Historical background:
Chaosphere was Meshuggah’s third album released on “Nuclear Blast” record label on November 10, 1998. Meshuggah is a Swedish experimental metal band (although I would call it “interesting metal”) founded in 1987 in Umea. Fredrik Thordendal (the lead guitarist, who I believe at this point was playing drums) started Metallien in 1985, which disbanded and later reformed with Jens Kidman on vocals/guitar called Meshuggah (an alteration of the Yiddish word meaning “crazy”). Jens was fired and other members left, and Kidman’s new band Calipash eventually recruited Thordendal, and the name Meshuggah was revived. Tomas Haake (drums) did not join until 1990 when they released Contradictions Collapse—an interesting thing to note is that both Thordendal and Haake injured themselves (Thordendal was a carpenter, Haake in a grinder accident?).
New Millenium Cyanide Christ is written by Marten Hagstrom and Fredrik Thordendal, from the album Chaosphere (which is a contradictory word, used to sum up their seeming chaotic phenomenological elements of their sound with the extremely precise, mechanical execution and composition). This album was released after Contradictions Collapse (1991) and Destroy Erase Improve (1995) both which use the same elements of polyrhythmic cycles, although perhaps less complexly. Destroy Erase Improve is not as heavy
From a Thordendal interview (translated from Swedish) following his solo album in 1997:
“I don't really listen to alot of music. But if I sometime put an album on it's Allan Holdsworth. I think he's a guitarist that has everything. A totally own style, beautiful chords and an incredible soundcontrol. I'm also very interested in sounds and when I heard Holdsworth for the first time I decided that I also should find that sound. I spent every penny on the kind of equipment he uses. When I could afford a Mesa Boogie 50 Caliber Plus I was getting close. But if you're going to play with the same sound as Holdsworth you also have to learn his hitting- and legatotechnic. He uses the whammy bar alot to get tones from below and from above and I like that, it sounds so sad. But the thing I like the most about his playing is that it doesn't sound too much "guitarish". I'm so sick of hearing the old usual pentatonic scales.”
Thordendal’s guitar: http://www.tandjent.com/meshforum/showthread.php?t=2305
“It's the world's worst guitar. I totally hate it, but I have to play seven-stringed because it's so powerful to be able to reach a low B note. Earlier, I have been playing on V-guitars and I've been able to reach the highest notes perfectly. On the Ibanez, I often hit the guitar with my hand when I'm playing high notes on the high E-string. I'm always looking for a new seven-stringed guitar that's better, but it's hard to find one with a good whammy bar system.”
Jens Kidman on the making of “Chaosphere”: http://www.earpollution.com/may99/profiles/meshuggah/meshuggah.html
“Actually, we wanted Chaosphere to be totally different from Destroy Erase Improve. Destroy Erase Improve was written over a couple of years, Chaosphere was written in three, four, five months. It's intense. Every day, morning to night, writing songs. You have to know what to do with a hard record. There's no crap melodies on Chaosphere. The whole record is a reflection of how everything was made. Everything was new. We hadn't even played any of the songs all the way through before we went into the studio. Except one song, "Sane," that was the only song we played.”
Meshuggah's obvious influence is groundbreaking Los Angeles-based heavy metal band Metallica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallica) (compare "New Millennium" with "Master of Puppets" and the wild, Thordendal-esque guitar solo about halfway through "The Thing That Should Not Be").
Another influence (as stated in the above interview by Thordendal) is jazz/rock guitarist Alan Holdsworth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Holdsworth). Compare the tone and melodic nature of Holdsworth's "Road Games" and Thordendal's "Missing Time" (from Thordendal's 1997 solo album Sol Niger Within). From my listening, three distinct Thordendal styles: the tapping style on the solo from "New Millennium," the very melodic style on "Missing Time," and the animalistic, merciless wailing exhibited on "Entrapment" and "Rational Gaze."
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