Can you school me on Djent?

SquireJapan

I kind of get Meshuggah ... kind of.

Can someone pick out a few tracks from key bands and tell me what's going on and why they're relevant?

It's a genre I don't have much exposure to, and I'd have to think I'm missing out on good stuff (both to listen to and steal from).

Any lesson links (of quality ... all the ones I've found are crap) would be amazing.

I keep toying with the idea of starting up an industrial Metal band again ... I need some simular music to inspire me

PolarityMan

It's onomatopoeic, what more is there to understand?

I'm not a huge fan, Tesseract are the only band that really grabs me and they only really have quite light djent elements.

Periphery is probably the single most representative band at the moment. 

Drew_TNBD

Meshuggah, Tesseract. That's all you need really. The rest of them are crap.

Dopesick

Meshuggah started the whole craze with their 'Nothing' album, but I get the feeling they wouldn't want to be associated with this.

Not a fan at all but yeah Tesseract seem to be thrown around, as well as Animals As Leaders.

SquireJapan

Thanks so far

Any tracks specifically? I'm lazy, time starved and have a short attention span.

Maynehead

My god how metal has djen'erated...

Cirrus

I'm not a big fan as a rule because it's quite a technical genre and relies so much on production to work at all, but a mate of mine does some awesome music in the Djent genre. He's a cunt, so I'm not spamming him out of some misguided sense of solidarity...

breakstuff

This is pretty helpful

hugbot

The weird thing about djent to me is that while stylistically it all springs from meshuggah, meshuggah have been around since 1990 or so, so it took ages before someone thought about ripping them off which is odd as far as genres go. I suspect the big spark was in the rise of cheap home recording and amp modelling software, since it's hard to just "jam out" a djent song with the band and write one in a rehearsal room like some other genres. Instead it's guys sitting down with cubase or whatever and writing polyrhythmic riffs to a slow 4/4 beat while programming with superior drummer ect. Hell tesseract even had a laptop on stage with them playing half their clean riffs when I saw them, it's a genre that owes its existence to that specific technology revolution.

Hertz32

I can't believe this thread made it this far without me getting mentioned

Check out:
Mikasa - Veil Of Maya (New VOM)


Punisher - Veil of maya (Old VOM)


Dagger - Vildhjarta


neo Seoul - After the burial (9 strings)


Erase:Begin - Fellsilent (Milton keynes based techdeath/Djent)


Ivy & Wine - Glass Cloud


Infinity - Modern Day Babylon


Nocturne - TesseracT


Bland Street Bloom - SikTh (they started Djent along with Meshuggah. they had 8's before Meshaggah did actually. they're from watford too!) 


All New Materials - Periphery



I hesitate to call Animals as Leaders Djent. Tosin uses Djenty tones on occasion but his music isn't tech metal in the way that djent is expected to be.  Anyway, That should be a killer playlist of Djent and Djent like music for you to get started with

Hertz32

@hugbot is bang on with it being a technology based Djenre. it's actually all arisen following the Line 6 big bottom amp, which pretty much defines the Djent tone (Bass low, mids punched, treble nil, prescence at 80%) although Meshuggah owe a lot to SikTh and don't give a shit about being called Djent. They coined the term ffs!

Most Djent bands will use Axe-FX, kemper, line 6, ENGL or Randall amps. ENGL are about the only valve amps that get used for Djent really. It's either Digital (Axe etc.) or Solid state (the rnadall, as used by Veil of maya, as above)

Hertz32

@Drew_FX I do disagree with your statement about the rest being crap


I have been listening to FAR too much Djent recently

Drew_TNBD

Most of it is just unimaginative. I had a period of about a month when I was listening to a lot of djent, and got bored quickly. The reason I like Tesseract is because they're more poppy than most, and the reason I like Meshuggah is because it isn't all they do.

Hertz32

Fair enough, have you heard most of the stuff I posted though @Drew_FX ? there are certainly lots of djent bands that play by numbers though. I hope I've managed to represent a decent cross section of the genre above. I would have thought New Veil of maya would be right up your street if you like poppy djent.

Christ I love Pete cottrell

Hertz32

Djent style cover of Bring Me the horizon's latest single, Drown. MUCH better than the original

chrispy108

SikTh always used 6 strings - PRS SE/Custom/Standard 22s, then Pin moved onto Blackmachines. I wouldn't call them djent at all, there's too much variation and not enough riffing for me to put that label on them, although their second album is definitely more 'djenty' than the first. This wasn't until 2006 though, so I wouldn't say they inspired Meshuggah particularly, as Nothing (2000), I (2004) and Catch Thirty Three (2005) pretty firmly establish their thing.

I love Meshuggah, SikTh, Tesseract are great on a CD but I didn't like them live, and Periphery are good when they aren't being naff and cheesy.

The rest of the stuff you posted was just a djent-by-numbers kit they coloured in, Veil of Maya in particular I could tell what was coming next the entire way through the first song, to the point it's just a parody.

guitarfishbay

Periphery have a lot of potential, I wish they'd go more poppy with their writing because they can pull it off in the sections where they do it.  The outro to Ragnarok kind of builds up from 2:20, and is one of my favourite outros on any heavy song.

Sikth are unreal.  They used real amps, Pin had 6505s then Diezels IIRC.  Not sure what they're currently using.

IMO best Djent tone ever was the real Dual Rectifier on Destroy Erase Improve.

BloodEagle

Periphery and Tesseract are both terrible terrible bands

Bucket

Periphery and Tesseract are the only two good modern ones, the rest are pretty much identikit rubbish.

I like Veil of Maya but I've never really thought of them as a djent band. They were around before all that. This is an older song:

Marc's a killer, killer guitar player. Really weird style.

I love SikTh too, Death of a Dead Day is an amazing album. Meshuggah I can take or leave.

SquireJapan

Thanks all - some good stuff here. I'm learning ...

prh777

Tesseract - Altered State the entire album.  rythmic displacement everywhere.  really works as an album and nice melodies.

Meshuggah - Bleed - the classic probably.  

I'm not a fan of screamo but Meshuggah are worth it.  If you see them live it is otherworldly and hypnotic.

Periphery have their moments.  @Hertz32 covered most of the other stuff very well.