YouTuber plays 86 Meshuggah riffs in one take

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.