hasn’t been writing for years, he’s been busy doing his own thing. For the four leads he recorded at his place, I’m pretty sure it was his [signature] Ibanez Stoneman.”

Tosin: “We used Abasi Concepts guitars for nearly everything – the solo on Thoughts And Prayers was performed on an ESP. For some reason we weren’t happy with the tone on the Monomyth solo so the engineer suggested using one of his guitars. We went digging through and there was this Les Paul.

“I couldn’t even tell you what year it was from but it had this nice prominent midrange without being too bright, it sounded really smooth so I tracked with that. I’m pretty pragmatic in the studio – if my favourite gear is not doing what I want then I’m quick to find an objective solution. It’s kinda funny though, because you wouldn’t think a Les Paul would be anywhere near an Animals As Leaders record... but it happened!”

• Animals As Leaders' Parrhesia is out now via Sumerian.
• Meshuggah's Immutable is out now via Atomic Fire.

Meshuggah pioneered the sound of djent long before the onomatopoeic term became a genre, and key to the tone of their early, game-changing brand of guttural extended-range chug was the Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier.

Guitarists Mårten Hagström and Fredrik Thordendal have had an on/off love affair with tube heads since they set metal on a new path in the mid-to-late ’90s, turning to everything from the Randall Satan to the Line 6 Vetta, Fractal Axe-Fx and even a signature Fortin over the past two decades.

For the band’s previous record, 2016’s The Violent Sleep of Reason, they returned to the Boogies, along with JCM800s and the occasional Orange. But their latest release, Immutable, saw the heavy trendsetters turn to the latest incarnation of a metal staple.

“In the studio, most of our albums have fallen back on Dual Rectifiers. Those are the go-to amps for us,” Hagström told Total Guitar’s Amit Sharma.

“This time, I found the EVH 5150 III 100-watt heads to be exactly what we were looking for. They had the gain, control and Mesa/Boogie-ness we needed, but with a more raw and unbridled kind of tone. They sounded less predictable, more organic.”

There were changes on the pedal front, too, with Hagström employing a stompbox designed by one of the djent movement’s foremost ambassadors.

“Instead of the usual Fortin 33 pedal as a booster, I actually ended up using Misha Mansoor’s Precision Drive,” he reveals. “That was suggested by our singer [Jens Kidman], as he had one. The gate on it isn’t really all that good – it’s cool for live use but in the studio it needs some work. But the sound of the Precision Drive going into the EVH was super.

“I would use the preamp of the EVH’s second channel and run it through the power amp of a Mesa/Boogie Roadster, then out through EVH cabs. For the clean parts, I used my Roland JC-120 head.”

Guitar-wise, there were fewer surprises, with “95 percent” of the record tracked on the guitarist’s Ibanez M8M Custom. As for what Hagström’s co-guitarist used, don’t ask him.

“I don’t know what Fredrik used because he recorded in his studio,” Hagström says. “He wasn’t around for any of this album and hasn’t been writing for years – he’s been busy doing his own thing. For the four leads he recorded at his place, I’m pretty sure it was his [signature] Ibanez Stoneman.”

For the full interview with Hagström, pick up a copy of the latest issue of Total Guitar, available now from Magazines Direct.

Iconic Swedish metal innovators Meshuggah have shared I Am That Thirst, the third single from their new album Immutable. 

The track is, at least by Meshuggah’s bludgeoning standards, a slower-paced outing, which revolves around a deceptively complex rhythm riff that shifts and stomps across the song’s four minutes and 40 seconds.

As with the band’s finest output, it remains brutal and unpredictable, but in keeping with the rest of the material we’ve heard from Immutable, still feels intriguingly accessible.

I Am That Thirst follows two previous singles from what will be the band’s ninth studio album. The Abysmal Eye was first to arrive, alongside the album announcement in January. That was followed by the thundering Light The Shortening Fuse earlier this month.

Immutable is quickly shaping up to be one of the most diverse and dynamic changes in direction we’ve heard from the band yet – and they already had good form on that front. Just don’t say it doesn’t sound like Meshuggah.

“There’s spots on the album where we’re further away from the core of our past output,” guitarist Mårten Hagström says of Immutable. 

“But saying there are [less]-Meshuggah sounding moments is basically admitting to failure. We want to be able to put our stamp on anything when we venture into music territories.”

In a ‘Shuggah rush? You can preorder Immutable now.

Welcome to Guitar World’s weekly roundup of the musical highlights from the, erm, world of guitar. Every seven days (or thereabouts), we endeavor to bring you a selection of songs from across the guitar universe, all with one thing in common: our favorite instrument plays a starring role.

Bartees Strange – Heavy Heart

What is it? The up-and-coming singer-songwriter’s first single with 4AD. People (including – guilty as charged – this particular writer) love to talk about artists who elude the fuzzy boundaries of genre, but few do so as skillfully as Strange, who incorporates the restlessness of mid-aughts indie rock, hip-hop, post-hardcore and some of the twists and turns of math-rock into this brilliant song. 

Standout guitar moment: Soaked beautifully in delay, the song’s outro solo has more than a slight touch of the stadium-filling magic and verve of The Edge in it. 

For fans of: Bloc Party, Illuminati Hotties, Bachelor

– Jackson Maxwell

Bleed From Within – Levitate

What is it? The second single from the Scottish metalcore stalwarts’ upcoming sixth album, Shrine. Fusing their usual destructive and pummeling electric guitar riffs with delicately arranged orchestration and one of the most expansive choruses of their career to date, Levitate serves as a snapshot of a band truly at the apex of their game. 

Standout guitar moment: Following a lead guitar-driven interlude at the 2:32 mark, Craig “Goonzi” Gowans offers up a soaring, melody-centric solo, before the song once again enters full-throttle mode with a savage breakdown.

For fans of: Memphis May Fire, Whitechapel, Born of Osiris

– Sam Roche

Hedras – Angels

What is it? The Guatemalan prog-metal wizard takes a Polyphia turn on his latest solo release, with a sub-shaking EDM production and crystalline split-coil clean tones from his newly finished Cort X700 Mutility.

Standout guitar moment: That drop at the two-minute mark finds Hedras unleashing a flurry of modal lead lines that are ultra-tight in their execution but with a swagger that lends them a vocal, human touch.

For fans of: Polyphia, Jakub Zytecki, Unprocessed

– Michael Astley-Brown

Meshuggah – Light the Shortening Fuse

What is it? Ahead of their forthcoming ninth album, Immutable – which arrives April 1 via Atomic Fire Records – Light the Shortening Fuse is its second single after January’s The Abysmal Eye. In classic Meshuggah fashion, the track taps heavily into odd time signatures, high-octane breakdowns and eight-string guitar riffs, offering a glimpse of the destruction to come when the full album drops.

Standout guitar moment: The main riff delivered by guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström is typically chuggy, and is sure to be well received by any longtime Meshuggah fan.

For fans of: Periphery, Gojira, Animals As Leaders

– Sam Roche

Pixies – Human Crime

What is it? A life-affirming slice of alt-rock from eternal legends of the genre. The standalone single is Pixies’ first new material in two years, and arrives ahead of their return to touring after a pandemic-induced hiatus from live shows.

Standout guitar moment: Producer Tom Dalgety has played a blinder with those explosive, fist-in-the-air chord tones, but props are also due to Joey Santiago’s lyrical solo, which riffs beautifully off Black Francis’s vocal line.

For fans of: Pavement, Dinosaur Jr., Hüsker Dü

– Michael Astley-Brown

Larry McCray – Breaking News

What is it? The second single from Blues Without You, the Joe Bonamassa-produced comeback LP from unsung blues guitar hero Larry McCray. Shaped by the seemingly endless crises that dominate the news from day to day, this is a slice of old-school, perfectly-arranged soul – propulsive horns, vivacious strings and all. 

Standout guitar moment: The natural candidate would be McCray’s stellar, 16-bar outburst in the song’s middle, but listen to the way he holds that one note at 4:47 – for those couple of seconds, time almost seems to stand still. 

For fans of: Joe Bonamassa, Eric Gales, Joanne Shaw Taylor

– Jackson Maxwell

Envy of None – Look Inside

What is it? The second slice of psychedelic, industrial-tinged rock from Alex Lifeson’s expansive new project. It’s refreshing to hear such a bona fide legend as the Rush guitarist sound so contemporary with his approach to tone and production – this dreamy, atmospheric slice of alt-rock is masterfully put together.

Standout guitar moment: Those modulated leads that weave in and out of the track’s ethereal production bear all the hallmarks of Lifeson’s style, updated for the 2020s.

For fans of: Nine Inch Nails, A Perfect Circle, Rush

– Michael Astley-Brown

Paleface – The Orphan

What is it? Swiss metal powerhouse Paleface’s latest single, taken from their upcoming album, Fear & Dagger. It’s visceral and ruthless in its brutality, scarcely letting up in its all-out six-and-a-half-minute audial assault. And as it shifts tempos and rhythmic patterns throughout, it continuously retains its sonic intrigue. Not an easy feat for a song of this length.

Standout guitar moment: Yannick Lehmann’s guitar solo at the 5:10 mark serves as a six-string smash-and-grab, occupying only 12 seconds, but deploying squealing divebombs and a dizzying rapid-fire ascending pull-off line.

For fans of: Slipknot, Left to Suffer

– Sam Roche

Adult Mom – 91

What is it? A B-side from Driver, the stellar 2021 full-length from Adult Mom, the project of singer-songwriter Stevie Knipe. It’s a testament to that album’s strength that this vivid breakup song somehow didn’t make the cut.

Standout guitar moment: Just as they were on Driver, Adult Mom lead guitarist Allegra Eidinger is simply magnificent on this tune, adding depth and color to the verses with radiant fills.

For fans of: Radiator Hospital, Lomelda, Free Cake for Every Creature

– Jackson Maxwell

PUP – Matilda

What is it? The Toronto punks’ ode to frontman Stefan Babcock’s forgotten guitar, Matilda, complete with one of the most moving videos you’ll ever witness as a guitarist. The track itself is filled with raw power chord stabs, and lyrics surrounding the abandonment of one instrument for another, newer, shinier model: “As you fret my frets decay / You pick up your other and you strum away”. Sorry, we seem to have something in our eye.

Standout guitar moment: That wailing, breaking-apart guitar tone in the track’s middle eight: it actually sounds like a guitar weeping.

For fans of: Joyce Manor, The Dirty Nil, Remo Drive

– Michael Astley-Brown

Extreme metal titans Meshuggah have released Light the Shortening Fuse, the second single from their forthcoming ninth studio album, Immutable.

Doubling down on the momentum built with the LP's first single, The Abysmal Eye, Light the Shortening Fuse is a chaotic amalgamation of odd time signatures, unrelenting breakdowns and crushing eight-string guitar riffs courtesy of guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström. Check it out below.

While it's hailed by Meshuggah as their “most explosive work of monstrous art yet”, Immutable, thus far, is arguably more digestible than much of their previous work.

“Sound-wise, we were going for a warmer sound this time around, less harsh mids and highs in the guitars and less abrasive cymbals,” drummer Tomas Haake told Metal Hammer back in January. “Getting older, you feel like, ‘I wanna be able to enjoy this,’ and not just be mauled and run over.”

The age of Meshuggah's members played into the general philosophy of the album, too. “The title fits perfectly for where we are as a band,” Mårten Hagström said in a statement when the album was announced back in January. “We're older now. Most of us are in our 50s now, and we've settled into who we are.”

“Even though we've been experimenting all along, I also think we've been the same since day one. The way we approach things and why we still make new albums, and why we still sound the way we do, it's immutable.”

Hagström added in the January Metal Hammer interview: “There’s spots on the album where we’re further away from the core of our past output, but saying there are [less]-Meshuggah sounding moments is basically admitting to failure. We want to be able to put our stamp on anything when we venture into music territories.”

In the same interview, Hagström recalled Fredrik Thordendal leaving the band halfway through the touring cycle of their previous album, The Violent Sleep of Reason, and rejoining during the recording of Immutable.

“Fredrik took the time out to build his studio and focus on trying to get his solo album done,” he said. “When we got off tour and went into album writing mode, we talked to Fredrik and let him know that we wanted him to play a couple of leads on this album. 

“That was his part in the production – he was going to be the lead guitar player and we needed him to be that wherever we felt that the songs demanded a proper Fredrik Thordendal Meshuggah lead... but we'd be lying if we said there hasn't been a difference since he took time out.”

Thordendal rejoining the band meant the departure of touring guitarist Per Nilsson of Scar Symmetry.

“We are releasing Per Nilsson back into the wild to roam free in any way he sees fit,” the band said at the time. “It has been a true privilege and honor to share the stage with Per and even more importantly we have made a great friend through our travels. Per. We thank you. You are a formidable human being!”

Immutable arrives April 1 via Atomic Fire Records. Check out its tracklisting below.

1. Broken Cog
2. The Abysmal Eye
3. Light The Shortening Fuse
4. Phantoms
5. Ligature Marks
6. God He Sees In Mirrors
7. They Move Below
8. Kaleidoscope
9. Black Cathedral
10. I Am That Thirst
11. The Faultless
12. Armies Of The Preposterous
13. Past Tense

Meshuggah have dropped the first single from ninth studio album, Immutable, The Abysmal Eye.

The track – which arrives ahead of the album's release on April 1 – sees guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström deploy a clutch of destructive 8-string guitar riffs – wrought with thunderous alternate picking phrases and chuggy palm-muting – over Tomas Haake's laser-precise drumming and underneath Jens Kidman's savage vocals.

While the track is arguably more digestible than much of Meshuggah's previous work, Thordendal dazzles at the 2:58 mark with an otherworldly guitar solo over a mind-bending odd time signature. Check it out below.

In a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Haake revealed how the age of the members of Meshuggah has played a part in the sound of Immutable.

“Sound-wise, we were going for a warmer sound this time around, less harsh mids and highs in the guitars and less abrasive cymbals,” he said. “Getting older, you feel like, ‘I wanna be able to enjoy this,’ and not just be mauled and run over.”

In the same interview, Hagström spoke of Thordendal leaving the band halfway through the touring cycle of their last album, The Violent Sleep of Reason, and rejoining during the recording of Immutable.

“Fredrik took the time out to build his studio and focus on trying to get his solo album done,” he said. “When we got off tour and went into album writing mode, we talked to Fredrik and let him know that we wanted him to play a couple of leads on this album. 

“That was his part in the production – he was going to be the lead guitar player and we needed him to be that wherever we felt that the songs demanded a proper Fredrik Thordendal Meshuggah lead... but we'd be lying if we said there hasn't been a difference since he took time out.”

Speaking on the album's philosophy in a Facebook post earlier this month, Hagström explained: “The title fits perfectly for where we are as a band. We're older now. Most of us are in our 50s now, and we've settled into who we are.

“Even though we've been experimenting all along, I also think we've been the same since day one. The way we approach things and why we still make new albums, and why we still sound the way we do, it's immutable.

“Humanity is immutable, too. We commit the same mistakes over and over. And we are immutable. We do what we do, and we don't change.

“There’s spots on the album where we’re further away from the core of our past output, but saying there are [less]-Meshuggah sounding moments is basically admitting to failure. We want to be able to put our stamp on anything when we venture into music territories.”

Swedish metallers Meshuggah have announced their ninth studio album, Immutable. Arriving April 1 via Atomic Fire Records, the LP will be the band's first full-length since 2016's The Violent Sleep of Reason.

Posting to social media on Friday (January 14), the band shared a teaser of what we believe will be the album's lead single. In typical Meshuggah form, the 30-second snippet sees an array of chug-worthy goodness from guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström, and is no doubt a mere drop in an ocean of tech-y extreme metal to come. Check it out below.

“The title fits perfectly for where we are as a band,” Hagström said in an accompanying statement. “We're older now. Most of us are in our 50s now, and we've settled into who we are.

“Even though we've been experimenting all along, I also think we've been the same since day one. The way we approach things and why we still make new albums, and why we still sound the way we do, it's immutable.

“Humanity is immutable, too. We commit the same mistakes over and over. And we are immutable. We do what we do, and we don't change.”

Expect the album to be as musically complex as you can imagine, as the five-piece have been working on it for almost a year. The band announced their return to the studio – and the return of Fredrik Thordendal, who left the band in 2017 – back in March 2021, promising “distortion and kicks”.

Thordendal's reintroduction to the fold meant the departure of touring guitarist Per Nilsson of Scar Symmetry.

“We are releasing Per Nilsson back into the wild to roam free in any way he sees fit,” the band said. “It has been a true privilege and honor to share the stage with Per and even more importantly we have made a great friend through our travels. Per. We thank you. You are a formidable human being!”

Immutable arrives April 1, with preorder available from January 28. For more info, head to the band's website.

It’s been five years since we’ve heard any recorded music from Swedish extreme tech-metal pioneers Meshuggah, but that’s about to change: the band have announced they’ve entered Sweden’s Sweetspot Studios to begin work on their ninth studio album.

The new record is the follow-up to 2016’s The Violent Sleep of Reason. "Things are happening,” the band said in a statement, adding, “Spoiler: There will be distortion and kicks.” 

What’s more, Meshuggah have also announced that founding member and lead electric guitar player Fredrik Thordendal, who left the band in 2017 and was replaced on tour by Scar Symmetry’s Per Nilsson, is back on board for the new effort.

“We are releasing Per Nilsson back into the wild to roam free in any way he sees fit,” the band said. “It has been a true privilege and honor to share the stage with Per and even more importantly we have made a great friend through our travels. Per. We thank you. You are a formidable human being!

“So why are we releasing Per back into a more stable habitat you ask? The answer is simple. Fredrik will be back for lead work on the album as well as touring going forward. In other words. The band is back together. In full effect."

Keep your eyes tuned to Guitar World for updates.

Misha Mansoor has long been credited (blamed?) for creating the style of progressive metal known as djent.

Recently, the Periphery electric guitar player appeared on DragonForce guitarist Herman Li’s Twitch channel to discuss how that came to be.

As Mansoor explains to Li, “I used to post on [guitar] forums because I’m a nerd.

"I would hang out on the Meshuggah forum, and on there they always used to talk about Meshuggah’s guitar sound being ‘djent’ or ‘djenty.’ ”

The whole "djent thing," Mansoor says, “was about chugging on the four lower strings – like a double power chord – in a drop tuning. It’s actually the onamonapia of that sound.

“That’s all it is. Then as a joke I used to always upload clips and songs [to the Meshuggah forum] and say, ‘New djenty clip.’ And then people thought that was a style of music.

“I learned not to argue with people. And now it’s a genre of music.”

Whether or not Mansoor actually created that genre – he points to Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal as the founder – he also says, “at the end of the day I don’t care. I’m glad people are listening.”

That said, when Li asks him, “Can I call you djent master?,” Mansoor replies, “No, you can’t.”

Back in December 2019, Mansoor shared his thoughts with Guitar World on the future of djent.

“Djent was never a thing to begin with so it can never end. You can’t kill what’s already dead, right?” he mused.

“I always called myself progressive and I’m sure the other guys here do to some degree as well, because it allows us to get away with whatever.”

Why aren't six strings enough? This was the question we posed to one of guitar's all-time greats a few years ago.

Steve Vai, in his infinite, sage-like wisdom, responded, "Six is enough, and eight is enough too. Whatever you want. Four can be enough. One can be enough, if you’ve got the imagination for it."

And that's really what it came down to when whittling down our list of 15 of the best seven-string and eight-string players in guitarville right now: Who has the imagination to take that extra string or two and do something with them that couldn't be replicated simply by down-tuning or pitch-shifting?

• The 10 best 7-string guitars right now

It would have been very easy for seven- or 8-string guitars to be sitting in a museum somewhere as novelty items—you know, Spinal Tap-esque relics of an age when guitarists went "one lower." But these 15 names are a testament to the myriad ways in which the seven- and eight-string guitar has evolved over the years, in ways that even its modern progenitor couldn't have foreseen.

"When I was [playing seven-strings], I had a feeling there was going to be a group of kids who were really gonna take that low string and do something with it that I wasn’t doing," Vai said. "I also felt that maybe some jazz and classical players would take it up. I had no idea that they were going to do what they did."

STEPHEN CARPENTER | DEFTONES

Whether utilizing seven strings or eight, Deftones have packed some serious subsonics into their music over the years. "Hexagram" off the band's 2003 self-titled effort is the epitome of their haunting take on alternative metal, with Chino Moreno screaming maniacally over Stephen Carpenter's off-kilter seven-string riffing.

JEFF LOOMIS

A true guitarist’s guitarist, Jeff Loomis is no stranger to readers of this magazine for his work as a solo artist and with Nevermore and Arch Enemy. Loomis' seven-string skills are put to great use on a monster track called "Jato Unit." Big octave melody lines, low palm-muted riffage, wide arpeggios, whammy bar dives, syncopated rhythms—this one is a great song to sharpen your skills, and, if you're a proficient six-string player making the transition to seven for the first time, it's a great one to cut your teeth on. Make it to the end and you can truly call yourself a seven-string guitarist.

TOSIN ABASI | ANIMALS AS LEADERS

When Tosin Abasi recorded what was essentially a solo album under the name Animals as Leaders, his goal was to expand the pallet of heavy, progressive music into something that was more compositionally challenging for him and more accessible to linsteners. “I wanted to make music that was more universal,” he told Guitar World in 2009. Tosin may be better known for rocking the eight-string these days, but "CAFO" from Animals as Leaders' eponymous debut is as fine an example of seven-string mastery as you'll come across in the modern metal-scape.

OLA ENGLUND | THE HAUNTED, FEARED

If you're even slightly familiar with music driven by electric seven-string guitars, Sweden's Ola Englund needs no introduction. He's played a seven-stringer for years with the Haunted and—especially—Feared and has an ever-evolving line of signature models through Washburn (plus his own line of axes). And then there's his popular YouTube channel, which features his trademark gear demos, many of which have appeared on GuitarWorld.com over the years. "By constantly putting out material/videos/tutorials, I’ve been able to maintain a steady growth in followers," he told iMusician. "It’s not that hard actually, just work your ass off and don’t be an asshole and you’ll be fine."

CHRIS LETCHFORD | SCALE THE SUMMIT

In a genre that's often put down for self-indulgence, instrumental-prog-rockers Scale The Summit have found that perfect niche between musicality and technical fireworks. In other words, the band, which features seven-string guitarsts Chris Letchford and Travis Levrier, puts the focus squarely on the songs. “The most compliments we get are that we’re not just a guitar wizardy band,” Chris Letchford told theaquarian.com. “Yeah, our stuff is really complex, technical music, but it’s still not over-the-top, shred-based. That would push a lot of people away.” Below, check out the official video for "Blue Sun" from the band's 2015 album, V.

MISHA MANSOOR | PERIPHERY

Misha Mansoor has become a guitar hero in his own right. Since 2005, he has played guitar (and often produced) with his band, Periphery, a groundbreaking progressive-rock unit that fuses soaring vocal melodies and complex instrumental interludes into polished, compact, space age–sounding metal. With their distinctive three-guitar sound, glitch electronic overlays and throaty chug provided by the lower strings of their seven-string guitars, Periphery have spawned a whole underground industry of imitators.

SARAH LONGFIELD

Keep an eye or two out for Wisconsin-based (or is it Boston?), Strandberg Guitars-playing Sarah Longfield. The guitarist, who posted an extra-popular cover of Meshuggah's "Pravus" to YouTube a few years ago, formed the Fine Constant as an outlet for her innovative—and pleasing-to-the-ear—original music. Longfield also records under her own name, and her latest album, 2017's Collapse // Expand, has been burning up the interwebs. You can check it out here and sample a wee bit of it below.

ADAM "NERGAL" DARSKI | BEHEMOTH

Nergal is the lead guitarist, vocalist and mastermind behind Polish metal warrirors Behemoth. Over their lengthy career, they've been putting out some of the most technical and inspired metal to ever be exported from their country. Nergal has his own signature model through ESP Guitars, the HEX-7. "ESP made the perfect axe for me," Nergal says. "It kills, it slays."

MARTEN HAGSTROM & FREDRIK THORDENDAL | MESHUGGAH

While you won't find any extra strings on Meshuggah's 1991 debut, Contradictions Collapse, guitarist Fredrik Thordendal knew from the very beginning that six strings just wouldn't suffice to contain the breadth of his band's music. "For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to have a seven-string guitar so that I’d be able to play those really low notes," Thordendal told Guitar World, "and then Ibanez finally came out with one." By the time of the band's follow-up effort, the aptly named Destroy Erase Improve, the band had added an additional guitarist in Marten Hagstrom, and upped the ante with a retooled brand of progressive metal that has proven immensely influential to the new breed of metal musicians.

IHSAHN

For the past few years, founding Emperor guitarist (and former Guitar World columnist) Ihsahn has been pushing musical boundaries on his solo albums, revealing a vision beyond what few listeners could ever imagine—from his inventive rhythmic structures to his rough-and-ready riffs. The progressive black metaller also just released a pair of new playthrough videos, one of which, "Frozen Lakes on Mars" (below), is the first-ever demo of Aristedes' new 080s eight-string guitar.

STEVE VAI

You knew it was coming. It would be impossible to leave out Steve Vai, the man who brought the seven-string guitar to prominence. In fact, the first mass-produced seven-string guitar was Vai's signature Ibanez UV7. Sure, there are other Vai songs that make use of the seven-string, sometimes obviously ("The Audience Is Listening," "The Riddle," "Ya Yo Gakk") and sometimes subtly ("For the Love of God"). But "I Would Love To" was the most radio-friendly, MTV-visible track from Vai's breakthrough solo album, Passion and Warfare, and the song makes a great case for the seven-string's use as a wide-range guitar—instead of simply an excuse to play really low notes.

As Vai told Mixdown magazine in 2013, he feels a sense of gratitude in seeing where new players have taken the seven-string guitar. "When it first came out, I was the only one playing one aside from Uli Jon Roth. They weren't available commercially. And once it became available I think there were some people that gravitated toward it because they were fans, and some people gravitated toward it because they saw the potential in it for something new. And they sure did do it. When Passion and Warfare and the Whitesnake albums came out, there was a surge in sales."

RELATED: Hear Steve Vai's "Lovely Elixir" from Passion and Warfare 25th Anniversary Edition

DAVID DAVIDSON | REVOCATION

One of guitarist David Davidson's primary objectives when writing music for his band, Revocation, is to try to push the envelope and come up with sounds, ideas, chord patterns, progressions and riffs that have been rarely explored within the thrash metal genre. Davidson developed his technique at the Berklee College of Music, where he focused on polyrhythm for jazz; the atonal aspects of jazz have afforded him a different perspective on composing and soloing.

JAMES MONTEITH | TESSERACT

The U.K.'s James Monteith and Acle Kahney are highly respected practitioners of djent—an onomatopoeic label for that subset of progressive metal characterized by weighty, palm-muted riffing, typically on instruments with seven or more strings. TesseracT juxtaposes that steadfast staccato underpinning with trippy atmospheric textures. “When TesseracT performs live, Acle and I generally trade off between playing riffs and the more atmospheric stuff, as well as taking turns soloing,” Monteith told Guitar Player. “Keeping the parts distinct helps to assure that things don’t get overly hectic, and also helps us leave more space in the music."

ALEX WADE | WHITECHAPEL

No list of top seven- and eight-stringers would be complete without deathcore heavyweights Whitechapel. Alex Wade, a guitarist for the Tennessee-based band, helps write the band's imposing, bruising and buoyant music—music that has struck a chord across the globe. In 2014, guitarplanet.eu asked Wade what makes a great guitarist: "Someone who can write well-composed, catchy music. I've been fascinated with guys who just shred. Sure it's impressive, but no one wants to listen to that over and over. My favorite guitarist is Stephen Carpenter from Deftones and he's a good example of a guy that just writes great songs with catchy hooks and doesn't try to impress people."

SCOTT CARSTAIRS & BRIAN JAMES | FALLUJAH

“A guitar player should aspire to be a virtuoso,” says Scott Carstairs, who spearheads the San Francisco Bay Area-based and politically charged band Fallujah. “It takes the whole package: proficient technique, tasteful notes and phrases and a solid tone.” Carstairs possesses that package at an age when most people are happy to be able to rent a car. He and gravel-voiced screamer Alex Hofmann started formulating their progressive metal in 2006, and along with second guitarist Brian James, Carstairs & Co. throw down the guitar gauntlet with every performance.

BERNARD REVEL

Yep, they make seven-string acoustic guitars too. Check out the impressive sounds of Bernard Revel and his Lowden Guitars seven-string, below.

AND SINCE WE'RE ON THE TOPIC:

Be sure to check out the fretwork of Per Nilsson ...

... Yvette Young ...

... and the guys in Beyond Creation.

Damian Fanelli, Alan Di Perna and Peter Hodgson contributed to this story.

Swedish metallers Meshuggah have announced their eighth album, The Violent Sleep of Reason.

The album, which was produced by the band, is set for an October 6 release via Nuclear Blast Records. You can pre-order it here.

You can check out The Violent Sleep of Reason's tracklist, a brief teaser for the album and the band's North American tour dates below.

The Violent Sleep of Reason tracklist:

• 1. Clockworks
• 2. Born in Dissonance
• 3. MonstroCity
• 4. By the Ton
• 5. Violent Sleep of Reason
• 6. Ivory Tower
• 7. Stifled
• 8. Nostrum
• 9. Our Rage Won’t Die
• 10. Into Decay

Meshuggah/High on Fire Tour:

10/10/2016 House Of Blues - Lake Buena Vista, FL*
10/11/2016 Tabernacle - Atlanta, GA
10/12/2016 The Pageant - St. Louis, MO
10/13/2016 Marathon Music Works - Nashville, TN
10/15/2016 Knottiest Mexico - Toluca, Mexico*
10/16/2016 House Of Blues - Houston, TX
10/17/2016 House Of Blues - Dallas, TX
10/19/2016 The Novo - Los Angeles, CA
10/20/2016 Brooklyn Bowl - Las Vegas, NV*
10/22/2016 Aftershock Festival - Elverta, CA*
10/24/2016 Ogden Theatre - Denver, CO
10/25/2016 Liberty Hall - Lawrence, KS
10/26/2016 Mill City Nights - Minneapolis, MN
10/28/2016 House Of Blues - Chicago, IL
10/29/2016 The Majestic - Detroit, MI
10/30/2016 Phoenix Concert Theatre - Toronto, ON CANADA
10/31/2016 Metropolis - Montreal, QC CANADA
11/02/2016 House Of Blues - Boston, MA
11/03/2016 Playstation Theater - New York, NY
11/04/2016 The Trocadero Theatre - Philadelphia, PA
11/05/2016 Starland Ballroom - Sayreville, NJ
11/06/2016 The Fillmore - Silver Spring, MD
* MESHUGGAH only

Why ain’t six strings enough? This was the question we posed to one of guitar's all-time greats in a recent Guitar World cover story.

Steve Vai, in his infinite, sage-like wisdom, responded, "Six is enough, and eight is enough too. Whatever you want. Four can be enough. One can be enough, if you’ve got the imagination for it."

And that's really what it came down to when whittling down our list of the 10 greatest seven-string guitar songs of all time. Who had the imagination to take that extra string and do something with it that couldn't be replicated simply by down-tuning or pitch-shifting?

It would have been very easy for the seven-string guitar to now be sitting in a museum somewhere as a one-off novelty item, a Spinal Tap-ish relic of someone who wanted a guitar that went "one lower." But these 10 songs are a testament to the myriad ways in which the seven-string guitar has evolved over the years, in ways that even its modern progenitor couldn't have foreseen.

"When I was [playing seven-strings], I had a feeling there was going to be a group of kids who were really gonna take that low string and do something with it that I wasn’t doing," Vai said in that same interview. "And I also felt that maybe some jazz and classical players would take it up. I had no idea that they were going to do what they did."

10. Deftones — "Hexagram" (Deftones, 2003)

Whether utilizing seven strings or eight, Deftones have packed some serious subsonics into their music over the years. "Hexagram" off the band's 2003 self-titled effort is the epitome of their haunting take on alternative metal, with Chino Moreno screaming maniacally over Stephen Carpenter's off-kilter seven-string riffing.

09. Morbid Angel — "God of Emptiness" (Covenant, 1993)

Trey Azagthoth can be credited as the man who took the seven-string to the world of extreme metal, bringing in some added low-end heft for Morbid Angel's landmark 1993 album, Covenant. The result? One of the best-selling death metal albums of the SoundScan era.

08. Animals as Leaders — "CAFO" (Animals as Leaders, 2009)

When Tosin Abasi recorded what was essentially a solo album under the name Animals as Leaders, his goal was to expand the pallet of heavy, progressive music into something that was more compositionally challenging for him and more accessible to linsteners. “I wanted to make music that was more universal,” he told Guitar World in 2009. Tosin may be better known for rocking the eight-string these days, but "CAFO" from Animals as Leaders' eponymous debut is as fine an example of seven-string mastery as you'll come across in the modern metal-scape.

07. Nevermore — "Born" (The Godless Endeavor, 2005)

Few guitarists have developed such an integral bond with the seven-string guitar like former Nevermore guitarist Jeff Loomis. On the opening track from 2005's The Godless Endeavor, Loomis and fellow guitarist Steve Smyth put on a seven-string show that kicks off with a blast-beat-backed rhythmic flurry and doesn't let up for five solid minutes.

06. Emperor — "The Prophet" (Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise, 2001)

For Emperor's final album, 2001's Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise, guitarist Ihsahn began toying with the sonic and compositional possibilities of the seven-string guitar. While Ihsahn would continue down this path in his solo career (eventually deciding seven wasn't enough and opting for an eight-string guitar), Prometheus may still be his crowning achievement, representing a high-water mark for technical prowess in the black metal genre that few have approached since.

05. Joe Satriani — "Seven String" (Strange Beautiful Music, 2002)

An innovative force like few other guitarists have been, Joe Satriani has unsurprisingly turned to the seven-string guitar more than once in his career to extend the range of his alien guitar acrobatics. "A song like 'Seven String' represents the brute-force side of playing," said Satriani in a 2002 Guitar World interview, echoing just why we can't enough of this track from Strange Beautiful Music.

04. Dream Theater — "The Dark Eternal Night" (Systematic Chaos, 2007)

Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci has made on-and-off use of the seven-string since 1994's Awake, using it to lend unique chord voicings and extended arpeggiated sequences to the band's frantic brand of prog-metal (perhaps most notably on 2002's "The Glass Prison"). But it was on the band's 2007 effort, Systematic Chaos, that Petrucci revved things up another notch entirely with the pummeling, nine-minute opus, "The Dark Eternal Night."

03. Meshuggah — "Future Breed Machine" (Destroy Erase Improve, 1995)

While you won't find any extra strings on Meshuggah's 1991 debut, Contradictions Collapse, guitarist Fredrik Thordendal knew from the very beginning that six strings just wouldn't suffice to contain the breadth of his band's music. "For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to have a seven-string guitar so that I’d be able to play those really low notes," Thordendal told Guitar World, "and then Ibanez finally came out with one." By the time of the band's follow-up effort, the aptly named Destroy Erase Improve, the band had added an additional guitarist in Marten Hagstrom, and upped the ante with a retooled brand of progressive metal that has proven immensely influential to the new breed of metal musicians.

02. Steve Vai — "The Riddle" (Passion and Warfare, 1990)

Around the time of Whitesnake's 1989 album, Slip of the Tongue, Steve Vai was in search of some way to take the guitar into another dimension. "I was just looking for something different, looking to expand the instrument and get a different sound," said Vai in a recent interview of his part in creating the seven-string. "It wasn't a great revelation. It wasn't like the skies opened up and this instrument fell down. It was just a JEM guitar with an extra string. We tried to put a high string on it, but they kept breaking so we added a low string instead." And with that, and the release of 1990's Passion and Warfare, Vai would make his new guitar the envy of shredders worldwide.

01. Korn — "Blind" (Korn, 1994)

When grunge had the shred movement on the ropes, Korn helped to bring the seven-string back from the brink of extinction, giving rise to the nu metal movement in the process. While 1998's Follow the Leader was largely responsible for making them the unabashed leaders of the mainstream metal world with hits like "Freak on a Leash" and "Got the Life," it was the lead track off their self-titled 1994 debut that first turned heads. "I was stunned," said Steve Vai of first hearing Korn. "It sounded like a herd of buffalo wearing iron shoes and blowing fire out of their nostrils."

But the strength of Korn's sound was far from just a lumbering, low-end rumble. The guitar interplay of Munky and Head was something imitators never quite nailed down. "We feed off of each other rhythmically a lot," said Munky in a 1998 GW interview. "We play a lot of parts in unison, or I'll play a steady riff while Head plays counterpoint fills, like we do in the beginning of 'Blind.'"

The seven-string guitar is alive and well, with many of modern metal's most innovative musicians opting for (at least) one extra string to open up new creative avenues. With that in mind, here are five cuts from the last five years that are sure to garner consideration in future renditions of this list.

Periphery — "Racecar" (Periphery, 2010)

After The Burial — "My Frailty" (In Dreams, 2010)

All Shall Perish — "Awaken the Dreamers" (Awaken the Dreamers, 2008)

Scale the Summit — "Whales" (The Collective, 2011)

Textures — "Singularity" (Dualism, 2011)

It's 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 5, and Sunset Boulevard is filled with the type of scenery native to few places outside of West Hollywood: groups of guys with fancy jeans, designer shoes and artfully mussed hair, and packs of tanned girls in impossibly short skirts, high heels and tiny tops are bouncing from bar to bar, indulging in the Cinco de Mayo festivities.

Guitar World is witnessing this roving party from the outdoor deck of the House of Blues, a several-story, faux-ramshackle building fashioned in the style of old tin-roof blues shacks. We can’t help but laugh at the reactions of the shiny, happy people of L.A. as they attempt to navigate past the growing mass of shaggy, black-clad metal acolytes that are lined up in front of the venue. While the passersby may be on the hunt for tequila and tacos, the concert crowd has come out for some decidedly heavier fare: Meshuggah, Sweden’s leaders of technical groove metal, who are at the House of Blues tonight to perform in support of their newly released seventh album, Koloss.

“Do you know tonight is Cinco de Mayo and the supermoon?” asks Fredrik Thordendal, as he steps out onto the deck. The Meshuggah guitarist has just been informed that, by some twist of astrological fate, the group’s show not only falls on Cinco de Mayo—the hard-partying holiday on which people of all ethnic backgrounds celebrate Mexican culture—but also aligns with a cosmic phenomenon in which the full moon is at its closest point to the Earth, causing it to appear significantly larger and brighter than usual. To Thordendal and his bandmates—co-guitarist Mårten Hagström, vocalist Jens Kidman, bassist Dick Lövgren and drummer Tomas Haake—the synchronism is alarming. Says the guitarist, “It’s gonna be crazy!”

Which is appropriate, given the occasion. When Meshuggah unleash their live musical juggernaut on even the most inauspicious of days, it’s like witnessing an elemental force of nature—a sublime convergence of down-tuned eight-string guitars, relentlessly creative rhythmic propulsion and brilliantly savage energy. Meshuggah’s power and influence within the extreme metal scene is undeniable.Witness the popularity of the metal subgenre known as “djent”: the movement, which includes bands like Periphery and Animals as Leaders, takes its name from the vocal approximation of the sound produced by Thordendal and Hagström’s high-gain, palm-muted guitar work.

So with the stars lining up, a sci-fi–worthy moon floating on the night’s horizon, and Meshuggah poised to deliver a one-and-a-half hour set to a fanatical sold-out crowd, one can only imagine what form of creation, or perhaps chaos, is about to be unleashed. Guitar World has been given exclusive access to this evening’s proceedings to shadow Meshuggah, get the story behind Koloss—their most accessible, grooving album to date—and document what happens when a Swedish metal band and its horde of fans overtake West Hollywood.

The strange scene begins to unfold a few hours earlier at load-in amid a cloud of burning rubber and the arrival of a tow truck that, like the rising moon, is bizarrely oversized.

2 p.m.Load-In

When the bus carrying Meshuggah pulls up to the side entrance of the House of Blues, the group finds that the bus belonging to opening band Baroness is stuck on the nearly 30-degree incline and is partially blocking the load-in area.

In an unfortunate miscalculation, Baroness’ driver has pulled too close to a barrier at the end of the incline and is desperately trying to correct the situation by backing up the hill. But because the angle is so steep, the bus can’t gain enough traction to reverse, and with every attempt the vehicle skids closer to colliding with, and most likely destroying, some massive concrete planters. After a few headshakes and eye-rolls, Meshuggah’s techs jump to the task of off-loading road cases filled with racks of guitars, drums and amps, as well as the elaborate stage props and lighting setup, while the band makes its way into the venue. The techs complete the task just as a massive tractor-trailer tow truck—the biggest we’ve ever seen—arrives to extract Baroness’ bus.

We head inside the House of Blues and navigate through its many anterooms until we stumble upon Meshuggah’s third-floor dressing room, where Thordendal and Hagström are settling in. The two guitarists are visions of Nordic pedigree: tall, massive men with strong features and long dark hair. It’s not a jump to imagine we’re meeting a pair of ancient Vikings—just swap out the eight-strings for battle-axes and you’re almost there. The guys might cast an imposing shadow, but within minutes of exchanging hellos, it’s apparent that they are exceedingly accommodating and gracious hosts, and very excited about tonight’s show.

For this evening’s gig, Meshuggah will be delivering an epic set that draws from nearly every stage of technically intoxicating metal in their 25-year career, including Koloss. They’ll also be unveiling their recently reinvigorated live act, which features an over-the-top theatrical light show and larger-than-life presentations of the album’s cerebral, tripped-out artwork.

“We’ve been talking for a while about how we wanted to incorporate a better light show and better scrims with a really good set,” Hagström says as he takes a seat in the dressing room and prepares to film a demo for his new Ibanez M8M guitar. “At this point in our career, we have the catalog for it and we had the time to make some good informed decisions about the presentation. It feels really inspiring to deliver something better.”

Along with debuting four new tracks—“I Am Colossus,” “Demiurge,” “Do Not Look Down” and “The Hurt That Finds You First”—the guys will be treating fans to some lesser-performed gems, like “Dancers to a Discordant System,” from 2008’s obZen, and a 15-minute excerpt from their 2005 concept albu Catch Thirtythree. “We decided to challenge ourselves and think about what songs we hadn’t played that we’d like to,” Hagström says. “We’ve never been this organized with a set list. The first four tracks are right after each other, and then we have a break. We ordered it so that it allows us to have natural breaks and an up-and-down flow to the set. It challenged us, but we’re having a lot of fun playing it.”

This tour also marks the first time that the entire band is using in-ear monitors with a click track, allowing each member to hear the song lead-in counts while offering no audible preparation for the audience. So when out of nowhere Meshuggah launch into one of their crushing grooves, it’s like getting dropped into a stampede of elephants. “We were a little nervous because of all the technology coming into play,” Hagström admits. “But we also feel like we’re finally doing it properly. We were really out to structure the dynamics and go for a thought-out show with a good overall vibe.”

As Hagström waits for the Ibanez crew to set up the cameras for the demo, he gives us the rundown of the new production-model M8M. The eight-string was modeled after the custom-shop guitars Ibanez created for Meshuggah eight years ago, which have since become Hagström and Thordendal’s workhorses. Thordendal sent his original to an Ibanez factory in Japan, where luthiers cataloged every spec of the custom guitar, including the Lundgren Model M8 pickup, alder body, and 29.4-inch maple/bubinga through-neck. When the guitarists received the first M8M prototypes, they were unexpectedly surprised by the results. “It’s basically the same guitar, but for some reason they are actually a little better than our original custom-shop versions,” Thordendal says. “Which is really weird, because usually it’s the other way around.”

We stay for the first few takes of Hagström’s demo, then retreat downstairs to the bar for a little refreshment.

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5 p.m. Soundcheck

The scene at the House of Blues backstage lounge is not unlike a typical Saturday afternoon in many living rooms across the States. The band members are casually sprawled across the immense couches to watch the final moments of Game 3 of the Western Conference NBA quarterfinals. Kidman, who appears to be fighting a head cold, quietly sips on a cup of tea and taps away on his laptop, while Hagström, Lövgren, Haake and Thordendal munch on nachos and cheer as the Los Angeles Clippers narrowly clinch a one-point victory over the Memphis Grizzlies.

When the game ends, the discussion turns to Koloss and a theory that’s been making its way around the internet. Though the new album contains 54 minutes of eight-string chugging, otherworldly solos and hypnotic grooves, it is still relatively restrained compared to previous Meshuggah albums. Online critics and bloggers have surmised that Meshuggah took this direction on Koloss after experiencing the difficulty of replicating obZen’s extremely technical tracks onstage. The band members are quick to dispel any such conjecture.

“Actually, I’d say that the songs on Koloss are as challenging as anything off obZen,” Thordendal says without hesitation. “They might sound easier, but they aren’t. They’re just hard…in a different way.”

“‘Bleed’ and ‘Dancers to a Discordant System’ are the most challenging [tracks on obZen], but we can still play them,” Hagström adds. “But going into Koloss, we didn’t think about that. Even though we might say to ourselves, ‘It would be nice if we’d write some songs that we can actually play live,’ it doesn’t come into effect when we’re writing; it’s just about creating cool shit.”

As Hagström is quick to point out, Koloss still has its share of wickedly complicated barn burners, namely “The Demon’s Name Is Surveillance.” “‘That’s, like, the ‘Bleed’ on the new record,” he says. “We’re not even playing that live yet, because I still have to really work to get the techniques and mechanics of it down.” While the remainder of the album’s tracks might not present the same technical challenges as the relentless, shifting riffs of “The Demon’s Name Is Surveillance,” a deceptively large amount of attention is required for the band to nail the right groove and vibe.

Keen to illustrate this point, Hagström launches into a story about how even these apparently simple songs fooled one of their own, Fredrik Haake, who is Tomas’ cousin and also a drummer. Fredrik, who is lighting director and operator on this tour, manipulates two lighting control consoles connected to the onstage lighting rig. Because he’s essentially “playing” the lights on the fly in conjunction with the music, he has to know each song cold. “Fredrik was saying that he thought the new songs wouldn’t be hard to learn,” Hagström says. “But then when he actually had to learn them it was a totally different experience. He’s had to take notations on the new tracks, which is something he’s never had to do before.”

Yet for all the complexity of their music, Meshuggah make it look easy. When their manager enters the room to inform the band it’s time to soundcheck, the guys leisurely ready themselves and make their way downstairs to the stage. Haake arrives first and runs through a series of drum patterns. The renowned drummer is focused and measured with every roll, crash and double-kick. Even during the mundane exercise of checking levels, his virtuoso, fluid and seemingly effortless technique is stunning. Hagström, Lövgren and Thordendal soon appear with axes in hand, and Kidman follows shortly after.

After a few minutes dedicated to dialing-in the guitarist’s sounds—which all emanate from Fractal Axe-Fx guitar and effect processor units that feed out to the venue’s P.A. system—the band rips into “Combustion,” from obZen. The sound is immense and instantly overwhelms the venue to the point that the staff, crew and opening–band members cannot help but pause and turn toward the stage.

Kidman stays for one song before retreating to the dressing room. The rest of the members stay behind and spend another 20 minutes working through “Dancers to a Discordant System” until they are pleased with the sound. With that, the theater falls silent and each of Meshuggah’s members departs the stage as nonchalantly as he arrived.

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8 p.m. Doors

The sun is just beginning to set, and the fans outside the House of Blues have begun funneling into the venue. Inside, Poland’s Decapitated are preparing to take the stage. The death metal act is splitting warm-up duties with Atlanta-based proggy sludge-metallers Baroness, who will be debuting a few new tracks from their forthcoming CD, Yellow & Green.

We catch some of the opening acts’ sets before making our way backstage to find Thordendal and Hagström, who are digging into some catering. We then retreat to a small backstage room to discuss the particulars surrounding the creation of Koloss. Like some multifaith confessional booth, the room is adorned with religious relics, candles and an immense smiling Buddha.

“It’s kind of perfect, right?” Hagström says of the booth’s confessional-like atmosphere. After pausing for a moment to speculate on what could make one’s face achieve the Buddha’s ecstatic expression (Enlightenment? Orgasm? Hitting the Mega-Ball Lottery?), our conversation lands on the theory that creative forces exist everywhere, all the time, and that you must discover how to best position yourself to receive the information.

“You absolutely have to tune into it,” Hagström says emphatically. “We’ve actually been discussing this a lot. You know those voice memo things on your iPhone? If I had had one of those for the last 20 years to record my ideas when I was walking around, I would have, like, 10 albums. Every really good idea comes during some spur-of-the-moment event. But rarely do you get a whole song from those moments. Usually it’s one idea that you then have to work to build a whole song around, which means sitting down with the guitar and figuring it out. But the initial inspiration is really like the ghost in the machine.”

“You have to just let it come to you,” Thordendal adds. “For me it can happen anywhere. But mundane situations seem to be the best, like riding the commuter train.”

“It’s whatever allows you to put your consciousness on hold,” Hagström continues. “Whether I’m fishing, sitting on the couch watching TV or walking around outside, my mind is not thinking of anything, and then all of a sudden I’m like, ‘Ohhh!’ And then I run home to grab my guitar.”

For all their technical tendencies—like subdividing 4/4 riffs into unexpected patterns and infusing them with progressive, alien-sounding solos—Meshuggah have always been blessed with heavy, mesmerizing grooves. These, like the distinct attack of Thordendal and Hagström’s picks against their strings, have been an inspiration to the new crop of djent metal bands, whose young guitarists have unequivocally cited the Swedish five-piece as evolutionary ground zero. With the reserved poise of elder statesmen, Thordendal and Hagström have quietly accepted this praise and expressed their support of these young bands. But the pair also harbors concerns that some people may be missing the point: that technicality should always serve the groove.

“People get so caught up with the technical aspect of things,” Hagström says. “If you’re just after sheer speed and technical prowess, there are a lot of other bands that would be more interesting to watch than us. But the technical aspects are never something we seek out. They’re a byproduct of what we want to sound like.”

• “In fact, it’s actually disturbing that it becomes so technical,” Thordendal says. “The technical aspects are what cause the problems.”
• “We’ve always been about the groove,” Hagström continues. “Granted, we have a pretty twisted way of approaching how we groove. But it’s not all that big of a deal. Sometimes people think we set out to create these crazy patterns and then make them work. That’s not how it works, because most of the time it sounds like shit with that approach. You just have to find the groove and then work with the weird stuff until it makes sense.”

The way a typical Meshuggah album comes together goes something like this: individual members write fully fleshed-out demos of songs and then present them to Haake, at which time he lays down drums for all tracks. The guitar and bass parts are then recorded, followed by the vocals. When it came time to write the tracks that would become Koloss, Meshuggah attempted to switch up their approach in two ways. One stuck; the other didn’t.

“At first we decided to try to go into a jam situation with riffs,” Hagström says. “We started with ‘Swarm.’ I had written stuff for it, but it wasn’t close to being finished. So we got together and felt it out as a band.” The collaboration was a success, as heard in the track’s seething, relentless guitar attack and stinging solo, which cleverly evokes a swarm of insects.

“That solo was so crazy that I almost couldn’t use it,” Thordendal says with a laugh. “It was just so ‘out,’ and honestly, it didn’t sound very good. I had to put so many delays on it. Really, that’s the worst one on the album. But it does sound like a swarm, so I guess it fulfills the function for the song.”

Meshuggah may have hit pay dirt with the group effort that bore “Swarm,” but the collective jam sessions fizzled out nearly as quickly as they began. “It was great, but we just went back to doing what was comfortable,” Hagström says. The rest of the tracks were composed individually by the members and presented to the group as full demos. While the jam-session writing approach didn’t take hold, Meshuggah’s decision to break from tradition and lay down all tracks for each song before moving on to the next proved to be a more lasting endeavor.

“Normally we record drums for all tracks, then guitars and so on,” Hagström says. “But this time, we recorded the drums, then guitars for the same song. So with a track like ‘Swarm,’ we had finished bass, drums and guitars before we even had half of the stuff for the rest of the album done. I think it helped us to get more perspective on the songs, because we had time to be with them during the rest of recording.”

As has been the case for years, for the writing and recording of Koloss, Thordendal and Hagström used a relatively minimal setup consisting of an arsenal of eight-string Ibanez guitars, including Icemans and the M8M models, Fractal Audio Axe-Fx preamps and Cubase recording software. While there may not be many moving parts in the setup, the combination of the Axe-Fx and Cubase allowed for near-endless expandability and experimentation.

“Because of Cubase, even our initial demos are pretty extensive,” Hagström says. “We do bass, guitar and vocal melodies, and programmed drums with Superior Drummer from the Drumkit from Hell [software by Toontrack]. In fact, Fredrik and I wrote more drum riffs on this album than Tomas. Because Fredrik is also a drummer, he knows how you handle the sticks and what is actually physically possible for a drummer to play. But I don’t know that shit. I go crazy with programming.”

“He’s like the [four-armed Indian deity] Shiva on drums,” Thordendal says with a laugh. “But the drums are really so important to our music. They need to be exactly what they are. We can’t say, ‘Here’s the riff, just jam some drums with it.’ When I hear the riff in my head, the drums are there too.”

For his part, Haake had a hand in writing a couple tracks for the new album, including “Do Not Look Down.” To create an illustration that the guitarists could refine, Haake programmed the initial drum track and got Hagström to lay down a riff, which the drummer then cut and stretched to build out the rest of the song. “It turned into the most funky track we’ve ever done,” Hagström says. “It’s like funk-rock Meshuggah.”

“That lead is almost embarrassing,” Thordendal says of the major pentatonic line he plays over the minor riff. “I never play like that, but the song craved a groovy rock-style lead.”

Meshuggah’s relationship with the Cubase software is not only crucial to the demoing process but also defines the band’s sound on record, much to the surprise of their more gear-headed fans. “All the guitars you hear on the album are Cubase with the Amp Rack plug-in for the tone,” Hagström says. “It’s funny, because people are always like, ‘Your guitars sound sick! What amps are you using?’ We’re like, ‘Cubase,’ and they just stare at us.”

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10:30 p.m. Showtime

The huge, surreal supermoon is beaming brightly over the House of Blues, which at this hour has reached full capacity. Decapitated and Baroness have each concluded their sets, which, while powerful in their own right, have only served to whet the audience’s appetite for something even heavier. The alcohol is flowing and every possible vantage point of the stage is packed with L.A.’s metal-loving finest, who are periodically breaking into chants: “Mesh. Ugg. Ah! Mesh. Ugg. Ah!”

Upstairs, the band has retreated to its dressing room for a moment of privacy to prepare for the impending onslaught. Mårten and Fredrik emerge first, with Ibanez eight-strings in hand, to pose for some last-minute setups with our photographer. We all walk down the back stairs and position ourselves on the side of the stage. While our photographer grabs a few final shots, the rest of the band arrives. Kidman runs through final vocal warm-ups, which consist of a mix of slow growls and quick “Hey! Hey! Hey!” shouts. Haake stands with sticks in hand, loosening his wrists in circular motions and a few air-drumming runs. Lövgren pounds away on his bass along with Meshuggah’s opening music, which is, inexplicably, Rod Stewart’s disco hit “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy.”

As the lights dim and Stewart’s endless jam fades away, we part ways with the band and hustle out a side stage door just as Meshuggah take their positions onstage and start crunching out the slow chords to the instrumental “Obsidian,” from 2006’s Nothing. The crowd is on its feet as the band ratchets up the tension before launching into a crushing rendition of “Demiurge.” As the lights switch from bright white to blood red, Kidman unleashes his growled lyrics “Writhing and embraced!” The crowd lurches forward and fragments into wild and flailing pits.

The band is scarily tight and appears larger-than-life under the bombastic, dynamic light show. As we push closer toward the stage, we take a quick survey of the audience. Not one person is sitting down, including Tool’s drummer Danny Carey, who is leaning over the center-stage balcony, pounding his fist into the air and headbanging with a huge grin on his face. Between the colossal musical force coming from the stage and the feverish energy of the crowd, a synchronization begins to take place, which brings to mind something Thordendal said in passing earlier today.

“Everything has been a big experiment,” he said. “I don’t even know where it comes from, but it’s all out there. You just build riff after riff. And then you begin to see exactly what’s happening, and then you start to see the big picture, which is what you were looking for in the first place.”

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Meshuggah have announced that they will be returning to North American in 2013 for an extensive headlining tour which will see them supported by Animals as Leaders and Intronaut. Full dates can be found below.

“Finally we're getting our asses back over the pond to deliver a second helping of the Ophidian trek across North America," says guitarist Marten Hagstrom. "We are excited. We will see you there!”

Meshuggah are still supporting their latest album, Koloss, which was released earlier this year. The album saw the band strip down their arrangements, refocusing their calculating minds on different aspects of their music.

“Actually, I’d say that the songs on Koloss are as challenging as anything off obZen,” guitarist Fredrik Thordendal told Guitar World earlier this year. “They might sound easier, but they aren’t. They’re just hard…in a different way.”

Hagstrom added, "‘Bleed’ and ‘Dancers to a Discordant System’ are the most challenging [tracks on obZen], but we can still play them. But going into Koloss, we didn’t think about that. Even though we might say to ourselves, ‘It would be nice if we’d write some songs that we can actually play live,’ it doesn’t come into effect when we’re writing; it’s just about creating cool shit.”

Meshuggah, Animals as Leaders, Intronaut 2013 Tour Dates

• 02/11/13 Beacham Theatre – Orlando, FL
• 02/12/13 Center Stage – Atlanta, GA
• 02/13/13 The Fillmore Charlotte – Charlotte, NC
• 02/14/13 Theater of Living Arts – Philadelphia, PA
• 02/15/13 Roseland Ballroom – New York, NY
• 02/16/13 The Fillmore Silver Spring – Silver Spring, MD
• 02/17/13 House of Blues – Boston, MA
• 02/19/13 Sound Academy – Toronto, ON - CANADA
• 02/20/13 House of Blues – Cleveland, OH
• 02/21/13 Bogart’s – Cincinnati, OH
• 02/22/13 House of Blues – Chicago, IL
• 02/23/13 Pop’s – Sauget, IL
• 02/24/13 Mill City Nights – Minneapolis, MN
• 02/26/13 Union Hall – Edmonton, AB - CANADA
• 02/27/13 MacEwan Hall Ballroom – Calgary, AB - CANADA
• 03/01/13 Ace of Spades – Sacramento, CA
• 03/02/13 Wiltern Theater – Los Angeles, CA
• 03/03/13 House of Blues @ Mandalay Bay – Las Vegas, NV

Meshuggah have just released a remix of their track "I Am Colossus" online, and are offering the track as a free download. You can listen to and download the Engine-Earz & Foreign Beggars-produced remix in the widgets below, courtesy of Scion/AV.

The track will be released by the band as a limited-edition 7-inch vinyl.

"I Am Colossus" is taken from the band's new album, Koloss, which was released last month via Nuclear Blast. The band are currently on the road for a headlining tour, with support from Baroness and Decapitated.

Swedish progressive metal band Meshuggah have just unveiled a new performance video for their song "Break These Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion." Check it out below.

The trippy video makes a lot more sense when you know that the band were under the influence when it was being filmed. "We were high on tacos and sodas when we recorded this video," said vocalist Jens Kidman.

"Break These Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion" is taken from the band's new album, Koloss, which was released earlier this week on Nuclear Blast.

We're just a week away from the much-anticipated release of Meshuggah's new album, Koloss, and the band have just announced that they're giving away a track from the album. You can download "I Am Colossus" here, courtesy of Scion AV, as well as stream the track below.

“‘I Am Colossus’ is way more straightforward than the thrash metal we grew up with," said drummer Tomas Haake. "At the same time, it does pose its own difficulties for us as players. It will probably be one of the first songs we attempt to play on tour. The solo - which is basically two long notes that are slow bends - just turned out beautiful. Such an understatement as a guitar solo. Sometimes a slow song is just as aggressive as a fast one.”

Koloss is out next Tuesday, March 27, via Nuclear Blast.

To celebrate the upcoming release of Meshuggah's new album, Koloss, which is due out March 26 via Nuclear Blast Records, some of my Boston-based friends made a video that's been making the rounds. It's called "Pour Some Meshuggah On Me."

The video is a musical mash-up combining Meshuggah-style riffing with Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me."

Check out the video and tell me what you think!

Most of the people in the video are from a Boston-based progressive metal band called The Dead Station. I've heard one song by them, and it was very cool. They're working on a full-length CD at the moment, but I'm not sure when it will be out.

Check out the band at their Facebook page. They have a song you can download called "Limitless Or So It Seems."

OK, here's "Pour Some Meshuggah On Me":

Dave Reffett is a Berklee College of Music graduate and has worked with some of the best players in rock and metal. He is an instructor at (and the head of) the Hard Rock and Heavy Metal department at The Real School of Music in the metro Boston area. He also is a master clinician and a highly-in-demand private guitar teacher. He teaches lessons in person and worldwide via Skype. As an artist and performer, he is working on some soon-to-be-revealed high-profile projects with A-list players in rock and metal. In 2009, he formed the musical project Shredding The Envelope and released the critically acclaimed album The Call Of The Flames. Dave also is an official artist endorsee for companies like Seymour Duncan, Gibson, Eminence and Esoterik Guitars, which in 2011 released a Dave Reffett signature model guitar, the DR-1. Dave has worked in the past at Sanctuary Records and Virgin Records, where he promoting acts like The Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, Korn and Meat Loaf.

Dave Reffett headshot photo by Yolanda Sutherland

Yesterday, the Land Down Under got a special treat at the Perth stop of Australian's Soundwave Festival. Gojira were joined onstage by Devin Townsend and Meshuggah guitarist Fredrik Thordendal for a performance of "Of Blood & Salt." Check out the fan-filmed footage below.

"Of Blood & Salt" is the only track released so far from Gojira's long in-the-works Sea Shepherd project, an EP that sees the band collaborating with numerous metal all-stars. The five-song EP has been on hold for some time now after a harddrive crash nearly lost all of the band's work. Proceeds from the album are set to benefit The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which works to preserve marine wildlife.

Gojira are at work on the follow-up to 2008's The Way of All Flesh.

Meshuggah have just posted a new trailer for their upcoming album, Koloss. Check it out below.

In late April, the band will embark on a headlining run in the U.S. with support from Baroness and Decapitated. You can get all the dates right here.

"We’re really stoked to be coming back again!," said Meshuggah drummer Tomas Haake of the upcoming tour. "A new album and two really awesome bands to join us on our trek across the U.S. and Canada! There’s one word that comes to mind: Sweeeet!”

Koloss will be released March 26 via Nuclear Blast Records.

You can stream a new track, "Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion," at this location.

It's safe to say today's weekly music roundup is a bit dominated by metal.

This week, we finally got the name of that Meshuggah track that mysteriously surfaced online last week, Into Eternity stopped teasing us and debuted "Fukushima," Municipal Waste streamed their new Decibel flexidisc and Sigh premiered a new track while announcing plans for an upcoming album.

Here on GuitarWorld.com, we also debuted a brand-new track from Spawn of Possession's upcoming new album, Incuro. Head here to check out "Bodiless Sleeper."

Meshuggah, "Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion"

Into Eternity, "Fukushima"

Epica, "Storm the Sorrow"

Sigh, "Far Beneath the In-Between"

Paradise Lost, "Crucify"

Opera Diabolicus, "Blood Countess Bathory"

Daphne Loves Derby, "Mare Infinitas"

Sharks, "Arcane Effigies"

E-Town Concrete, "Someone Tell 'Em"

God Forbid, "Cornered" (clip)

Municipal Waste, "Religion Proof"

Torture Killer, "I Choose Death"

Chromatics, "Hey Hey My My (Into the Black)" (Neil Young cover)

Chrome Waves, "That Cursed Armored Train"

Meshuggah have just posted another track off their new album, Koloss. Listen to "Do Not Look Down" below, or over at Nuclear Blast's webstore.

"It sounds organic, more visceral," drummer Tomas Haake recently told MSN of the band's new album. "And for some weird reason that kind of makes it even more brutal."

Koloss, the follow-up to 2008's obZen, is set for release on March 26 via Nuclear Blast.

The following month, the band will kick off a headlining North American tour with Baroness and Decapitated. You can get all the dates for the tour here.MESHUGGAH - Do Not Look Down by NuclearBlastRecords

Last week, we streamed a new Meshuggah track that had been intentionally leaked online as part of the promotion leading up to the release of their new album, Koloss.

While the track didn't have a name at the time, it has now been identified as "Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion," and the band has released an official lyric video for the track, which can be seen below.

"It’s definitely a warmer album," drummer Tomas Haake told MSN of the band's new album. "Even though it’s very brutal, the drums sound more organic, the guitar tone is a bit less in the digital soundscape. It all depends a bit on what track you’re listening to as well, but I definitely think that it sounds organic, more visceral. And for some weird reason that kind of makes it even more brutal."

Koloss is out on March 27.

A new Meshuggah song has apparently "leaked" online and is available for streaming below.

I say "leaked" because apparently the domain of the website that uploaded the track, iamaleak.com, is registered to Meshuggah's management (thanks Got-Djent.)

The track was found through a cryptic message that appeared online yesterday:

"the ophidian whispered those who seek shall be rewarded….

• a sonic declaration of spIte And resentMent
• its resonAnce grinding to dust our souls
• the twine of revenge tightLy strung
• its subharmonics thE undoing of All

and for those who asK for my name? / dotcom"

The track is, of course, taken from Meshuggah's new album, Koloss, which is due out March 27 via Nuclear Blast.

Another long-rumored tour for 2012 has been confirmed, as Meshuggah will be hitting the road with Baroness and Decapitated starting in late April.

We first got wind of the tour when drummer Tomas Haake mentioned it in a live chat about the band's new album, Koloss. (Watch the chat here. "

"We’re really stoked to be coming back again!," said Haake. "A new album and two really awesome bands to join us on our trek across the U.S. and Canada!There’s one word that comes to mind: Sweeeet!”

I think Decapitated frontman Vogg best sums everyone's feelings towards this tour, saying: "FUCK YEAH! DECAPITATED with MESHUGGAH! We’re so proud and happy to be part of this amazing tour! It will be a huge honor to share one stage with such a great fuckin’ band! Cannot wait!"

Meshuggah 2012 Tour Dates w/ Baroness, Decapitated:
4/29/12 House of Blues - Houston, TX
4/30/12 House of Blues - Dallas, TX
5/01/12 Emo’s - Austin, TX
5/03/12 Marquee Theatre - Tempe, AZ
5/04/12 House of Blues - Anaheim, CA
5/05/12 House of Blues - Hollywood, CA
5/06/12 The Fillmore - San Francisco, CA
5/08/12 Commodore Ballroom - Vancouver, B.C. - CANADA
5/09/12 Showbox Sodo - Seattle, WA
5/11/12 Odgen Theatre - Denver, CO
5/13/12 First Avenue - Minneapolis, MN
5/15/12 House of Blues - Chicago, IL
5/16/12 St. Andrews Hall - Detroit, MI
5/17/12 Sound Academy - Toronto, ON - CANADA
5/18/12 Theatre of the Living Arts - Philadelphia, PA
5/19/12 Palladium - Worcester, MA
5/20/12 Olympia de Montreal - Montreal, QUE - CANADA
5/22/12 The Fillmore - Silver Springs, MD
5/23/12 Terminal 5 – New York, NY

Yesterday, Meshuggah members Tomas Haake and Jens Kidman took part in a live Q&A session with fans about the band's new album, Koloss. In case you missed it, a full replay of the chat is now available online and can be seen below.

Perhaps the most exciting news to come out of the chat was a hint by the band that they will be touring in the summer with Decapitated and Baroness.

Koloss will be released March 27 via Nuclear Blast Records.

Later today, Meshuggah members Tomas Haake and Jens Kidman will be hosting a live Q&A with fans to discuss the band's upcoming new album, Koloss. The chat will take place at 3:30 P.M. EST in Nuclear Blast's Streaming Room.

Koloss, Meshuggah's eighth studio album, is due out March 27 via Nuclear Blast.

The band recently flew down to Southern California to take part in a special listening party at this year's NAMM. You can check out a photo gallery from the event here.

A day after Sweden's Meshuggah formally announced the title of their upcoming new album as Koloss, the band have now unveiled both the album art and track listing for the album, and you can find both below.

In an official press release, Meshuggah drummer Tomas Haake said of the new album: “As always, we try to take our music in a slightly different direction with each album and with Koloss we feel that we really nailed what we were going for. Organic brutality, viscera and groove all crammed into a 54-minute metalicious treat, best avoided by the faint of heart!"

Koloss is set for release on March 27 via Nuclear Blast Records.

Koloss Track Listing:

• 01. I Am Colossus
• 02. The Demon's Name Is Surveillance
• 03. Do Not Look Down
• 04. Behind The Sun
• 05. The Hurt That Finds You First
• 06. Marrow
• 07. Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion
• 08. Swarm
• 09. Demiurge
• 10. The Last Vigil

Swedish progressive metal band Meshuggah have announced Koloss as the title of their upcoming new album, which is due out March 27 via Nuclear Blast.

It turns out Meshuggah had hidden the album's title in a somewhat cryptic message posted on their website not long ago, which read: "After a long time of deep soul searching and intense wrecking of the psyches, the new album is finally done. Soon you will meet this colossus that will pulverize your being. Welcome to the other side on March 27."

On the direction of the band's new album, drummer Tomas Haake has this to say:

"As always, we try to take our music in a slightly different direction with each album, and with Koloss we feel we really nailed what we were going for. Organic brutality, viscera and groove all crammed into a 54-minute metalicious treat, best avoided by the faint of heart!"

He is Meshuggah’s lead guitarist and an inspiration to the ax-wielding trailblazers behind the prog-metal djent movement. But what Guitar World readers really want to know is…

I heard Meshuggah have been jamming on new ideas and might be releasing an album in 2011. Is there any truth to that? Do you have a title or any new gear you’re using?
—Ronnie “Good” Thyme

Yes, we are working on a new album and have been for a long time. I’m so excited about this one. We’ve always tried to change how we write songs to keep it exciting, but on recent albums we’ve also been moving further away from working together as a band. On this album, though, everyone is working together. Every day that we’re in the studio, we’ll play whatever song we’re working on, record a demo version of it to analyze at home, and then come back the next day, talk about it and try to make it better. I think because of this, it’s going to be our best album yet.

We don’t have a title yet, but when it comes to new gear, this one is going to be special, to say the least. I’m working with DAR Amplification to make this ridiculously powerful guitar amp. It’s got 100 watts of true Class A power. The tubes are from Russian MiG 25 fighter planes; they’re designed to survive a nuclear blast and keep the plane flying. It will be the world’s most advanced modern tube amp. But most importantly, it’s designed from beginning to end for the ultimate metal tone, and it sounds awesome. Can’t wait for you to experience it!

Are you familiar with the current “djent” movement, with bands like Periphery, Animals as Leaders and TesseracT? All those bands credit Meshuggah as the biggest influence to their style.
—James

I have heard of djent and all these bands. Yes, I’m definitely into their sound, and it makes me proud. I think it’s great that we can influence anyone in any kind of way to do something creative. To me, that’s what it’s all about. Some people listen to our music when they work out, spar, run, walk, et cetera. Some pick up the guitar and add one of our tools to theirs. It’s all the same, and it’s all great.

You’ve always been able to create riffs in odd meters that are still brutal and groove heavy. Is there a certain way you count, or a certain pulse you feel, to reach that balance of technical playing and power?
—Joe Dopke
Actually, we rarely play riffs in odd meters. I understand why people hear odd meters in our songs, because we group our notes in different ways. But just about all of them are 4/4.

What is your current guitar and amp setup, and how do you EQ it to get that “Meshuggah” tone?
—Bob Thompson

I’m guessing we are talking about the rhythm sound here. For a few years now, I’ve been using Fractal Audio’s Axe-Fx Ultra. There are 70 amps included, and I use more than one. But the ones I like the most now are Recto New, which is based on the Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier amps; Das Metall, which is based on the Diezel VH4; and USA IIC+ 2, which is based on the Mesa/Boogie Mark II. I also still use Line 6’s Vetta II in the rehearsal studio. As far as EQ, it’s impossible to say what I do, because it’s different on every amp. But in general, I use a lot of drive and bass, a little mid, and some treble and presence.

Can you explain the idea behind your 33 MIDI breath controller that Johan Haake [brother of Meshuggah drummer Tomas] built for you? Will it ever be for sale to the public?
—Graham Gilmore
When I came up with the idea of a MIDI breath controller, I was mainly interested in using it as a dynamics controller. I wanted to start a note at a lower volume and then bring it up, like a saxophonist does. But I’ve since found that is more or less impossible with a guitar. Since the controller didn’t produce the sound I was after, I had to find other ways of using it. It turned out that the only thing that sounded cool was when I blew every single note with it, which generated this weird staccato sound. The first breath controller we made—the one I used on “Future Breed Machine” and “Sublevels” from Destroy Erase Improve—could only control the volume. So Johan Haake and I tried all kinds of things to get closer to what I originally wanted, like adding control over frequencies and distortion. I am really pleased with how the “Missing Time” solo turned out from Sol Niger Within Version 3.33 [the remix CD of the debut album from his side project Fredrik Thordendal’s Special Defects]. But I never thought we got close enough, so I sort of gave up on it. A couple of years ago it was for sale to the public, but not any more.

The second Special Defects album has been under way for a while. How far along are you in the process, and will it be out soon?
—Sebastian Linnet

It’s actually been messing with my head for years now. But since I’ve been touring a lot on Meshuggah’s latest release, obZen, together with becoming a father and practicing drums during the same period, I haven’t really found the time to get the project going. I recorded some incredible drum tracks with Morgan Ågren [of Swedish prog-rock band Kaipa] and [Soilwork’s] Dirk Verbeuren last year, but I haven’t really written any songs yet. This is a project that I will work on for a longer time, with no rush whatsoever, to make it the best I possibly can. I’m looking forward to making it because I think it will sound so different from anything I’ve ever heard before. But right now, me and the Meshuggeners are focusing everything we’ve got on the new Meshuggah album. It’s going to crush.

You’re a fan of ultimate fighting. What was your favorite fight from this year and why? I loved [Cain] Velasquez’s badass knockout of [Antonio Rodrigo] Nogueira!
—Jeff Thompson

Yeah, that one was awesome. For that fight, I was actually in Sydney with [Meshuggah bassist] Dick [Lövgren] and [vocalist] Jens [Kidman], so I got to see it live. But I have to say my favorite bout was Velasquez’s win over [Brock] Lesnar in UFC 121.

What are your top-three favorite things to listen to right now, and why?
—Damian Murdoch

I just found out about [jazz fusion guitarist] Wayne Krantz and his amazing work with Keith Carlock and Tim Lefebvre. When I started listening to their stuff, I felt like I was 15 years old and I wanted to start exploring music all over again. These guys are the most inspiring band I’ve heard in a very long time. I also can’t stop listening to Massive Attack’s 100th Window because it takes me to this other place. I’ve also been listening to Cult of Luna for a while now. They’re a very good band: different, raw and interesting.

A lot of your soloing has a free-form jazz style to it. Is it based on feel, or have you had formal training? Do you map out your solos ahead of time?
—Jason Molstad

My dad always listened to jazz, and I guess that influenced me to learn about improvisation. An improvised solo sounds so much better than a written one. For me, there’s not much thinking going on at all, only a reaction to what I’m being told from the inside.

And no, I have not had any formal training. When I record my leads, they are usually based on feel and totally ignorant to all laws of music theory. This, of course, is because I just play whatever comes out. There are no rules. But on certain songs, I do have to figure out what scales I need to use to follow chord changes. Since I’m not very good with all the scales, I sometimes have to write parts down and plan things ahead. I usually improvise the first part, then insert the written part and continue to improvise until the end of the solo. It’s a very confusing way to do it, but I do whatever it takes to make it sound like I know what I’m doing.

Photo Credit: Jimmy Hubbard

Meshuggah guitarist Marten Hagstrom recently talked to Studio Rock about a number of topics, including the progress on a new Meshuggah album. You can read an excerpt from the chat below.

Studio Rock: Let's start by asking what's happening in the life of Meshuggah.

Mårten Hagström: Right now we are doing these summer festivals, about 12 or something, and then we'll probably try to finish up [the new Meshuggah] album. The next album is coming along and we're looking to finish it in the fall or winter and Nuclear Blast plans to release it in March, as that's the schedule.

Studio Rock: Any surprises that I can ask about on the new album? Would you consider going into new instruments or so?

Mårten Hagström: Instrument-wise, we are not gonna go anywhere new, but, well, when we make an album, we at least think that we try to do something that's not totally different yet [maintain] our sound with a different groove. This time, from what it feels right now, it's gonna be a little bit slower and a little bit groovier album. But that's just generally. I think that we will like this album better than the media.

Studio Rock: Is it the same writing process with Tomas [Haake, drums] writing lyrics and…

Mårten Hagström: Yea, this hasn't changed, yet. He still writes the lyrics. Musically, well, actually I don't know about this album, but usually, on previous albums, it's been divided between me and Fredrik [Thordendal, guitar] and Tomas. Maybe Dick [Lövgren, bass] is going to have a song or two now, Jens [Kidman, vocals] as well. But it actually depends on what we decide to have on the album in the end. Right now everybody is writing and we are dividing as much writing as possible between us.

You can read the full interview here.

Gojira, who are working on both a new EP and a new album, have released a new song titled "Of Blood And Salt." The track will be featured on a sampler that will accompany an upcoming issue of Metal Hammer.

Fans who've been waiting for new Gojira music since 2008's The Way of All Flesh should be more than happy with this track, which, by the way, features Meshuggah's Fredrik Thordendal and Devin Townshend making guest appearances.

Gojira have stated that their latest EP, Sea Shepherd, would feature several guest appearances from big names in the metal world. Sea Shepherd still has no official release date.

Check out the song below, and let us know what you think in the comments!

Djent--an off-shoot of progressive metal that features heavily palm-muted, distorted guitar chords alongside virtuoso soloing -- is all the rage these days in the metal world, but let's not forget where it all started. Many of the sub-genre's leading bands will tell you the inspiration for their sound came from one band: Meshuggah. In the following interview, Meshuggah guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Marten Hagstrom talk about their gear and how they create their brutal tones. Interview by Nick Bowcott

GUITAR WORLD: You both play seven-string guitars. How did you get into the instrument?
FREDRIK THORDENDAL: For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to have a seven-string guitar so that I’d be able to play those really low notes, and then Ibanez finally came out with one.
MARTEN HAGSTROM: [laughs] Yeah, a disgustingly ugly guitar with flowers all over it [the original Steve Vai signature Universe model that came out in the late Eighties—GW Ed].
THORDENDAL: I bought one almost right away. I’ve had it since 1991 and it’s still my main guitar.

Those guitars must cost a king’s ransom in Sweden.
THORDENDAL: Yeah, you could buy a small car for the same amount of money. Lucky for me I got mine from the U.S. for something like one-third of the price I would’ve had to pay to get one in Sweden. My father was in America and bought it for me at the Sam Ash music store on 48th Street in New York City.

Are the Universes you use totally stock?
THORDENDAL: Yes, apart from the pickups, which we have dipped in wax to stop them from feeding back when we use them; we have to do that.
HAGSTROM: Totally! We both use fairly extreme amounts of gain, so the original pickups would feedback really badly before we had them waxed. Feedback is a very big problem for us because of the amount of gain we use. We can’t just pick up a guitar and go, “This is cool, we’ll use this on the road,” because we can’t. The first thing we have to do is wax the pickups. If we didn’t, all you’d hear when we plugged it into one of our rigs would be feedback.

Do you do the waxing yourself?
THORDENDAL: No way—we’d probably melt the whole pickup if we did. Instead we take them to someone who knows how to do it.

How many spare guitars do you take out on the road?
HAGSTROM: Believe it or not, on the last American tour we did, opening for Slayer [1999], all we had was our two main guitars and one spare guitar between the two of us, which was a six-string strung up like a seven-string but with the top E string missing! A while ago I did buy two other seven-string guitars, but then I ran out of cash, so I kept the one I liked the most and sold the others.

GW Do you ever drop the low B string down to A so you can play those “grunge approved,” one-fingered power chords?
HAGSTROM: No, we always tune down a half step, so our strings go [low to high] Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb.

What gauge strings do you use?
HAGSTROM: Not that heavy: .009 to 0.052.

What about amps and effects?
HAGSTROM: In the studio we both use Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier heads. Our live gear set-ups are completely different, though. I run my Ibanez into a Nady 605 wireless and then into a homemade A/B splitter box. The A channel is for my rhythm crunch sound and the B channel is for my clean sound. For my rhythm sound I go through a t.c. electronic preamp into a Marshall Valvestate Bi-Chorus 200-watt head [8200]. I then go out from the Marshall’s mono effects loop [Note: the 8200 head, which is no longer made, boasted two effects loops—Series (mono) & Parallel (stereo)—GW Ed.] into a Behringer Intelligate and then a Rocktron G612 line mixer before going back into the Marshall’s effects return. My clean sound goes from the splitter box into a t.c. electronic Compressor/Sustainer, a t.c. electronic Stereo Chorus and an Art DXR Elite multi-processor before going to the Rocktron line mixer. I then take the stereo outputs from the Rocktron mixer into the parallel, stereo effects return of the Marshall head and then out into two Marshall 1960 4x12 cabinets.

That’s quite a complex rig.
THORDENDAL: If you think Marten’s live rig is complicated, wait until you see mine! [laughs] Rather than try and talk you through it, here’s a diagram that will be much easier to understand [see FIGURE 1].

Guitar World is pleased to host the premiere of "Jetpacks Was Yes," the new video from Maryland six-piece prog-metal outfit Periphery! The video was produced by Eric Haviv, Richard Webb and Brandon Morris of FUGO Studios. FUGO Studios.

Vocalist Spencer Sotelo comments on the new video: "Originally the guys and I wanted to portray a very melancholy vibe. We had been brainstorming ideas together for a few weeks and had some different concepts. I thought it would be awesome to try and bring to life the actual meaning and emotion of the song's story line in a very literal, yet tasteful way. It is a fictional story about an infinite being who outlives everyone, and everything, he comes in contact with. He comes to realize that although living forever has it's great benefits, it is a curse because everything has a finite lifespan whether it be people, trees, animals, even planets and solar systems. Therefore, this video is the section of his life where he is reminiscing on his past relationships with different places and people that had meaning to him. The rest is basically showing how he has outlived the very place he had called his home for a great deal of time, and he now has to search for new colonies throughout the galaxy to fit in to and ultimately start over and make a new life." Periphery's tour with Fair To Midland and Scale The Summit begins on March 3 in Houston. "This tour couldn't have come at a better time," says guitarist Alex Bois. "We'll be fresh off of our first UK/EU tour and hungry to return to our home crowds. We've all been huge fans of both bands for a while now and it will be great to finally share the road/stage with them. I think our styles compliment each other in such a way that this tour will be educational, as it is exciting. Our new Icarus Lives EP will also be released around this time too, so we're also stoked to be showcase some tracks from it. See you all soon." Head over to facebook.com/peripheryband for additional information. PERIPHERY W/Fair To Midland, Scale The Summit: 3/3 Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live 3/4 Dallas, TX @ Trees 3/5 Austin, TX @ Emo's Inside 3/6 Lubbock, TX @ Jake's Sports Cafe 3/8 Mesa, AZ @ The Underground 3/9 Victorville, CA @ VVEC 3/11 West Hollywood, CA @ Whisky A Go-Go 3/12 Bakersfield, CA @ Jerry's Pizza 3/13 Sacramento, CA @ Aces of Spades 3/15 Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theatre 3/16 Seattle, WA @ Studio Seven 3/17 Spokane, WA @ The A Club 3/18 Boise, ID @ The Venue 3/20 Colorado Springs, CO @ Black Sheep 3/21 Denver, CO @ Marquis Theater 3/23 Cedar Falls, IA @ The Wheelhouse 3/24 St. Paul, MN @ Station 4 3/25 Flint, MI @ The Machine Shop 3/26 Madison, WI @ The Annex 3/28 Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge 3/29 Toronto, ON @ Mod Club 3/30 Pittsburgh, PA @ Smiling Moose 4/1 Hartford, CT @ The Webster Underground 4/2 Worcester, MA @ The Palladium 4/3 Philadelphia, PA @ The Barbary 4/6 New York, NY @ Santos Party House 4/7 Springfield, VA @ Jaxx 4/8 Knoxville, TN @ The Cider House 4/9 Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel 4/10 Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade 4/12 New Orleans, LA @ The Parish - House of Blues 4/13 Little Rock, AR @ Juanita's 4/14 Tulsa, OK @ The Marquee 4/15 Oklahoma City, OK @ The Conservatory