Re-casting Metal: Rhythm and Meter in the Music of Meshuggah

The music of the Swedish metal band, Meshuggah, reveals a distinct rhythmic and metric structure based on large-scale odd time signatures, mixed meter, and metric superimposition. Their 2004 EP “I,” however, pushes the boundaries of surface-level meter through the absence of small-scale recurring units of pitch and rhythm. This article uses models for rhythmic analysis developed by Harald Krebs, Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, William Rothstein, and Maury Yeston in pursuing an architectonic examination of hierarchical layers in this music. Additionally, I introduce the important relationship that exists between fans and structural analysis based on a socio-cultural profile of the subgenre.