Meshuggah

Meshuggah
Meshuggah in Melbourne, Australia in 2008
Background information
Origin	Umeå, Sweden
Genres	Extreme metal progressive metal avant-garde metal djent
Years active	1987–present
Labels	Nuclear Blast Fractured Transmitter
Website	www.meshuggah.net
Members	Jens Kidman Fredrik Thordendal Tomas Haake Mårten Hagström Dick Lövgren
Past members	Niklas Lundgren Peter Nordin Gustaf Hielm Johan Sjögren

Meshuggah /məˈʃʊɡə/ is a Swedish extreme metal band from Umeå, formed in 1987. Meshuggah's line-up consists of founding members vocalist Jens Kidman and lead guitarist Fredrik Thordendal, drummer Tomas Haake, who joined in 1990, rhythm guitarist Mårten Hagström, who joined in 1993 and bassist Dick Lövgren since 2004.

Meshuggah first attracted international attention with the 1995 release Destroy Erase Improve for its fusion of fast-tempo death metal, thrash metal, progressive metal and jazz fusion elements. Since its 2002 album Nothing, Meshuggah has switched from seven-string to downtuned eight-string guitars. Meshuggah has become known for their innovative musical style, complex, polymetered song structures and polyrhythms. Meshuggah was labelled as one of the ten most important hard rock and heavy metal bands by Rolling Stone and as the most important band in metal by Alternative Press. Meshuggah has found little mainstream success as yet, but is a significant act in extreme underground music. Nevertheless, Meshuggah has begun to gain attention and respect among more mainstream audiences since the late 2000s, having also inspired the djent movement within progressive metal.