Why djent? Why now?

This new movement that has seemed to overtake the entire metal genre within a matter of several months has its upsides and downfalls. Djent, aptly titled by none other than one of its founding musicians, Misha “Bulb” Mansoor, has become increasingly popular with young DIY bands around America, utilizing humble home studios and downtuned or extended range guitars for the soul purpose (in my opinion, mind you) of ripping off Meshuggah. Now, there is a strong reason why many of these bands choose to go this route with their music. Here are the several that I find the most irritating or misplaced.

• With a fragment of musical knowledge, pretty much anyone can play odd-timed symmetrical riffs, and they all sound pretty awesome when played in a supra-low tuning. The issue presented is now that there are FAR TOO MANY people doing jus this. There is no creativity, there is no ingenuity, there is no innovation. This has become a trend.
• They may have “innovated,” but utilized musical techniques that don’t suit the djent sound as well. Particularly, the use of singing within the vein of the modern “young hardcore” sound. A pre-pubescent boy singing isn’t the most pleasing thing to hear, and detracts from any music in my mind. The least brutal thing I could think of is Justin Bieber singing over any Meshuggah song.
• There are only a handful of artists with legitimate skill and talent within the genre. And when I say a handful, I literally mean like five or six bands. Everyone else is utter shit, worthless to the entire music industry, and clogging the internet with their copyright infringing fuckery. And the difference between those bands and the rest of them are the facts that maybe they use some of the same techniques, but they’ve definitely expanded upon and created something unique that can contribute to the metal genre.

Now, I’m betting you guys want to know what bands those are. And I know I’ll catch some grief for being so bluntly honest about it, but this is my music blog and if you don’t like my opinions, well that’s the basis of American life, and you can start your own blog and preach your own opinions!

The obvious choice in my readers’ minds is probably Periphery, a band so essential to this entire article, there probably wouldn’t be a djent movement without them. Well, here’s the thing. They are good, extremely talented musicians with a lot of potential, but their debut album was kinda shitty. It doesn’t take a musical genius to see that these dudes know what the fuck they are doing, and are fully capable of writing unique and creative songs, but for some reason, they waited until the last song on the album to truly showcase that. And that song was 15 minutes long, something that just doesn’t work for this genre (being progressive but short…oxymoron but fathomable). Every other song has its moments of clarity, but is muddled down by the trudging, boring, and downright disinteresting parts. And, the fact that their vocalist just doesn’t sound that great. It’s very clear that he can sing with the best of ’em, but his vocals are mixed so strangely and sit within the final master that it certainly distracts me. Overall, they are still a band to watch carefully and I’m sure as they mature as a band (this lineup is the longest lasting in the band’s entire history), they will find their stride more effectively.

Uneven Structure started off as one of those aforementioned DIY bands with a couple computer programs and 8-string guitars, creating music and uploading it to youtube of all places for critique. But that all changed as the band released a teaser of their latest album, Februus. Suddenly, this band had transformed into something totally unique, creating massive ambient textures surrounding lateral guitar riffing, with both devastating screams and unbelievable singing. I mean, INCREDIBLE singing!!! The band being recently signed to Basick Records even further cements them with the top dogs in the category, and I couldn’t be more excited for a new release (exaggerated…I’m really much more excited for just about every album this year, but this is the only djent album I’m anticipating).

Tesseract, hailing from Britain and containing members from the defunct Fellsilent, has what it takes to create masterful music in general. The fact that they play a fusion of djent and truly progressive rock/metal sets them apart from the rest of the trend-following sheep. Utilizing clean vocals more often than not, incorporating strange instrumentation, and actual melody reminiscent of early art rock like Genesis and Yes!, their debut album is a joy to listen to, as well as interesting to dissect and analyze. It is everything that made Rush so awesome to listen to, it sounds big, it has rememberable melodies, catchy sections and wacky instrumental sections.

Benea Reach, though a fairly older band (at least, older than most of the previous ones), has much more potential as the band to destroy djent from the inside. They use the same big production style, the same silly technique, but create songs that are actually heavy, actually emotional, and actually intelligent. They don’t fake anything, their last album was released in 2008, before Periphery was anywhere near a signed band, and Meshuggah had yet to release ObZen (the album of choice for most djent noobs to rip riffs from). They rip, they lay down the groove, they relax and build atmosphere, and they create music that’s completely worthwhile to listen to.

There are the few instrumental bands making waves for not only djent but instrumental music in general, however they share too much similarity with progressive music or solo-guitar music to be classified either way. And for a band like Animals As Leaders, they’ll continue to bend genre and break boundaries. Others include Chimp Spanner, Piotrek Gruszka, Cloudkicker, and Kevin Suter.

I haven’t completely given up on this movement yet, but I’ve certainly stopped hoping for something unique with every band that seems to pop up on a youtube search. There are some prospects out there still (We Are the Illusion for one) and there is still some room for improvement. Until next time, here’s what I’m talking about: