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#9456 by PhrAiLGuitarist
Thu Jun 14, 2007 7:58 pm
Being into polymetric madness, I thought I'd start a thread about polymetric metal. If you're into Meshuggah and wish you could find more bands like them, you NEED to check these bands out. You won't be disappointed:

Tesseract: www.myspace.com/tesseract
Fell Silent: www.myspace.com/fellsilent
Textures: www.myspace.com/textures
Coprofago: www.myspace.com/coprofago
Kit Lamb: www.myspace.com/kitlamb
Periphery: www.myspace.com/periphery
Misha "Bulb" Mansoor www.myspace.com/iambulb
Tandjent: www.myspace.com/tandjent
Sikth: www.myspace.com/sikth
Neurothing: www.myspace.com/neurothing

There are plenty of others but these are the bands that really stand out to me. Some other notables that come to mind who sometimes touch on polyrhythms are Gojira, Byzantine, and Cynic.

-Stephen

#10888 by unicyclegirl
Tue Jul 31, 2007 6:15 pm
Cool! Thank you. I like meshuggah (for their afor mentioned polymetric style, not so much the screaming) because I can appreciate and understand how difficult it is to play 27 beats per measure every other measure.... (prehaps an exadurated example! But still...). I play balkan music (or eastern european music, same dif) which relies heavily on odd rhythms to keep the dancers occupied and the musicians happy.

On the lighter side of polymetric metal there are a few king crimson albums (and of course tool, but we won't go into that) that are worth listening to if only for the percussion....

You like some hard metal don't ya? I personally have only dipped my toes in that arena... but if the drummers in these bands can play something other than 4/4 they've got to be worth a listen.

So again, thanks.

#10902 by unicyclegirl
Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:51 pm
Well, actually I'm quite positive you've heard a lot more polymetric metal than me, and have already heard the bands I've mentioned... what I'd like to recommend would be a bit more international and not metal at all (ha - folk-flavor more like...) Do you like turkish music?
(Whoa, way off topic... sorry. Let me check out these bands and get back to you on what I think.)

I mentioned the two prior bands because my father has grown fond of them (they seem mainstream enough for him to recognize on the radio. Have you heard meshuggah on the radio? Mention the station and I'll be there.) He plays the gudulka (his axe - basically an upright violin) and will play some of his older rock favorites on in in 9/8 or 13.... it's opened my mind up to the possibility of polymetric metal. Mention the concept to me a few years ago and I would have been unable to picture it. How do you headbang to the stuff? Ha ha :D

#10956 by BloodOfOdin
Fri Aug 03, 2007 6:37 pm
unicyclegirl wrote:On the lighter side of polymetric metal there are a few king crimson albums (and of course tool, but we won't go into that) that are worth listening to if only for the percussion....



Absolutely nothing wrong with King Crimson, unicyclegirl! In fact, when I'd heard that they were touring with Tool and TOOL WAS THE HEADLINING ACT!! ...I had to beat my head against the wall to make sure I wasn't having some horrible nightmare.

But it was true. I was awake. And Tool was more popular than King Crimson. Of course without King Crimson, many of these polymetric bands wouldn't be around.

Not that Crimson is the only pre-metal prog band to make a splash...but they're the biggest.

#10962 by PhrAiLGuitarist
Fri Aug 03, 2007 8:16 pm
Another band that made it mainstream with polymetric playing is Mudvayne. Yes, I love polyrhythms from many genres of music but it's within the context of metal that I find it most appealing. I enjoy the screaming in most of the bands but the tone of the singer's scream has to be right to appeal to me.

A lot of the polymetric metal has some sort of 4/4 type of thing going on on either the cymbols or the snare and the bass/double bass usually follows the time signature of the guitar riffs... Something to headbang to. =) Everything else falls within a comfortable context from there as far as moving to it goes. Sit someone down to listen to it who doesn't have an ear for anything but 4/4 and they think it sounds like slop but everytime I let a friend listen to some of the stuff and I point out to them what to follow so that they can get a sense of rhythm to headbang to it, it definitely seems to click with them even though they don't have the ear to pick out anything other than randomness with the pattern of the notes.

Anyway, that's typically how it works. Make sure you check out that Tesseract guy. He's by far my favorite right now. Listen for that 4/4 thing.

Thanks for your suggestions and openness, Unicyclegirl. I hope you enjoy some of what you check out! =)

-PhrAiLGuitarist

#10964 by unicyclegirl
Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:20 pm
Oh yeah, I forgot about Mudvayne! I heard them on the radio as well; not too bad.
Tone of the singers scream? Excuse me while I politely giggle. I do understand what you're saying, but it still sounds amusing. I've grown up with classical music and girly lesbian music (My moms are gay so it was mellisa ethridge and the indigo girls most of my childhood. And whatever was on the radio. When my dad (don't ask how he got into the equation) introduced me to balkan music and more obscure classic rock it was a bit of a relief, honestly. Even if my moms' artists may not be my favorite, they left an impression. I'm pretty open minded when it comes to music.) Still childhood conditioning has led me to like music (or singing) that is more "melodious" rather than "toneful" ;). Which is why tool and king crimson were easy enough to listen to while meshuggah was more of an "aquired taste". The more I listened to it the more it grew on me. These bands you mentioned may take a while for me to get accustomed to, so if my initial response is horror... wait, and I might just come around. I'm still a bit too young to really grasp all of the complexities behind many musical genres, and having no experience at all with stringed instruments I know nothing about "guitar technique" and all that. If it sounds good, i like it. Simple as that. Good? Well, matter of opinion, but I'm willing to give anything a try.

I know where you're coming from on getting your friends to hear anything but random slop. Imagine trying to get your friends to folkdance to the stuff. Amusing and infuriating at the same time... eventually it clicks, yes, but before that they tend to bumble around until both my toes and their pride are bruised. Some give up and say it sucks 'cause "it's too hard". A few continue with that stubborness found in many musicians (and dancers) not content to be made fools of by something so obviously attainable, and suddenly.... it all makes sense!!! The look of puzzlement on their faces before they get it makes it almost worth the agony.

BloodOfOden: I'm really sad I never got to see the Tool/King Crimson tour. I had to beat my head against the wall because I missed it. And there are other bands I will never again see live. One of the great disadvantages of being young is that all these wonderful performances/performers have all passed you by, and all you have left are recordings. *sigh.*
Last edited by unicyclegirl on Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

#10967 by unicyclegirl
Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:33 am
So I checked out TeeseracT, and all I can say is: Amazing. It was really fun to listen to. Even the screaming was bearable, and behind it... music so shifting it was hard to count or follow - just the way I like it! Songs you have to listen to more than once to truely appreciate just how hard they were to create. If someone just wrote that on the bus ride home - well, color me impressed. Some of my friends brag about how fast they came up with a song - "a few days", they tell me... well, no wonder it sucks. But this! Thank you for sharing. :D I especially like the saxophone! Many bands forget the benifits of wind instruments. (There I go, tooting my own horn! Hee hee) I'll check out the other bands later... but now I've got some live music to see and a unicycle to ride!

#10991 by PhrAiLGuitarist
Sun Aug 05, 2007 1:25 pm
Hey Unicycle:

I really like you a lot! This is one of the more intelligible "debates" (if you can even call this that) regarding this particular type of hard-rock/heavy metal that I've had. Most people are usually like "this is crap." (MacLeod reference there, lol. Hey MacLeod! :D ) Yes, I can understand why even my mention of tone of voice would still make you giggle. ;) But honestly, go compare Meshuggah's singer to Sikth's singers... or heck, at your next opportunity, go ahead and check out Textures. First, listen to the song Swandive. That was their first album and the singer on it... I really enjoy his clean singing but his semi-screaming tone with the majority of his singing through the verses took me awhile to get used to... but I loved the music so much, I got used to it. After you listen to that, listen to the song Regenesis, which is off of their latest release. New singer and holy. freaking. cow. The guy has the perfect deep singing tone that appeals to me. It's not too brash and it doesn't make you squint as if someone's shrieking bloody gore. lol. Not to mention, there's a passage in Regenesis that the band does these clean vocal melodies over this extremely melodic chord progression with some interesting changes throughout... REALLY catchy stuff.

Speaking of TesseracT, I'm actually pretty good friends with that guy. He's sent me a WHOLE lot more than what he has on his player and let me just tell you now... The guy is just... Man, I just can't think of the words. (A rarity for me) His music appeals to me SO much on my journey of music right now. I'm trying really hard to convince him to release an instrumental version of the album that he's releasing within the next year or so. Just like you said, it throws you off but when you listen to it and you start to get the grooves in your head, you find yourself walking around during the day immitating them with your teeth and tongue. lol. Well, I do at least... But that's just me. =) (By the way, my teeth serve as the bass drums and my tongue is the snare. I've done it for years and I wish I could record it, lol. I always make my friends laugh at me when I do it. :lol: )

Anyway, oh yes. I can relate to you with the type of music you say your mom listened to. I was raised by a single mom pretty much my whole life so I had the pleasure (and I do mean pleasure because I still enjoy this stuff to this day) of exposure to Seal, Sting, Edie Brickell, The Sundays, The Cranberries, Enya, Enigma, Melissa Ethridge (even though my mom wasn't gay), Tears for Fears, I dunno - just a whole mixed bag of artists I may not have given a chance otherwise.

And for the record, I think your openness with this stuff is truly amazing. I used to LOATHE music like what I posted above. I was into Metallica and Megadeth and Pantera and that was about it. The type of vocals you hear from Meshuggah sounded like sh*t to me but I grew into it. It was a gradual process and when I got into Meshuggah, you wouldn't believe how hard it was to find these other bands. Lots of searching but that's part in why I wanted to share them here. Polymetric metal seems to be picking up but as you can see, there really is only a handful of bands doing this sort of thing like these guys are. I'm not so naive to believe that these are it because I know there's probably hundreds of these bands world-wide but... Yeah. So, I went from the Pantera phase to getting into nu-metal (which I really dig, by the way, I don't care what other people say) like Disturbed and Staind, then eventually I found my way to Sevendust and it was the GROOVE of those guys that caught my ear. I was shifting away from power metal and galloping runs into groove-oriented riffing that doesn't require the technique everyone seems to think should go into ever genre. (Huge generalization there but you may understand what I mean)

But yeah, then onto Slipknot (who I used to hate just to hate) and eventually, Meshuggah and the rest has been history.

Random note: Go check out this band called Circa Survive and see what you think: http://www.myspace.com/circasurvive Listen to the top song "The Difference". I've been really getting into that band. It's not exactly following our lovely polymetric topic of conversation here but anyway. I'm always trying to spread some good music. =)

Lastly, give me some bands to check out in this genre your father turned you onto! I've heard some of it before but if you've got some particular favorites, I'd love to check them out. Thanks for the excellent conversation and all of your input! :D

-Stephen

#11035 by unicyclegirl
Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:57 pm
Hey, I like you too! I was reading the posts that you, irminsul, mr mikev, Sdavis22, vocals and bass, black santa and a few others have written... insightful and hillarious. (Except for macleod... he's just hillarious and arguementative) And nope, can't call it a debate because I haven't started to argue with you yet. No worries, I'm positive I'll disagree with you on some things. Now, about the bands you listed, some of them were hard to listen to. I gave it the good college try; part of it was I don't have my own computer and I was hesitant to annoy the people around me, and another part of it was, as you mentioned, the tone of the singer's scream. That will take me a while to get used to. Unfortunately I've only listened to a few artist at a time... I tend to post on bandmix at work, but because I work in a government building, myspace and other media-type sites have been banned. (this one has slipped through the cracks, I guess. As long as I don't listen to any music samples I believe it's okay. There are all these really interesting links floating around the internet that are off limits to me! You can't imagine how frustrating this is. I'll be following some music related thread or find an artist I just have to look up, but I can't hear what they sound like.

Record it! (the tounge-teeth thing. I cannot imagine what it sounds like. I tried to do it myself, but failed miserably. Takes some parctice, eh?)

Okay... so my openness with music has been helped along the way by my parents and my own strange tastes. I like seal, tears for fears, enya, sting... all those and more. There are a few genres I'm more partial to than others; I'm not a big fan of most country and rap. There are exceptions, but the ratio of like to dislike for these genres is much smaller. On the eastern european side of things; my father plays macedonian, greek, bulgarian, romanian, etc - if it's slavik, chances are he plays it. One of my mothers also plays this type of music. She plays two of the most annoying instruments in the world - the bagpipes (or the gajda) and the accordian. I remember in high school I was having trouble getting up in the morning, so my mother, sick to death of my lazy behavior, finally came into my room and gave me the early morning bagpipe wake-up call. I'll never hear the bagpipes now without wincing. My father plays the flute, the tambura (sorta like a guitar), the gudulka, and multiple percussion instruments. He aso plays Sufi (whirling dirvish?) devotional music, which I think is really awsome. Music = spirituality / a way to get closer to god sounds pretty wonderful to me. Maybe not metal per se (Metal & 'getting closer to god' sounds like an oxymoron), but some music certainly envokes feelings of awe or euphoria. Back on topic, I love world music, especial middle eastern (bellydance sounding stuff), bollywood (bhangra/indian sounding stuff), asian rock (I'll discuss this later), and spanish pop. And of course eastern european music. In addition, my father, in his youth, listened to a lot of what we now deem "classic rock", so through him I now enjoy Led Zepplin, Cream, Hendrix, Rush, the Beatles, the Doors, Queen, etc... (too many to name. if I missed a few greats, my apologies.) I also picked up some music of my very own, not influenced by my parents but by the radio or my peers. Through this I came to like alternative rock, then grunge, then metal. (So I went a different route than you :D ) When I say metal I have to admit that I never was a big fan of Metalica (prefering apacalyptica to the actual band), but fell into the nu metal side of things (Yes, I like disturbed too. In fact on their Down with the Sickness CD, I love the intro to their song Fear. It starts all techno and soft (ish) then suddenly the guitars come in and it's exciting!!! It reminds me of a song fron a Devil may Cry AMV called Fre@K $How that starts in much the same manner. The rest of the song is, well okay (japanese band, really bad english), but when I was playing the video game and I heard the beginning I almost died (no really, someone was shooting at me) cause I stopped moving to listen. I really appreciate when bands build up to a climax rather than starting hard - like a good book. Yes, the reverse can be just as moving, I'll admit, but when you can hear each individual layer start playing (drums, bass, giutar, vocals) I find I listen more closely to the music. I like a sense of expectancy!!!)

I wrote a whole lot.... i need to take a break and do some work. I'll return to write a bit more when i've go my thoughts in order and I've collected the mail. You're really an interesting (and fun! :D ) person to write to! hope I don't ramble too much.

#11070 by unicyclegirl
Tue Aug 07, 2007 6:15 pm
So I'm back. I forgot to recommend music to you... but you'll have to wait because I need to a computer not owned by the government to give you links and all that. Also I'd like to go through my music library and select things less "folk" and more "rock" because I've listened to this kind of stuff all my life but for others it might take some adjusting. I also want to add some media to my profile, because it seems to be a big complaint here that many people don't have the music to back up their posts. I'm not looking to form a band, but it's always nice to hear what people have to say (that was a lie, some people can keep their nasty comments to themselves... well, if I suck, then I suppose it's warranted... but no one likes to be told they suck. Still, it's not like there are many clarinet players out there to critique my technique and intonation. )
Last edited by unicyclegirl on Mon Aug 13, 2007 10:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

#11260 by PhrAiLGuitarist
Mon Aug 13, 2007 8:32 pm
I haven't forgotten about this topic nor you, Uni. =) I've just been retardedly busy lately. I'll post something more in-depth and actually meaningful in place of this poor excuse for a post later. =)

-Stephen

#11262 by unicyclegirl
Mon Aug 13, 2007 10:05 pm
That's okay! I've been spending all of this free time of mine practicing my clarinet and adjusting to your wierd musical suggestions.

#20452 by PhrAiLGuitarist
Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:11 pm
*Bump* Just in case someone is interested who hasn't seen this thread. =)

#20713 by Gorgrotesque
Sun Feb 03, 2008 3:02 am
I never got around to checking out more polymetric bands. Decent bands you listed there. And, I will say I actually like Mudvayne (Despite my love for death metal) and I was listening to them earlier today.

However, why the f**k do most polymetric bands play with 8 string guitars and/or low ass tunings man?

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