Meshuggah
Explore the band's historical lineups, musicians, and studio albums.
Active7 formations9 studio albums
Formation chronology
Newest first
Formation 7 of 7
Feb 19, 2004 – Present
Members
- Jens KidmanVocals
- Fredrik ThordendalGuitar
- Mårten HagströmGuitar
- Dick LövgrenBass
- Tomas HaakeDrums
Formation facts
- On 19 February 2004 Meshuggah said they had parted with Gustaf Hielm and named Dick Lövgren as his replacement. Hielm thanked fans for seven years and noted it was “the second time” he had been asked to leave. Lövgren later said mutual friends had arranged a 2003 studio audition where he “got the gig.” In October 2005 Jens Kidman still described Dick as “not a permanent member yet, just for live shows,” even as he already felt like family.
- After meeting Mushroomhead’s Jason Popson on Ozzfest 2002, Meshuggah agreed to give his Fractured Transmitter label a one-off track. A planned quick jam became the 21-minute I: Haake recorded drifting drum takes while Thordendal ran to the control room; guitars were later charted bar-by-bar onto the chaos. The side release strained how each side read the Nuclear Blast contract and consumed roughly seven months.
- Catch Thirtythree was composed as one continuous suite. Tomas Haake said the thirteen index titles are chapter markers added after the label wanted separate tracks. Jens Kidman, Fredrik Thordendal, Mårten Hagström, and Tomas Haake built it together on computers in an office-like space, not as a conventional rehearsed album, and only later learned a long live excerpt from the collage.
- Dick Lövgren was already Meshuggah’s announced live bassist when Catch Thirtythree was made, but the record credits bass and guitar to Jens Kidman, Fredrik Thordendal, and Mårten Hagström. Haake said whoever wrote a riff immediately tracked matching bass so the collage would not stall; a standard session would have given Dick the bass parts. In October 2005 Kidman still described him as live-only.
- There is no live drum kit on Catch Thirtythree. Programming let the band drop a steady sample bed onto each new riff while parts were still being rewritten. Haake argued that re-learning the constantly changing material on acoustic drums would have taken many months, and that a fully programmed album was a deliberate taboo in a drum-obsessed metal scene.
- obZen, released 7 March 2008 in Europe, is the first Meshuggah studio album with Dick Lövgren performing bass—after years of live work and after Catch Thirtythree omitted him from the credits. Tracking at Fear and Loathing ran about six months from May 2007; Haake spent a month capturing dozens of drum takes per passage and another month editing.
- “Bleed” nearly missed obZen. Tomas Haake spent about five months rebuilding his double-kick approach—softer, more fluid, feet kept light—to play the song’s unbroken bursts, investing more practice in that track than in the rest of the album combined. For months the band did not know whether it would survive.
- Jens Kidman began the obZen vocal sessions without having heard the new songs. Instead of living with basic tracks, he sat with Tomas Haake and Fredrik Thordendal while they walked each passage, took notes, and then sang from those scribbles—even as riffs kept changing underneath him. The vocals consumed roughly the final three months of the six-month studio stay. Kidman later likened the fog to The Twilight Zone and said he barely remembered recording an album at all.
- Joachim Luetke’s obZen cover—a blood-smeared, three-armed lotus figure whose hands each shape a “6”—shipped in the U.S. with a slipcover that hid most of the image after retailers or the label objected. Mårten Hagström said the band was first told the art was fine, then told it was not; the disc art itself stayed uncensored under the sleeve. He was unsure whether Nuclear Blast or big-box retail drove the call, and noted that the American sleeve blunted the concept.
- For Koloss, Meshuggah tried breaking their demo-first habit by jamming unfinished ideas together—“Swarm” began that way—before most other songs again arrived as individual computer demos. After a festival break they overlapped writing with recording rather than freezing the material first.
- The title The Violent Sleep of Reason twists Francisco Goya’s etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. Tomas Haake described it as what follows when people sleep through atrocity, dogma, and crisis; Mårten Hagström added that the phrase also fit a species numbed by information overload. Both tied the words to the album’s lyrics rather than to a party slogan.
- At Puk Studios in Denmark with engineer Tue Madsen, Meshuggah recorded The Violent Sleep of Reason as ensemble performances—guitar, bass, drums, and much of the vocal together—for the first time in roughly twenty to twenty-five years, Haake said. They wanted audible push-and-pull after feeling prior computer-stacked albums had become too perfect.
- Fredrik Thordendal still recorded lead guitars and toured behind The Violent Sleep of Reason, but Mårten Hagström later said Fredrik contributed no riffs to that album after writing little for Koloss. The imbalance preceded Fredrik’s open-ended break from the road; it does not mean he left the band as a member.
- About eight months after The Violent Sleep of Reason, Fredrik Thordendal stepped away from touring to build a studio and work on Special Defects material, including pulling out of a planned Megadeth-support run. Scar Symmetry’s Per Nilsson covered lead guitar live through 2021. Fredrik remained a Meshuggah member; Nilsson was a touring substitute only.
- On 25 March 2021 Meshuggah posted from Sweetspot Studios that a new album was underway, Per Nilsson was “released back into the wild,” and Fredrik Thordendal would handle lead work on the record and on tour again—“the band is back together. In full effect.” Hagström recalled the ask-back as a quiet studio visit when Fredrik’s requested multi-year window ran out.
- Immutable (Atomic Fire, 1 April 2022) restored Fredrik Thordendal’s signature leads on material largely written without him. Hagström said Fredrik offered to track solos after barely hearing the demos—and that he had not touched a guitar for three years. The riff for “Broken Cog” had followed Hagström since an unused obZen-era idea and failed Koloss attempts before it finally fit.
Studio albums
- Immutable (Apr 2022)
- The Violent Sleep of Reason (Oct 2016)
- Koloss (Mar 2012)
- obZen (Mar 2008)
- Catch Thirtythree (May 2005)
Formation 6 of 7
Jul 2001 – Feb 19, 2004
Members
- Jens KidmanVocals
- Fredrik ThordendalGuitar
- Mårten HagströmGuitar
- Tomas HaakeDrums
Formation facts
- In July 2001 Meshuggah announced that Gustaf Hielm had left and that they were trying out bassists. Nothing, tracked in May–June 2002, lists no permanent bassist: Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström are credited on bass. Later reports that Hielm returned for some live dates before February 2004 describe touring only; the exact rehire calendar remains unclear.
- While shaping Nothing, Meshuggah considered an all-bass-guitar approach before custom eight-string prototypes arrived. The prototypes intonated poorly, so the 2002 album was largely played on downtuned seven-strings that slipped out of tune. Working eight-strings and a guitar/drum rebuild arrived later with the 2006 special edition of the album.
- Accepting Ozzfest 2002 crushed Nothing’s finish: about a week of vocals (Haake contrasted that with eleven weeks on Chaosphere), two days of mixing, mastering the next day, then a morning flight to the United States. He later said they never had time to live with the record and would have wanted months more.
Studio albums
- Nothing (Aug 2002)
Formation 5 of 7
Jan 1998 – Jul 2001
Members
- Jens KidmanVocals
- Fredrik ThordendalGuitar
- Mårten HagströmGuitar
- Gustaf HielmBass
- Tomas HaakeDrums
Formation facts
- In January 1998 Meshuggah made Gustaf Hielm a permanent member, then recorded Chaosphere that spring. Tomas Haake later said accepting a Slayer tour compressed the sessions and hurt the production—an experience the band cited when refusing to rush later albums.
- After Chaosphere, Meshuggah’s first proper U.S. run included weeks opening for Slayer in 1999. Mårten Hagström expected a crowd that only wanted the headliner and was surprised when American audiences responded—an opening later widened on Tool and Ozzfest dates.
Studio albums
- Chaosphere (Nov 1998)
Formation 4 of 7
1995 – Jan 1998
Members
- Jens KidmanVocals
- Fredrik ThordendalGuitar
- Mårten HagströmGuitar
- Tomas HaakeDrums
Formation facts
- After Peter Nordin left, Gustaf Hielm—who had offered to stand in during the Machine Head tour—got a short-notice call from Fredrik Thordendal before a Clawfinger-support run. Hielm later said it was not until the fall of 1995 that he actually played with them; he met the band in Hamburg and played that night without rehearsal. For more than two years he remained a live and session bassist; Jens Kidman later recalled he “wasn’t permanent until a few years later.”
- In May 1997 Meshuggah left Umeå for Stockholm to live closer to management, bookers, and the industry—arriving with little money. Gustaf Hielm was still a live/session bassist at the time, before the January 1998 permanence decision and before Chaosphere.
Formation 3 of 7
1993 – 1995
Members
- Jens KidmanVocals
- Fredrik ThordendalGuitar
- Mårten HagströmGuitar
- Peter NordinBass
- Tomas HaakeDrums
Formation facts
- As the songs grew harder to sing and play together, Jens Kidman stopped playing rhythm guitar to focus on vocals. Tomas Haake brought in Mårten Hagström—his friend since childhood and Barophobia bandmate. Contemporary and later accounts place the handoff around late 1992 or early 1993 without agreeing on a single day.
- On the 1995 European tour supporting Machine Head, Peter Nordin developed inner-ear balance failure—chronic dizziness and vertigo—and left for Sweden (Kidman recalls a train home from Spain). Adam Duce offered to cover bass; Meshuggah declined, finished the remaining shows as a four-piece, and at times had Thordendal play bass and leads while Hagström pitch-shifted a guitar down an octave.
Studio albums
- Destroy Erase Improve (May 1995)
Formation 2 of 7
1990 – 1993
Members
- Jens KidmanVocals, Guitar
- Fredrik ThordendalGuitar
- Peter NordinBass
- Tomas HaakeDrums
Formation facts
- After Tomas Haake joined, Meshuggah signed to Nuclear Blast—the German metal label that answered the mailed Garageland EP. The deal underwrote the debut-album era and a long association that later had to stretch for one-off experiments such as the Fractured Transmitter I EP.
- The debut almost shipped as (All This Because of) Greed. Nuclear Blast’s first commissioned sleeve was rejected; choosing an unused post-apocalyptic Statue of Liberty image pushed a last-minute retitle to Contradictions Collapse so the artwork and name would fit.
- In the early-to-mid 1990s Meshuggah’s schedule was repeatedly broken by day-job accidents. Fredrik Thordendal severed a fingertip on his fretting hand while doing carpentry and had it surgically reattached, then had to relearn the guitar. Tomas Haake hurt his hand more than once—splitting a finger and later damaging tendons. Mårten Hagström later put the worst stretch between 1992 and 1995; exact days are not pinned, and recovery continued after Mårten joined.
Studio albums
- Contradictions Collapse (May 1991)
Formation 1 of 7
1989 – 1990
Members
- Jens KidmanVocals, Guitar
- Fredrik ThordendalGuitar
- Peter NordinBass
- Niklas LundgrenDrums
Formation facts
- In Umeå in 1987, Jens Kidman found the word Meshuggah—Yiddish/Hebrew for “crazy”—while hunting for a band name. That discovery came before the quartet that recorded the 1989 EP.
- Metallien was Fredrik Thordendal’s earlier Umeå thrash project, not a Meshuggah alias. After an early Meshuggah attempt frayed, Jens Kidman formed Calipash with Peter Nordin and Niklas Lundgren (and briefly Torbjörn Granström). Thordendal crossed over, the Meshuggah name returned, and that quartet—not the dissolved 1987 sidemen—became the band that cut the 1989 EP.
- In June 1989 Jens Kidman, Fredrik Thordendal, Peter Nordin, and Niklas Lundgren recorded a three-song self-titled 12-inch later nicknamed Psykisk Testbild. Garageland in Umeå pressed about a thousand copies; mailing them as a demo packet helped draw Nuclear Blast. The nickname does not appear as a printed title on the vinyl.
- When the Nuclear Blast opportunity made Meshuggah more than a hobby, Niklas Lundgren quit and sold his drum kit. Tomas Haake, then in nearby Örnsköldsvik, got the recommendation through a music-store contact in 1990 and became the drummer on every Meshuggah studio album that followed.