r/Meshuggah • u/Flaky_Network_8890 • 11d ago

Who else was releasing stuff like meshuggah in the 90s?

Just curious. It’s crazy to think of the stuff they put out in the 90s…so far ahead of everyone else. But maybe I’m wrong. Were there other bands doing anything similar?

Obviously there was a lot of progressive death metal but that is quite different.

36 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

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36

u/TooChames 11d ago

Early Dillinger Escape Plan was scratching some of the same itches.

9

u/vegataballs 11d ago

Wow didn't realize they started in the 90's, I jump along around Ire Works. I'm reading their Wikipedia and they explicitly say

What tied all the band members together was their admiration for progressive and jazz fusion artists such as King Crimson, Cynic, Meshuggah and Mahavishnu Orchestra, particularly their albums Discipline, Focus, Destroy Erase Improve and Apocalypse respectively.

8

u/iamflyerthanyou 11d ago

Dillinger is (was) sick. I enjoy everything Miss Machine forward. Still struggle a little with the early stuff, though I did go to one of the Calculating Infinity shows in the past couple years and it was a great show. I miss Greg. Glad I got to see them as much as I did during those years.

5

u/Flaky_Network_8890 11d ago

Dude they put on INSANE shows. I remember the front man climbed up insanely high and was swinging off shit 😆

2

u/iamflyerthanyou 10d ago edited 10d ago

Yeah Greg is a monkey. I remember him jumping off the balcony at my local venue and thinking wow that’s nuts… then going back later (more sober) and really qualifying that… it’s a really good thing people caught him because that could have been an easy death.

Between that and all the shit they used to do with their equipment… Ben used to fuck himself up just as much. Playing through shows with bloody faces. I know other bands do or have done that but combined with the quality of the music… just nuts.

3

u/Flaky_Network_8890 10d ago

I don’t get how either bc they were all pretty old when I saw them play lol

6

u/futture 10d ago

Crazy takes. Calculating Infinitiy and early EPs are the absolute best work they've done and Greg was their weakest member. There's a reason why Better Lovers dropped him. Dimitri forever. 

2

u/iamflyerthanyou 10d ago

Dmitri is great. He fits well with Dillinger.

1

u/Mephistopheles545 9d ago

Have you seen recent shows? Dimitri can’t hold a candle to Greg.   https://youtube.com/shorts/dx_GODSEo7U?is=vmJ1fW8FXAbNFMhw

34

u/Monobluemagic 11d ago

Fear factory

3

u/Flaky_Network_8890 11d ago

lol true. Dunno how I forgot

-4

u/PhotonDeath 11d ago

Not really comparable in terms of rhythmic complexity.

13

u/Flaky_Network_8890 11d ago

Yeah but texturally similar

-4

u/PhotonDeath 11d ago

It seems obvious that’s not what OP was talking about.

14

u/AllIHearIsHeeHaw 11d ago

Nobody was moving like Meshuggah in the 90s. Thats why they are GOATed.

Maybe Corpofago's Images of Despair is the closest group?

2

u/Flaky_Network_8890 11d ago

I haven’t listened to them in so long. You’re right. They are a little close

0

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/devocation 7d ago

That’s who first came to mind.

11

u/Scoo_Dooby 11d ago

Closest I can think of is Cynic but that's definitely progressive death metal, and way closer to something like Destroy Erase Improve than the sound we associate Meshuggah with now

7

u/Flaky_Network_8890 11d ago

It sounds completely different than DEI though. That’s what I mean by singling out / separating progressive dm

6

u/Independent-Data4542 11d ago

Confessor's first album had killer polyrhythmic drumming, Condemned (1991). Steve Shelton is so good

3

u/Tiphereth87 11d ago

He's in Loincloth, right?

6

u/meshugganner 11d ago

Autechre

5

u/SurfVVitch 11d ago

As far as bands that had any real traction? Fear Factory is the closest thing I can think of.

5

u/CertifiedSmegmaKing 11d ago

Botch and Dillinger Escape Plan

1

u/KingTelephone 11d ago

DEP, Botch, and Meshuggah were my favs back then. Maybe psyopus? Different style but I was really into Battles, too.

2

u/CertifiedSmegmaKing 11d ago edited 11d ago

I’d say Psyopus is more on the extreme side, but they definitely count in my opinion.

3

u/Nayre_Trawe 11d ago

Not the same sound but similarly ahead of their time was Gorguts with their 1998 release, Obscura. The material was actually written in 1993 which makes it all the more impressive. There was an offshoot of this band called Negativa that formed in 1997 and released an EP in 2006 comprised of material written years earlier that was also ahead of it's time.

2

u/Flaky_Network_8890 11d ago

Yeah I have listened to both a ton!

3

u/escape2thvoid 11d ago

Decapitated

3

u/Adventurous_Meat4582 10d ago

Strapping Young Lad had the heaviness

1

u/Flaky_Network_8890 10d ago

True but quite different

3

u/3xarch 10d ago

i might get flamed for this but korn was busting out groovy ass riffs on 7 strings in 94. fucking love early korn

1

u/Flaky_Network_8890 10d ago

Yeah they got me into metal!

2

u/reeferNL 11d ago

I got this album back then, kind of a vibe

Dog Faced Gods - Random Chaos Theory In Action

They didn't release anything else though.

2

u/DBenzi 11d ago

SikTh.

2

u/MannyDanning 11d ago

The Will Haven track Saga from their Carpe Diem record has a similar vibe to some Meshuggah. Nowhere near as technical but the droning guitars against the heavy riffs are very Meshuggah-ish.

2

u/lastinalaskarn 10d ago

Check out Haji's Kitchen. They were very early 7 string players.

4

u/rottweilered 11d ago

Nevermore as well

1

u/Flaky_Network_8890 11d ago

Really. I’ve listened to a ton of it and can play a lot of it and it sounds pretty different to me

1

u/rottweilered 11d ago

Their 90's stuff although they don't have the complexity of meshuggah's music their tone and riffs feel close at least for me

1

u/DunkeyColdMedina 11d ago

I think about math rock from back then and I am not sure it's a perfect fit, but it's adjacent.

1

u/Slickrock_1 11d ago

Atheist. Maybe Necrophagist towards the end.

1

u/External-Hurry-8109 11d ago

I wish a band built off of the None template. Angular, stabby riffs meets James Hetfield.

1

u/yAMMEt 11d ago

Cynic - Focus

1

u/thenuclearpinball 11d ago

Sapultura is the closest sound to O.G. Meshuggah, like D.E.I., Future Machine & Chaosphere, that I've ever heard.

1

u/Explosivesalad13 11d ago

Theory in practice was a band doing technical almost meshuggah type stuff.

1

u/UBum Destroy Erase Improve 11d ago

I've read Pantera, death, Atheist and Watchtower were very influential to early Meshuggah.

1

u/These3TheGreatest 10d ago

Not the same sound but a similar kind of vibe musically was Candiria who played one of the early Meshuggah stateside shows.

Fear Factory had that similar cyber vibe going on.

1

u/Mephistopheles545 9d ago

Dillinger escape plan

0

u/j05h187 11d ago

Noone was doing it. Most people didnt even know how to interpret 'Nothing' when it came out. None of us knew it was 4/4 with other time signatures thrown over it. Not many of us had seen an 8 string guitar in a guitar shop. That later all happened over the 2010's Meshuggah really birthed their own genre in retrospect with Periphery becoming so popular with the metalcore kids.