Djent

This week it’s time to talk about the most recently created subgenre of heavy metal, which is simply called djent. The word “djent” was coined by Fredrik Thordendal of Meshuggah, and is actually an onomatopoeia for a distinct guitar sound that he commonly uses in Meshuggah’s music. This sound is a distinctly distorted palm-muted guitar tone, and was made popular by Thordendal and Misha Mansoor from the band Periphery. Djent as a subgenre revolves around combining the aforementioned guitar tone with progressive metal music.

Meshuggah is often given credit for creating djent, and the band definitely shares similarities with other bands in the subgenre, but Meshuggah is notably and distinctly different from almost all of the other djent groups. Meshuggah is an extreme metal band at its core, whereas most other djent groups are more rooted in progressive metal and deathcore collectively. Meshuggah formed nearly two decades before any of the contemporary djent bands and released their genre-defying, legendary second album, Destroy Erase Improve, over ten years before anyone even began to think about capitalizing on their success. 

The albums that really started to get musicians thinking about taking greater influence from Meshuggah were Catch Thirtythree (released in 2005) and Obzen (released in 2008). These two experimental records achieved a great amount of success and attracted new legions of modern heavy metal fans. 

Among those heavy metal fans was Misha Mansoor of the band Periphery. Mansoor released solo tracks online around 2005, which attracted a very strong following. Mansoor’s tracks were more progressive than Meshuggah’s work and were praised for their very high production values. Mansoor eventually decided to form Periphery in order to release his material through a more concentrated outlet. 

Periphery’s music set the standards for all other djent bands by including incredibly technical virtuoso guitar solos, intricate progressive polyrhythms, computerized electronic sounds and the signature guitar tone of the djent subgenre. Periphery really capitalized on SiKTH’s progressive and technical insanity and combined it with Meshuggah’s extreme nature in order to create a completely unique musical style. Fans of Mansoor’s solo work immediately became immersed in Periphery’s debut self-titled album, and the group’s popularity greatly spread, encouraging the entire djent scene to form. Just this year, Periphery released their second album, Periphery II: This Time It's Personal, which has received much critical acclaim and can be streamed below.

After the release of Periphery’s debut record in 2010, many deathcore bands took interest in the group. Bands such as Born of Osiris, Veil of Maya and After the Burial completely switched styles, changing from being deathcore bands to djent bands. 

Meanwhile, there were still many new djent bands starting up. These bands included acts such as Animals As Leaders, The Contortionist, Tesseract and Vildhjarta. 

Djent has received a mixed reception among traditional heavy metal fans. Some praised the subgenre for its technicality and complexity. Meanwhile, others thought of the subgenre as a fad, and considered djent to just be a part of progressive metal. Many people also condemn the usage of the term “djent” due to the fact that the term describes a simple guitar tone. 

Nevertheless, the djent subgenre has created a large scene of loyal fans and it has become a movement that is very distinct in nature. It’s hard to deny that djent really has become its own metal subgenre, and it is currently one of the most popular mainstream subgenres of heavy metal.