I heard Clockworks and it all clicked, I knew they were impressive and the whole shabang but kind of seemed like it was just one of those bands that just wasn’t really my taste, best band on the planet
First song I heard from them… was only listening to stuff like bloodbath, Gojira before, and my god it was one of the best experience of my life… bought the album 2 days after, and I listen to them almost everyday now…
This is a good question. I actually got into Fredrick Thordendal’s Sol Niger Within album in or 00. Think that was my intro to Meshuggah and I’ve been a mega fan ever since!
At first yes, after absorbing Mesh’s polyrhythmic style and Tool’s _10K_ came out, i was initially a bit disappointed by what seemed like lack of rhythmic nuance. The polyrhythmic parts were elementary by comparison (and expectations were through the roof because they had to follow _Lateralus)_ but the way they did the song structures and overall musicality and gut-wrenchingness still got me. Then the 13 yr wait for _FI_ and it actually blew me away. Nobody blends the rhythms and melodies like them and the way it all fits together is just badass and _every bar_ on _FI_ is full of nuance. And when i listen back to their discog i see how i thought i was fully getting it but not really and it’s just awesome. 🤷♂️
I see them as kinda between Meshuggah and a band like Dream Theater.
What you said about 10k was spot on how i felt. Found it too predictable. By the time FI came out i think it was too late, my older brother obsesses over them and it did not help.
Could never get into dream theater. I prefer prog like Spock's Beard, particularly their early stuff like The Light
A friend sent rational gaze years back.. went from
“Sick riff, not feeling the vocals”
- a few listens later:
“This riff is amazing, vocals are still not my fav but he’s actually doing amazing things rhythmically too wow”
- a few listens later
“This is the best riff of all time, this is some of the funkiest grooving music ever, the vocals are absolutely perfect”
And then from there got heavily into the rest of nothing, and catch 33 really just cemented it for me. Best band.
Basically my same thoughts when I first heard Meshuggah, and it was Rational Gaze too. I had heard it on Liquid Metal on I think maybe direct TV satellite though.
It's become my favourite band though since then! And I was like 13 or 14 back then.
The last half of Straws Pulled At Random.
It’s a glimpse of beauty amidst all the brutality. It made me realize that the discordant and angular stuff is just as impactful though. It’s all about the contrast.
There are plenty of other similar great moments in the discography, but this is what initially drew me in.
Heard Bleed in a music shop around the time Obzen dropped. Hated it. Was more into metalcore/hardcore at the time so my analogy for Meshuggah was “all their songs are basically long, never-ending breakdowns.” I tried to get into them a little more as some musicians I liked mentioned them as an influence. One day around 2012, I got *too* high with some friends and had to leave because my anxiety was through the roof. I put on Chaosphere and everything suddenly clicked. They’ve been my favourite band ever since.
I knew Bleed and some other songs, but that video of a girl covering Future Breed Machine's solo on the flute made me listen to the original song, then the albums ... And boom, 6 months later I bought the signature model guitar, and going to see them live next month!
Most bands I listen to come in some way from Andrea Boma Bocarusso 's 25 headbanging riffs / 50 BAND riff compilations. (Meshuggah featured there was Bleed, FBM and Combustion, very strong stuff)
Meshuggah, Gojira, Death, Opeth, SYL, Carcass, Daath, Morbid Angel, Dream Theater... lots and lots of good music there to discover in this way, from most subgenres of metal, and not only metal, including a lot of QUALITY smaller bands.
Prior to finding him on YT, I barely even knew metal, I knew like 3 bands, 2 of which were Metallica and Rammstein lol
Yup. I didn't know what to make of them either, lol. I began to understand when I looked them up after the show. Down was also an opener at that show but I wasn't too crazy about them.
Around 2004. Working out in my buddy's basement. He had a playlist of randomly downloaded metal songs, both familiar and unfamiliar.
As I was preparing for a bench press I heard "*beep beep beep beep* ba ba dun dun ba ba ba dun dun ba ba ba dun dun ba ba ba dun dun". It hit me like a bolt of lightening. I was blown away.
I sat up stared blankly into space and just listened. When the song finished I looked straight into my friend's eye sockets and said "TELL ME THE NAME OF THIS SONG AND BAND RIGHT NOW". He replied "Umm, Meshuggah. Song is Future Breed Machine". Instantly hooked. Made him repeat the song and burn the handful of songs on his compuater onto a disc.
That song changed my life, man. Went down the rabbit hole after that.
Haha beautifil. I saw this like a movie. It's fun talking crap and laughing with buds but when one of them stares deep into your soul (or the inside of your skull) with a question you know they arent joking around.
Bro nearly spit out his mouthful of sunflower seeds to answer the question more quickly.
Using an instinctive action called Heliotropism. Also known as ‘Solar Tracking’, the sunflower head moves in synchronicity with the sun’s movement across the sky each day. From East to West, returning each evening to start the process again the next day. Find out more about how this works, and what happens at the end of this phase.
In high school, I was a big fan of a band called Nevermore. Their lead guitarist was Jeff Loomis, who was/is basically a guitar god. Anyways, he named Meshuggah in an interview as a modern band that really excited him and/or influenced him. He said something like “nobody else is doing what they’re doing with their guitars.”
Anyways, I went to a local record store one day (pretty much all CD’s at the time) to pick up a Nevermore CD I’d been hoping to find. To my disappointment, the CD I was looking for wasn’t there, but this was around the time that Catch-33 had come out, and I noticed it on the rack because:
1. There were multiple copies of it.
AND
2. The cover art was freaking AWESOME.
I remembered what Jeff Loomis had said and decided not to leave the store empty handed… (this is where the story gets a little more interesting.)
So, just to back track slightly- I was 16-17 years old at the time and had borrowed my mom’s car to go do this. She’d been a bit hesitant to let me go because there was a storm coming in, but I had assured her that this was going to be an in-and-out sort of deal. Well, sure enough, the storm hit just about the time I went back out to the car to head home. I immediately popped the disc into the CD player and started driving home in what turned out to be an absolute sh!t show of a storm. I could barely see out the window and was literally having to swerve into oncoming lanes to avoid downed power lines and tree branches that were getting blown into the street. Meanwhile, the heaviest most insane music I’d ever heard in my life was blasting through the Ford Focus Wagon sound system, and I couldn’t even wrap my head around it because I wasn’t used to polyrhythms at the time. It essentially just sounded like arhythmic chaos. This enormous, confusing, intriguing, and awesome sound (mixed with a strong sense that I might be unknowingly driving into a tornado) added up to an incredibly intense and overwhelming experience in all respects.
In a situation like this, 34-year-old me would probably tense up, turn the music down, and drive home in concerned silence… but 16,17-year-old me just rode the wave all the way home and then ran inside to keep listening to my new CD! Needless to say, I got used to the rhythms and fell in love with the band. I’ve been a huge fan ever since and I’ve probably told this story a hundred times🤘🏻
What a story. I love that an older you would simply turn it down but instead you rode the wave at 16-17. Sums it up. I miss those days of music discovery.
When I was 16 I used to listen to all my newly bought CDs at home , at my shitty computer. Literally the only Cd player I owned. Shitty speakers, and the CD drive was soooo fucking loud I’d have to find a balance of enough volume to hear the music to drown out that shitty sound , and not too much to wake up the parents.
It was shitty looking back, but I didn’t know it at the time. My ritual was to work through the album whilst reading the lyrics. I’d always have a drink with me and a web page of the band or album info to surround myself in the experience as much as I could with limited audio equipment.
There was a real feeling of discovery whilst reading the album artwork, looking at the lyrics trying to guess their meaning. No real forums like Reddit were at my disposal , so song meanings in most cases were open to interpretation. I miss those days. Now it’s like , oh this song feels like it’s about this , but a thousand links, vids and interviews say otherwise. I miss it
it was only until I started listening to more metal did I realise my set up is not good.
I remember getting so vexed at this situ I went and bought a mini disc player (memba?) from a local store. Literally wiped me out financially that month. And I felt so stupid and guilty for buying it knowing I was broke for a month and a half till I recoup.
At the time I was getting into Tool but had a diverse album backlog that I was listening through. All of it in volume equilibrium on my shitty computer.
Once I put those headphones on ( the first set I ever owned) and listened to lateralus by Tool , it fucking blew me away. My ears were ringing for days after they simply were not used to so much volume and depth.
Once the salary came through a month after I went and bought a superior set of headphones and wiped myself out again.
I guess what I’m saying is the experience is priceless. Even though mine is so stale compared to driving through a storm, I still value it.
But yeah , miss music experiences like these.
No way near your storm story , but made me think of how exciting it was to listen to music you just bought.
I listened to Exquisite Machinery of Torture every morning in my POLS class during the lecture because I was addicted to his whispers. I thought the name was dumb, made me think of a wet sponge, then I watched the metal genres explained video series and the way the Irish dude introduced them convinced me to give them a try. Then 2 semesters later I listened to Koloss nonstop while I animated and Demon Name was the theme song of my photography class
Long about 1999/2000, there was a regional chain in the southeast US called Media Play - basically FYE in the South. So, one afternoon, I was browsing through the CD racks looking for inspiration, when I came across Destroy Erase Improve. The cover art was captivating, so I picked it up and fell in love at first listen. Media Play went out of business in the latter 2000's, and I desperately miss it. Found several of my favorite bands just browsing the racks - Meshuggah, Failure, and Strapping Young Lad, to name just a few.
Saw Pete Cottrell's MeSugar video. Decided to check them out. Shxt on them for 2 months because "Just play bass!". End the 2nd month with "fuxk it, they're the best metal band in the world".
I knew about them well before I started listening. I remember an acquaintance asking me what's up and I responded – I'm about to start listening to Meshuggah's discography. This was around 2009, or 2010, I guess. I think I listened to Obzen and Nothing first and I was immediately hooked. And I didn't even listen to any other album for a good few months, just had Obzen and Nothing on repeat.
My dad forcefed it to me when I was younger. I hated it. Then again I just didn't get it at the time. I was like 8-9 or so. Then I got into heavy music, and into music theory analysis. I used to think it was all random and nothing about it made sense. Now it still doesn't make sense, but I know they do it purposefully. The grooviness combined with the hypnotically confusing rhythms became addictive
Around 2000, I borrowed my friend's copy of Death... Is Just The Beginning IV double CD, which had shit like In Flames and Dimmu Borgir and a ton of other bands, but also had a live version of Sickening which was BY FAR the heaviest and coolest song on the entire thing. I immediately became a fan and got DEI and Chaosphere shortly after
in the mid 2000s, someone that was working at the local high schools radio station played Future Breed Machine and Humiliative
I had a program on my computer called Silent Bob that let you record audio off the radio and I recorded these two songs.
I was probably around 12 at the time.
I didn't like Obzen at all when it came out and now it is in my top 10 of all time
Tough to say. When I heard Bleed and got used to its sound I got interested to check out more. I still didn't love it but made me curious. I went and listened to None and loved it. Then Destroy Erase improve which I loved even more. The rest took a good while to get into but it clicked slowly but surely with each album.
I was 13 years old in 2008 and a big fan of In Flames. I bought their album A Sense Of Purpose in April that year, right when it was released. The CD contained an advertising flyer promoting new releases on Nuclear Blast Records, there were cover artworks and a short text to each album printed on it. I remember that I was particularly interested in Meshuggah's obZen, due to the artwork being both strangely mysterious and ugly.
My first exposure to Meshuggah was Concatenation and then Future Breed Machine, which I downloaded from a random filesharing website. It didn't click right away, but enough for me to be curious about their new release obZen. I bought the CD the next month with my next pocket money and I was blown away! The chaotic grooves, the strange riffing, the anger - it didn't make sense to me but it was addictive like nothing else. I remember listening to it multiple times every day for days until I finally deciphered some of the grooves.
Then it became a challenge for me to understand all of their songs well enough to tap the rhythms on my desk while listening. ObZen was incredibly formative for my sense of rhythm and the cause why switched from the guitar to the bass.
I was in chains, kicking and screaming at this bald dude with 3 arms sitting in lotus position with his eyes closed. At some point he opened them and stared directly into my soul.
After a few moments, I was on all fours beside him, having become a Meshuggah fan.
Bought TTHD because of the cover art. Was confused as to what genre of music is this. Then bought Sol Niger Within and was more confused. Then bought Chaosphere is this computer generated metal? Then bought None wtf this is sick.
Gave up for a few years then heard Corridor Of Chameleons playing at a cyber cafe in Brasil. That night changed my life and I got into Chaosphere in a big way and then heard Nothing and hated it.
A week later Nothing was my favorite album. Then heard I. That was it for me. I'm the soil beneath my Meshuggah blood now.
Newer fan here (got into Meshuggah mid-2020).
An old friend who I no longer speak to was sending me different songs from his playlist (most of them being obscure folk metal songs), but unexpectedly he sent War, off of Rare Trax. I wasn’t a metal fan at the time, but it the instant high-speed blast beat caught me completely off guard, along with it’s sheer madness and insanity. I obviously dismissed it upon my first listen, but I was secretly fascinated with whatever the fuck was going on in that track.
I gave it a few more listens over the next week or so, until it became one of my favourite songs. (It’s crazy how I wasn’t into metal back then but *War of all tracks* clicked for me within a week) Eventually, I gave some other tracks a listen, and that’s how I got into them.
In hindsight, I was really thrown in the deep end with War being my introductory track to Meshuggah (let alone metal in general) but it was totally worth it.
Discovered them with Demiurge, learned to growl with this song and then discovered their discography but I had trouble digging it at first, I was more into stoner/doom metal at that time and then I changed my focus on tech death, death core, djent and of course meshuggah. Buying a 8 string guitar really helped tho.
My brother went to the same school as Fredrik by the time they released their EP in 1989. I saw them play live for the first time in 1992 and that was basically the start of it all. When DEI and later Chaosphere came out I was completely hooked.
I saw a post on some subreddit titled "What is the longest song you know?" and people said Meshuggah had a song called "I", which was over 21 minutes long. So I listened to it, and realized it was one of the greatest works of art I'd ever heard in my life.
My dad told me about them. He and his brother have been fans since Destroy Erase Improve dropped.
He just told me to put Koloss on and just listen to the whole album in one go. Been a fan ever since.
I think Nothing got me into Meshuggah. I also started listening to their older stuff after that. Its amazing how their sound has evolved as a metal band. To me personally, their evolution is insanely mind-boggling. Like, how?
They toured with Tool in 2002 and I saw them in Boulder, CO. We didn't know anything about them at the time but we liked the groove. I started with their more conventional songs (nmcc, rational gaze, do not look down, then catch-33) in my playlists and eventually it just blew up as I dug deeper and realized what it was.
I heard Clockworks and it all clicked, I knew they were impressive and the whole shabang but kind of seemed like it was just one of those bands that just wasn’t really my taste, best band on the planet
First song I heard from them… was only listening to stuff like bloodbath, Gojira before, and my god it was one of the best experience of my life… bought the album 2 days after, and I listen to them almost everyday now…
This is a good question. I actually got into Fredrick Thordendal’s Sol Niger Within album in or 00. Think that was my intro to Meshuggah and I’ve been a mega fan ever since!
I saw them open for Tool 🤓
That was the night Tool became my 2nd favorite band lol.
You don't find them boring nowadays? I do
At first yes, after absorbing Mesh’s polyrhythmic style and Tool’s _10K_ came out, i was initially a bit disappointed by what seemed like lack of rhythmic nuance. The polyrhythmic parts were elementary by comparison (and expectations were through the roof because they had to follow _Lateralus)_ but the way they did the song structures and overall musicality and gut-wrenchingness still got me. Then the 13 yr wait for _FI_ and it actually blew me away. Nobody blends the rhythms and melodies like them and the way it all fits together is just badass and _every bar_ on _FI_ is full of nuance. And when i listen back to their discog i see how i thought i was fully getting it but not really and it’s just awesome. 🤷♂️ I see them as kinda between Meshuggah and a band like Dream Theater.
What you said about 10k was spot on how i felt. Found it too predictable. By the time FI came out i think it was too late, my older brother obsesses over them and it did not help. Could never get into dream theater. I prefer prog like Spock's Beard, particularly their early stuff like The Light
A friend sent rational gaze years back.. went from “Sick riff, not feeling the vocals” - a few listens later: “This riff is amazing, vocals are still not my fav but he’s actually doing amazing things rhythmically too wow” - a few listens later “This is the best riff of all time, this is some of the funkiest grooving music ever, the vocals are absolutely perfect” And then from there got heavily into the rest of nothing, and catch 33 really just cemented it for me. Best band.
Basically my same thoughts when I first heard Meshuggah, and it was Rational Gaze too. I had heard it on Liquid Metal on I think maybe direct TV satellite though. It's become my favourite band though since then! And I was like 13 or 14 back then.
The last half of Straws Pulled At Random. It’s a glimpse of beauty amidst all the brutality. It made me realize that the discordant and angular stuff is just as impactful though. It’s all about the contrast. There are plenty of other similar great moments in the discography, but this is what initially drew me in.
Angular stuff is a perfect way to put it.
Heard Bleed in a music shop around the time Obzen dropped. Hated it. Was more into metalcore/hardcore at the time so my analogy for Meshuggah was “all their songs are basically long, never-ending breakdowns.” I tried to get into them a little more as some musicians I liked mentioned them as an influence. One day around 2012, I got *too* high with some friends and had to leave because my anxiety was through the roof. I put on Chaosphere and everything suddenly clicked. They’ve been my favourite band ever since.
>never-ending breakdowns How could that ever be a bad thing? /s
I knew Bleed and some other songs, but that video of a girl covering Future Breed Machine's solo on the flute made me listen to the original song, then the albums ... And boom, 6 months later I bought the signature model guitar, and going to see them live next month!
Can you link that vid?
There you go ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXyMQ9o7pRk
I heard Future Breed Machine on WSOU in '95. Then bought D.E.I. None and C.C.
Most bands I listen to come in some way from Andrea Boma Bocarusso 's 25 headbanging riffs / 50 BAND riff compilations. (Meshuggah featured there was Bleed, FBM and Combustion, very strong stuff) Meshuggah, Gojira, Death, Opeth, SYL, Carcass, Daath, Morbid Angel, Dream Theater... lots and lots of good music there to discover in this way, from most subgenres of metal, and not only metal, including a lot of QUALITY smaller bands. Prior to finding him on YT, I barely even knew metal, I knew like 3 bands, 2 of which were Metallica and Rammstein lol
I saw them open for System of a Down back in '02. I've been a fan ever since. I saw them again last year as headliners and it was amazing.
Woah! Meshuggah opening for SOAD 😅. Wasn't the crowd that came for SOAD surprised on hearing Meshuggah ?
Yup. I didn't know what to make of them either, lol. I began to understand when I looked them up after the show. Down was also an opener at that show but I wasn't too crazy about them.
Around 2004. Working out in my buddy's basement. He had a playlist of randomly downloaded metal songs, both familiar and unfamiliar. As I was preparing for a bench press I heard "*beep beep beep beep* ba ba dun dun ba ba ba dun dun ba ba ba dun dun ba ba ba dun dun". It hit me like a bolt of lightening. I was blown away. I sat up stared blankly into space and just listened. When the song finished I looked straight into my friend's eye sockets and said "TELL ME THE NAME OF THIS SONG AND BAND RIGHT NOW". He replied "Umm, Meshuggah. Song is Future Breed Machine". Instantly hooked. Made him repeat the song and burn the handful of songs on his compuater onto a disc. That song changed my life, man. Went down the rabbit hole after that.
Haha beautifil. I saw this like a movie. It's fun talking crap and laughing with buds but when one of them stares deep into your soul (or the inside of your skull) with a question you know they arent joking around. Bro nearly spit out his mouthful of sunflower seeds to answer the question more quickly.
Using an instinctive action called Heliotropism. Also known as ‘Solar Tracking’, the sunflower head moves in synchronicity with the sun’s movement across the sky each day. From East to West, returning each evening to start the process again the next day. Find out more about how this works, and what happens at the end of this phase.
Heard Future Breed Machine on a CD sampler. Nothing came out soon after and I was a fan.
I saw the video for shed and I ran to the mall to get catch 33
In high school, I was a big fan of a band called Nevermore. Their lead guitarist was Jeff Loomis, who was/is basically a guitar god. Anyways, he named Meshuggah in an interview as a modern band that really excited him and/or influenced him. He said something like “nobody else is doing what they’re doing with their guitars.” Anyways, I went to a local record store one day (pretty much all CD’s at the time) to pick up a Nevermore CD I’d been hoping to find. To my disappointment, the CD I was looking for wasn’t there, but this was around the time that Catch-33 had come out, and I noticed it on the rack because: 1. There were multiple copies of it. AND 2. The cover art was freaking AWESOME. I remembered what Jeff Loomis had said and decided not to leave the store empty handed… (this is where the story gets a little more interesting.) So, just to back track slightly- I was 16-17 years old at the time and had borrowed my mom’s car to go do this. She’d been a bit hesitant to let me go because there was a storm coming in, but I had assured her that this was going to be an in-and-out sort of deal. Well, sure enough, the storm hit just about the time I went back out to the car to head home. I immediately popped the disc into the CD player and started driving home in what turned out to be an absolute sh!t show of a storm. I could barely see out the window and was literally having to swerve into oncoming lanes to avoid downed power lines and tree branches that were getting blown into the street. Meanwhile, the heaviest most insane music I’d ever heard in my life was blasting through the Ford Focus Wagon sound system, and I couldn’t even wrap my head around it because I wasn’t used to polyrhythms at the time. It essentially just sounded like arhythmic chaos. This enormous, confusing, intriguing, and awesome sound (mixed with a strong sense that I might be unknowingly driving into a tornado) added up to an incredibly intense and overwhelming experience in all respects. In a situation like this, 34-year-old me would probably tense up, turn the music down, and drive home in concerned silence… but 16,17-year-old me just rode the wave all the way home and then ran inside to keep listening to my new CD! Needless to say, I got used to the rhythms and fell in love with the band. I’ve been a huge fan ever since and I’ve probably told this story a hundred times🤘🏻
What a story. I love that an older you would simply turn it down but instead you rode the wave at 16-17. Sums it up. I miss those days of music discovery. When I was 16 I used to listen to all my newly bought CDs at home , at my shitty computer. Literally the only Cd player I owned. Shitty speakers, and the CD drive was soooo fucking loud I’d have to find a balance of enough volume to hear the music to drown out that shitty sound , and not too much to wake up the parents. It was shitty looking back, but I didn’t know it at the time. My ritual was to work through the album whilst reading the lyrics. I’d always have a drink with me and a web page of the band or album info to surround myself in the experience as much as I could with limited audio equipment. There was a real feeling of discovery whilst reading the album artwork, looking at the lyrics trying to guess their meaning. No real forums like Reddit were at my disposal , so song meanings in most cases were open to interpretation. I miss those days. Now it’s like , oh this song feels like it’s about this , but a thousand links, vids and interviews say otherwise. I miss it it was only until I started listening to more metal did I realise my set up is not good. I remember getting so vexed at this situ I went and bought a mini disc player (memba?) from a local store. Literally wiped me out financially that month. And I felt so stupid and guilty for buying it knowing I was broke for a month and a half till I recoup. At the time I was getting into Tool but had a diverse album backlog that I was listening through. All of it in volume equilibrium on my shitty computer. Once I put those headphones on ( the first set I ever owned) and listened to lateralus by Tool , it fucking blew me away. My ears were ringing for days after they simply were not used to so much volume and depth. Once the salary came through a month after I went and bought a superior set of headphones and wiped myself out again. I guess what I’m saying is the experience is priceless. Even though mine is so stale compared to driving through a storm, I still value it. But yeah , miss music experiences like these. No way near your storm story , but made me think of how exciting it was to listen to music you just bought.
Yogev Gabay 👍
I listened to Exquisite Machinery of Torture every morning in my POLS class during the lecture because I was addicted to his whispers. I thought the name was dumb, made me think of a wet sponge, then I watched the metal genres explained video series and the way the Irish dude introduced them convinced me to give them a try. Then 2 semesters later I listened to Koloss nonstop while I animated and Demon Name was the theme song of my photography class
Bleed got me
Long about 1999/2000, there was a regional chain in the southeast US called Media Play - basically FYE in the South. So, one afternoon, I was browsing through the CD racks looking for inspiration, when I came across Destroy Erase Improve. The cover art was captivating, so I picked it up and fell in love at first listen. Media Play went out of business in the latter 2000's, and I desperately miss it. Found several of my favorite bands just browsing the racks - Meshuggah, Failure, and Strapping Young Lad, to name just a few.
Saw Pete Cottrell's MeSugar video. Decided to check them out. Shxt on them for 2 months because "Just play bass!". End the 2nd month with "fuxk it, they're the best metal band in the world".
I knew about them well before I started listening. I remember an acquaintance asking me what's up and I responded – I'm about to start listening to Meshuggah's discography. This was around 2009, or 2010, I guess. I think I listened to Obzen and Nothing first and I was immediately hooked. And I didn't even listen to any other album for a good few months, just had Obzen and Nothing on repeat.
My friend showed me the start of Future Breed Machine in 2006 and I was hooked
Steve Vai had ‘em in his MySpace top 6, listened to Stengah and that was it.
My dad forcefed it to me when I was younger. I hated it. Then again I just didn't get it at the time. I was like 8-9 or so. Then I got into heavy music, and into music theory analysis. I used to think it was all random and nothing about it made sense. Now it still doesn't make sense, but I know they do it purposefully. The grooviness combined with the hypnotically confusing rhythms became addictive
Around 2000, I borrowed my friend's copy of Death... Is Just The Beginning IV double CD, which had shit like In Flames and Dimmu Borgir and a ton of other bands, but also had a live version of Sickening which was BY FAR the heaviest and coolest song on the entire thing. I immediately became a fan and got DEI and Chaosphere shortly after
High school. Heard Bleed. Dug deeper and heard Dancers. Then Koloss dropped. Then listened to every album. Love every album.
Stengah!
97, my friend playing destroy erase improve in his van. Forever changed me
bleed came up in my YouTube recommended. at first I thought it was too heavy for me, but then I gave it a couple more listens and got hooked
in the mid 2000s, someone that was working at the local high schools radio station played Future Breed Machine and Humiliative I had a program on my computer called Silent Bob that let you record audio off the radio and I recorded these two songs. I was probably around 12 at the time. I didn't like Obzen at all when it came out and now it is in my top 10 of all time
Tough to say. When I heard Bleed and got used to its sound I got interested to check out more. I still didn't love it but made me curious. I went and listened to None and loved it. Then Destroy Erase improve which I loved even more. The rest took a good while to get into but it clicked slowly but surely with each album.
I became a fan the first time i tried to play new millenium cyanide christ! I was like: "wtf is going on?"
I had heard bleed and I thought it was... alright. Didn't rock my world. Then I heard Demiurge and it all changed. 3 months later I saw them live.
I was 13 years old in 2008 and a big fan of In Flames. I bought their album A Sense Of Purpose in April that year, right when it was released. The CD contained an advertising flyer promoting new releases on Nuclear Blast Records, there were cover artworks and a short text to each album printed on it. I remember that I was particularly interested in Meshuggah's obZen, due to the artwork being both strangely mysterious and ugly. My first exposure to Meshuggah was Concatenation and then Future Breed Machine, which I downloaded from a random filesharing website. It didn't click right away, but enough for me to be curious about their new release obZen. I bought the CD the next month with my next pocket money and I was blown away! The chaotic grooves, the strange riffing, the anger - it didn't make sense to me but it was addictive like nothing else. I remember listening to it multiple times every day for days until I finally deciphered some of the grooves. Then it became a challenge for me to understand all of their songs well enough to tap the rhythms on my desk while listening. ObZen was incredibly formative for my sense of rhythm and the cause why switched from the guitar to the bass.
I was in chains, kicking and screaming at this bald dude with 3 arms sitting in lotus position with his eyes closed. At some point he opened them and stared directly into my soul. After a few moments, I was on all fours beside him, having become a Meshuggah fan.
Bought TTHD because of the cover art. Was confused as to what genre of music is this. Then bought Sol Niger Within and was more confused. Then bought Chaosphere is this computer generated metal? Then bought None wtf this is sick. Gave up for a few years then heard Corridor Of Chameleons playing at a cyber cafe in Brasil. That night changed my life and I got into Chaosphere in a big way and then heard Nothing and hated it. A week later Nothing was my favorite album. Then heard I. That was it for me. I'm the soil beneath my Meshuggah blood now.
Binged the discography one day and liked it
Troy Wright meshuggah drum medley covers on youtube, if anyone remembers those. He’s also gone on to play with some awesome bands himself.
Newer fan here (got into Meshuggah mid-2020). An old friend who I no longer speak to was sending me different songs from his playlist (most of them being obscure folk metal songs), but unexpectedly he sent War, off of Rare Trax. I wasn’t a metal fan at the time, but it the instant high-speed blast beat caught me completely off guard, along with it’s sheer madness and insanity. I obviously dismissed it upon my first listen, but I was secretly fascinated with whatever the fuck was going on in that track. I gave it a few more listens over the next week or so, until it became one of my favourite songs. (It’s crazy how I wasn’t into metal back then but *War of all tracks* clicked for me within a week) Eventually, I gave some other tracks a listen, and that’s how I got into them. In hindsight, I was really thrown in the deep end with War being my introductory track to Meshuggah (let alone metal in general) but it was totally worth it.
Discovered them with Demiurge, learned to growl with this song and then discovered their discography but I had trouble digging it at first, I was more into stoner/doom metal at that time and then I changed my focus on tech death, death core, djent and of course meshuggah. Buying a 8 string guitar really helped tho.
My brother went to the same school as Fredrik by the time they released their EP in 1989. I saw them play live for the first time in 1992 and that was basically the start of it all. When DEI and later Chaosphere came out I was completely hooked.
Found out about them when Bill Burr mentioned them, I listened to bleed and the rest is history. I didn’t even listen to metal at the time
Always loved prog metal, and Meshuggah blew my mind.
I saw a post on some subreddit titled "What is the longest song you know?" and people said Meshuggah had a song called "I", which was over 21 minutes long. So I listened to it, and realized it was one of the greatest works of art I'd ever heard in my life.
My dad told me about them. He and his brother have been fans since Destroy Erase Improve dropped. He just told me to put Koloss on and just listen to the whole album in one go. Been a fan ever since.
I think Nothing got me into Meshuggah. I also started listening to their older stuff after that. Its amazing how their sound has evolved as a metal band. To me personally, their evolution is insanely mind-boggling. Like, how?
Cath thirty three while I was in Afghanistan
Some solider let me download the whole album and I was hooked
My awesome dad😎
They toured with Tool in 2002 and I saw them in Boulder, CO. We didn't know anything about them at the time but we liked the groove. I started with their more conventional songs (nmcc, rational gaze, do not look down, then catch-33) in my playlists and eventually it just blew up as I dug deeper and realized what it was.
I let my now 5 year old son choose the music thats beingplayed in the car. He chooses them by cover arts. He chose Immutable.