Meshuggah

Umea

Meshuggah formed in Umea in 1987 around the vocalist and rhythm guitarist Jens Kidman, taking the name from the Yiddish word for crazy. The roots go back to Metallien, which Fredrik Thordendal started in 1985; Kidman left after demos, formed Calipash with Thordendal, the bassist Peter Nordin and the drummer Niklas Lundgren, and the two then revived the Meshuggah name. The debut EP Meshuggah (1989, Psykisk Testbild) had 1,000 copies. Tomas Haake replaced Lundgren in 1990, Contradictions Collapse followed in 1991, and Marten Hagstrom joined in 1993 so that Kidman could concentrate on vocals. Gustaf Hielm replaced Nordin on bass from 1995 and Dick Lovgren took the role in 2004.

The records run through Destroy Erase Improve (May 12, 1995), Chaosphere (1998), Nothing (2002, their first Billboard 200 entry at 165), Catch Thirtythree (2005, programmed drums and a 47-minute piece in 13 sections), obZen (2008), Koloss (2012, 17), The Violent Sleep of Reason (2016, 17) and Immutable (April 1, 2022, Atomic Fire, 115). The I EP (2004) is a single track of about 21 minutes, and Alive (2010) and The Ophidian Trek (2014) are live. They earned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance in 2018 for "Clockworks". Wikipedia says Rolling Stone named them among the ten most important hard and heavy bands and Alternative Press called them the most important band in metal; they are regarded as an inspiration for djent. Jonathan Pieslak's study of their rhythm and meter appeared in Music Theory Spectrum in 2007.