SEVEN metrically mind-bending Meshuggah riffs
Every violent element incarnate, made flesh and fused to one.
Avast ye, me hearties, the time has come once again to engage in some numeric tomfoolery. Being tasked with conjuring up septuple shenanigans has required me to ascend into the mathematical spirit plane to determine a topic for today’s column, which left me contemplating outside of my body in the non-Euclidean æther for what felt like æons. Thankfully, Swedish metal drummer Tomas Haake arrived to re-insert me into my physical vessel and download SEVEN of the most metrically mind-bending Meshuggah riffs into my consciousness for me to break down. Let’s take a dive into the grooviest band of all time’s deepest pockets, but not such a deep dive that we astral project again.
“Future Breed Machine”
From Destroy Erase Improve (1995)
Timestamp: 3:42
Meshuggah’s 1990’s output isn’t quite as overtly complex as their future work, but albums like Destroy Erase Improve and Chaosphere make up for this with their pure ferocity. “Future Breed Machine”’s legendary breakdown is one of the simplest examples of Meshuggah’s iconic rhythmic style, and remains a member of the band’s pantheon of signature songs 31 years down the line because of it, and of all its other unforgettable riffs. What exactly is this style? YouTuber Metal Music Theory explains it succinctly in the video below with the following quote:
“Looping asymmetric guitar riff patterns, which phase against quadruple meter backbeats, and are truncated to realign at hypermetric boundaries.”
Not only does that quote sound like a potential inspiration for whatever lyrics the band are currently working on, it also captures the exact aural trickery the group has been using from the very moment they put this song out. “Quadruple meter backbeats” refer to Haake’s snare (usually) always remaining on beat 3 of the measure, as Meshuggah will tell you that all of their riffs are in 4/4. Those “asymmetric” guitar riffs will wander off into errant subdivisions or unpredictable syncopation, linking back up with drums on beat 1 when they arrive at some number divisible by 4; in the case of “Future Breed Machine”’s breakdown, that number is 28 eighth notes. Using the following key, see if you can decipher the rhythm of this track!
28 = 4 + SEVEN + SEVEN + SEVEN + 3
“Concatenation”
From Chaosphere (1998)
Timestamp: 0:00
We’re two songs in and I’m already breaking a rule of Meshuggah’s rhythmic style with this example, but trust me, this track is worth it. The intro riff of “Concatenation” features no quadruple meter backbeat to be found, with Tomas Haake instead making the decision to link his snare up with the jagged accents of Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström’s guitars. That being said, those asymmetric patterns still find a way to realign at the hypermetric boundary of 32 eighth notes, or after 4 measures of 4/4 time. That 4/4 time is typically easy to register when the drums are pounding out their straightforward timekeeping (look no further than the band’s two most legendary tracks, “Rational Gaze” and “Bleed”, for examples of this), but being able to identify and lock into the pulse of a track like “Concatenation” is what takes a Meshuggah listening experience from memorable to downright entrancing. It’s tempting to count this song in 5 until it unexpectedly “glitches” and returns to the downbeat; use the guide below to fit the riff into your mind’s 4 / 4 schema.
32 = 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 2
“Stengah”
From Nothing (2002)
Timestamp: 5:00
Nothing signified the arrival of a new era in the Meshuggah canon. Whereas previous albums contained breakneck assaults like “Vanished” or “The Mouth Licking What You’ve Bled”, Nothing’s tracklist was groovier, slower, more patient, and heavy in a fresh and captivating way. That patience extends to the band’s willingness to stave off the realignment of their syncopated rhythmic attack, often drawing out the hypermetric boundary to lengths beyond any in their discography up to that point. “Stengah” features the same opening and closing riff, although the closing riff has been chosen for this example due to the presence of Haake’s beat 3 snare as an anchor. Observe the way the guitars slither around the backbeat more methodically than they did in the tracks above, and feel free to consult the guide if you get lost.
64 = 11 + 11 + 11 + 11 + 11 + 9
“Combustion”
From obZen (2008)
Timestamp: 0:00
“Combustion” is the Meshuggah equivalent of a troll job, as it may actually be their simplest song outside of their first album or Koloss’s “Demiurge”. What makes obZen’s opening track so feared, especially among guitarists, is its deceptive accent pattern that makes it nearly impossible to count without foreknowledge of its sonic illusion. “Combustion” begins with a pickup note, meaning that the initial palm-muted riff you hear at the beginning of the song is notated on the “and” of 4, as opposed to the downbeat of the measure. This requires listeners to locate beat 1 without actually hearing any notes played, at least until Haake’s hi-hat joins in on the fun to identify it on the audience’s radar. You’ll know you’re hearing it correctly if that hi-hat lands on the downbeat and doesn’t sound out of place. Hear “Combustion” upside down, and it’s one of the most dizzying things Meshuggah have ever written; hear it right-side-up, and it’s a groove so deep you can drown in it.
16 = 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 (cymbal + kick on downbeat, snare on offbeat)
“Do Not Look Down”
From Koloss (2012)
Timestamp: 0:25
“Do Not Look Down”’s central concept is, once again, extremely simple, but details how Meshuggah are capable of reinventing themselves in a way listeners have never heard by tweaking just one tiny step of their formula. In this song’s case, the boys neglect to truncate the dominant rhythmic pattern of the song for upwards of 2 minutes, allowing its just-slightly-off sounding riff of 17 eighth notes to continue uninterrupted until locking back in with beat 1 naturally. This trickery continues up until Thordendal’s solo section, and phases in and out of Haake providing a backbeat to keep the listener glued to the song’s pulse. As Meshuggah’s career progressed into the 2010s, more and more of these rules kept getting bent, if not broken entirely, and “Do Not Look Down” stands out as a defining violation of one of their guiding rhythmic principles.
136 = 17 x 8
“Born In Dissonance”
From The Violent Sleep of Reason (2016)
Timestamp: 0:00
“Born In Dissonance” is a sacred text of a family of Meshuggah songs that I refer to as having “stacking” riffs; other examples include obZen’s “Pravus”, Koloss’s “The Demon’s Name is Surveillance”, and Violent Sleep’s title track. Each of these tracks are characterized by a central rhythmic idea; in “Born in Dissonance”’s case, it’s the recognizable “horse gallop” sound hereby typed out by me as “DUH, duh-duh, DUH DUH, duh-duh.” Every time the riff is repeated, that “DUH” will stack, until the riff culminates in three repetitions of “DUH DUH DUH DUH, duh-duh” before looping back to the hypermetric boundary and starting over again. If the counting guides aren’t registering with your brain on a purely numeric front, it is possible to count “stacking” Meshuggah riffs purely based on vibes.
64 = 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 4
15 = DUH duh-duh(x1), DUH DUH duh-duh(x1), DUH DUH DUH duh-duh(x1), DUH DUH DUH DUH duh-duh(x3)
4 = DUH duh-duh, DUH DUH duh-duh, DUH
“God He Sees In Mirrors”
From Immutable (2022)
Timestamp: The entire song
“Do Not Look Down” took its sweet time to arrive at its hypermetric boundary, but what if a Meshuggah song never arrived home at all? “God He Sees In Mirrors” sees Meshuggah craft perhaps their craziest riff yet nearly 40 years into their career, all thanks to a stubborn refusal to ever fit the track’s rhythmic puzzle pieces together. Haake’s half-time (and, during the solo, quarter-time) groove is the only thing keeping this musical Jenga tower from undergoing catastrophic collapse, as even unison pauses by the band only lead to re-entry at a different point of the original rhythm. “God He Sees In Mirrors” proudly defies its own standards of creation with its rhythmic complexity, and confidently stamps itself as anomalous within the Meshuggah catalog.
46 = 4 + 2 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 4 + 2 + 4 + 2 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 2
That should about do it for this week’s installment of SEVEN; I gotta get out of here before the numeric cosmos cave in on themselves.