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Heavy Metal Thunder Djent

Genres Heavy Metal Progressive Metal Djent

Djent

Named after the noise the guitar makes. Rhythmically fiendish, surgically precise, and oddly hypnotic once it clicks.

Active years
2005 – present
Origin
Sweden / USA / UK
Family
Progressive Metal
Bands here
13

Start here

Four records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. Periphery Periphery, 2010 The landmark

    The record that turned a forum argument into a genre. Misha Mansoor had been posting these demos as "Bulb" for years; the songs underneath the polyrhythms are pop songs, which is why this is the one to start on.

    Listen to Periphery

  2. Animals as Leaders Animals as Leaders, 2009

    Instrumental, and the most musical thing here. Tosin Abasi plays an eight-string like a jazz guitarist who has been handed the wrong instrument and decided to keep it.

    Listen to Animals as Leaders

  3. One TesseracT, 2011

    The atmospheric end. Same rhythmic language, but the guitars are used for texture and the vocals are sung rather than shouted — closer to post-rock than to metal in places.

    Listen to One

  4. obZen Meshuggah, 2008

    The band who invented the sound and reject the word, on the album that made everyone else want to try. Placed last because it is by some distance the least welcoming.

    Listen to obZen

What it sounds like

A percussive metallic clang, and the name is that noise. Extended-range guitars — seven and eight strings — are palm-muted hard and struck in short syncopated bursts, so the guitar behaves like a drum. Rhythms are polymetric: the riff and the beat run on different cycles and drift in and out of phase. Production is clinical and very tight. Clean ambient passages provide contrast, often with jazz chords. Compared with progressive metal it is much less interested in melody and far more in rhythm, and it clicks all at once or not at all. Compared with technical death metal there is no growl and much less speed; the difficulty here is rhythmic rather than manual, and the groove is the whole reward.

  • Heaviness 4 out of 5
  • Speed 3 out of 5
  • Aggression 3 out of 5
  • Technicality 5 out of 5
  • Darkness 2 out of 5
  • Melody 3 out of 5

Where the name came from

Named after the onomatopoeic sound of the heavily palm-muted, downtuned guitar — the percussive 'djent' clang of low strings snapping against the frets. The term is attributed to Meshuggah guitarist Fredrik Thordendal; it was later popularised online by Periphery's Misha Mansoor around 2010, spreading rapidly through guitar forums.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Periphery USA
  • Animals as Leaders USA
  • TesseracT UK
  • Meshuggah Sweden
  • Monuments UK

And 8 more

  • Vildhjarta Sweden
  • Textures Netherlands
  • Bulb USA
  • Born of Osiris USA
  • Veil of Maya USA
  • After the Burial USA
  • Volumes USA
  • Uneven Structure France

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.