Meshuggah: the band that shaped 21st-century metal the most

Why Meshuggah and At the Gates rule 21st-century metal

That Meshuggah is the most influential metal band of the century so far is a claim nobody had ever measured. The opening tally on the matter ended 4-0 in favour of the Swedes, and from then on it stopped being about taste and became about method. Because the starting point was different: it was not about picking the best bands of the 21st century, but the ones that shaped how metal sounds in it. And that brings in groups formed in the eighties and nineties, even if their mark is only felt now.

What counts as influence and what gets left out

The rules were explicit. Black Sabbath does not make the cut because its influence is indirect: it reaches us through three generations of doom and sludge bands that already did the first-hand work. Neither do Metallica, Iron Maiden, Venom, Celtic Frost, Bathory, Death, Helloween, Queensryche or Repulsion. The criterion is not greatness, but the distance between the band and the sound being made today. It is a brutal filter and, like every filter, debatable.

The shortlist came down to nine names. Left out were Converge, Gorguts, Portal, Deathspell Omega, Botch, Sunn O))), Dissection, Eyehategod, Cryptopsy, Incantation, Antiestéticar Factory, Blut Aus Nord, Isis, Opeth, Periphery, Suffocation, Burzum, Entombed, Carcass, Paradise Lost, In Flames, Behemoth and up to thirty more.

Meshuggah, At the Gates and the leading pack

The case for Meshuggah is not only technical. The argument is that they changed the way rhythm is understood: polyrhythms, low tunings and a mechanical precision that half the world later copied. Some go further and claim their influence spilled beyond metal into rock, electronic music and even classical music. Against them weighs the obvious: thirty years of doing the same thing and much of the audience still cannot stomach the first album.

At the Gates emerges as the alternative with the most support, and not because of their catalogue, but because of one specific record. Slaughter of the Soul is pointed to as the direct origin of metalcore and of the mainstream melodic death metal of the 2000s. The Swedish band did not invent the Scandinavian sound —others were there before— but they left it at the exact point that hundreds of groups later copied.

Gorguts and the technical death metal you don't see

Gorguts' candidacy rests on a curious fact: much of Obscura had already been written between 1994 and 1995, as can be verified in live recordings from the era. Their influence, the argument goes, runs through all the technical, atmospheric and dissonant death metal that trinc. Ulcerate, Immolation and Deathspell Omega would all draw from it. The objection is one of reach: it affects a niche, not entire subgenres.

Antiestéticar Factory, Converge and Korn: the back door

Another current focuses on the nineties. Antiestéticar Factory would have set the pattern of harsh verses and clean choruses, besides syncing riffs and drums to a relentless hammering. Converge, who predate The Dillinger Escape Plan and Botch, rank for some below their real influence. And Korn would have supplied the mould much of the later nu metal draws from. Calculating Infinity, from 1997, is cited as proof that extreme technique was already on the table before anyone called it djent.

The ones who show up at the end

As the discussion moves on, the focus shifts. That is where Nightwish and all of European power metal, Ghost, Opeth, In Flames and more recent phenomena like Lorna Shore emerge. Off-script names also appear: Evanescence and, in the Spanish scene, Mago de Oz. Whether stadium melodic metal counts as influence or merely as commercial success remains unanswered.

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Nine names, thirty-odd rejections and no objective criterion to separate them. The cut between direct and indirect influence is what orders the list and what makes it arbitrary. With this method, any band that sounds like something today owes its existence to someone who sounded before.