Meshuggah

If Rock ‘n’ Roll was labeled as the “devil’s music” back when it was all the rage in the 1950s and 1960s, then death metal has surely taken things to the next level. Typically embodying dark and satanic themes, the work of various death metal bands is laced with occult and gothic themes; and Meshuggah is no exception. This Swedish extreme metal outfit has been assaulting listeners of metal music with jarring vibes for a quarter of a century now. Though deemed as one of the top ten heavy metal acts by Rolling Stone, Meshuggah has not gained much prominence in the mainstream and mostly commands an underground fan base. However, that is not to say that the band only enjoys popularity with Swedish metal listeners and has in fact performed all across the world in packed venues. Claim some Meshuggah tickets to have your senses ripped apart by their gut-wrenching vibes.
 
The elements making up Meshuggah started coming together in the mid 1980s. The act bore out its existence initially in the form of the band called Metallien and had Roger Oolfsson serving as frontman, Fredrik Thordendal as well as Peder Gustafsson on the lead guitars, bass-player Janne Wiklund and Örjan Lundmark on drums. However, after Metallien’s breakup, Meshuggah reared its head with a lineup that retained Thordendal but replaced the others with Jens Kidman on vocals, Johan Sjögren on guitars, Jörgen Lindmark on bass and Per Sjögren on drums. The current lineup has Kidman and Thordendal in their original roles but has Tomas Haake, Mårten Hagström and Dick Lövgren on the drums, rhythm guitar and bass respectively. After a couple of upsets in the late 1980s in which Meshuggah almost disbanded for good, Thordendal and Kidman resolved to continue the band and so released a mini-LP titled Psykisk Testbild through Garageland records in 1989.
 
Meshuggah released their debut album Contradictions Collapse in 1991 through the indie label Nuclear Blast. The record company was started in 1987 with the objective of releasing hardcore metal music and promoting underground metal bands. Though their first studio album did not make much of an impact with metal listeners, the follow-up Destroy Erase Improve managed to climb up the charts in their home country all the way up to the 43^rd spot. Though the 1998 release Chaosphere received a lukewarm response, Nothing, released four years later, not only made a headway on the charts at home but gained respectable recognition abroad in the US market. It charted on Billboard 200 and entered the top-ten of both the US Heatseekers and the US Independent albums charts. The 2005 album Catch Thirtythree (with its title being a play on the famous Catch-Twenty two situation) proved to be equally successfully in the US and inched closer to the top-ten at home in Sweden.
 
Continuing their recording contract with Nuclear Blast, Meshuggah released obZen and Koloss in 2008 and 2012 respectively. Both albums went top-twenty in Sweden, with the latter peaking at the 17^th and the 2^nd spots on Billboard 200 and the US Independent albums chart respectively. Koloss also entered the top-ten of both the Top Hard Rock Albums chart as well as the more mainstream Top-Rock Albums chart. Meshuggah’s sound has surely evolved over the decades, having been hailed by fans and critics alike throughout the years. As if their sound hadn’t been powerful enough during the 1990s, they kicked things into high gear starting from the 1998 release Chaosphere. Their lyrics became more impactful, with their sound becoming more thunderous and appealing to a wider fan base.  
 
Their touring schedule throughout the 2000s kept them in the news. They gained more contemporary recognition when Jack Osborne, the son of Black Sabbath’s Ozzy Osborne put in a good word for them and they became part of the lineup of the Ozzfest’s 2002 tour. So all you head-bangers and metal-heads out there; latch onto some Meshuggah tickets to be chewed up by some savage tunes.