“MAP OF DJENT” SHOWS NEW “BIG FOUR”

Monday, December 13th, 2010 at 1:20pm by

The Internet is a treasure trove of data just waiting to be spliced and re-assembled in new and interesting ways.

A recent feature added to Got-Djent.com gave users the ability to indicate their favorite bands on their own personal profiles, so the keepers of that site have taken that information and produced a map “where the proximity of two bands on the map indicates how much their respective fanbases overlap.” Fascinating. Check it out: (click to enlarge)

map of djent

(click to enlarge)

The results are fascinating.

The most popular bands, or the “Big Four of Djent,” are Periphery, Meshuggah, TesseracT and Animals as Leaders. It’s worth calling into question whether Meshuggah, as the accidental progenitors of the genre who preceded its supposed birth by a decade, should even be called “djent”… but there you have it. It’s interesting to note which bands and musicians are more popular in this scene than I would’ve thought; Cloudkicker has more fans than Veil of Maya or Born of Osiris, while relatively obscure acts like Aliases, The Arusha Accord and Keith Merrow make great showings too.

It’s worth pointing out that the sample audience represents a very specific subset of music fans — namely super-nerdy Internet dorks that are mostly musicians themselves and gravitate towards a certain sound — so this map shouldn’t be taken as a definitive measure of overall band popularity. It’s also worth noting that Got-Djent.com is U.K.-based, so bands like Monuments and Fellsilent presumably have a much better showing than they would if the site were in the U.S. And of course, several non-djent bands are included too, such as Strapipng Young Lad, The Ocean, Mnemic, Gojira, The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza, and others.  But this map is still a great approximation of of band popularity within a certain scene, and it’s laid out in an easy-to-read visual style. Kudos to Got-Djent.com for putting this together!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dre-Toledo/628955415 Dre Toledo

    nice.

  • Jo

    Now thats tour i want to happen

    • Farts

      OR meshuggah could just play and the other 3 could realize they are completely ripping them off and not even coming close to writing songs half as good or influential or memorable or innovative as meshuggah ever was and will continue to be.

      Enough said, fuck these other bands, They cant even formulate their own fucking drum sounds for christake, they have to steal meshuggahs… god its so fucking LAME.

      • Dakka

        animals as leaders is very, very unlike meshuggah, and it is completely ignorant to say they are (same with the other bands except to a lesser extent)

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Christoph-Fin/1567502385 Christoph Fin

        damn Meshuggah fanboys are more butthurt about djent bands than I apparently realized. Although your argument is highly intelligent and very well-worded, I have to disagree with almost everything you typed. Stealing Meshuggah’s drum sounds? what the fuck are you going on about? Do you people even listen to the music? Im still trying to figure out how Tesseract and Periphery, two bands that sound very very different from each other, can both sound exactly like Meshuggah. Don’t you people ever get sick of mindless Meshuggah worship? I am a huge Meshuggah fan, but they definitely have run their course creatively. If Meshuggah is so fucking awesome in your eyes, one would think you would welcome with open arms bands that derive a part of their style and add their own style to it. I guess not. Only one band is allowed to play 8 string guitars with poly-rhythmic grooves. So much for thinking Meshuggah’s fanbase is more intelligent than the average glue-sniffing metalhead

        • Farts

          No. Actually both periphery and tesseract used and or continue to use the drum library created by meshuggah and daniel bergstrand for the drums on their album. In my opinion neither band has ever come close to writing as conscise of songs as meshuggah and their attempts at forging new ground with meshuggahs sound as a basis sounds silly, contrived and uninspired to me.

          Im not saying the bands arent talented, but neither have written a song i hold remotely close to anything meshuggah has done. The band is so incredibly innovative and these bands are just too close for comfort to me and dont do it well enough for me to wanna listen to it.

          As far as animals as leaders, i just dont care for the music. I think tosin would be much better off in a dream theater cover band. Which i still wouldnt listen too.

          Glad i could piss you all off. Meshuggah absolutely kills these guys and with the expception of animals as leaders, neither band would exist without them.

          • jamie

            omg meshugggaaaahh

            i waaant yoooouuu

            no bands would ever write music aagggiaaaain withoout youuu

            ohh babbbyy computerized drummmssss oh yeahh

          • Jon

            Meshuggah are old, these other bands are young. They will evolve.

            Get a grip.

  • Mordecai 9000

    Fuck djent.

    It’s called technical death metal last time I checked.

    • Nick

      I would say that this is a subgenre of tech death.

    • DemonicLemming

      This. Seems like making up new genre names for pre-existing shit is getting to be more popular than actually listening to the music included in said genres.

    • Bicro

      co-signed.

    • goingdeaf?

      I don’t see how this could be called technical death metal. Periphery? death metal? That’s just silly. Do people even consider Meshuggah death metal? First I’ve heard of it.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ben-Robson/1375985482 Ben Robson

      there are too many subgenres. Do we really need to have monikers to distinguish between different kinds of death metal? Whatever happened to appreciating bands for their own styles irrespective of genre name? Nobody ever called Soundgarden psychedelic alternative grunge metal.

      Music isn’t zoology. Not everything needs to be classified down to the sonically microscopic metal.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ben-Robson/1375985482 Ben Robson

        erm, microscopic level. i guess i have metal on the brain?

    • Pete Elliott

      But Onomatopoeia Metal is the new big thing!

      BTW Sunn O))) are pioneers in the “MROWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN” Metal Subgenre

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Austin-Pearl-Nutter/1418565949 Austin Pearl Nutter

        But djent is too simple and original and too established. It should be technical post-death atmospheric groove metal. Or TPDAGM for short. Pronounced Tip-Dagem.

    • BabiesKillYou

      You guys are all wrong! It’s all nu-metal!

      • ittoa666

        Because Limp Bizkit utilized polyrythmics and odd time signatures, combined with very GOOD musicianship, right? Your logic fails.

        • treghet

          Yes, yes they did.

        • Scrambles

          Trolled hard.

          • BabiesKillYou

            Your scathing sarcasm logic fails. I was more pointing out the fact that the whole “djent” thing is seriously just a genre trend that a lot of bands are being generalized and grouped into needlessly. You know, the same kind of thing where people were grouping all sorts or different sounding bands into “Nu-Metal” when it really didn’t describe shit about the bands (well, other than they generally sucked).

    • shep

      The sub-genres give more information about what a band sounds like without any extra effort to read or write (once the name is established), so why not use them?

      I imagine most people reading this site know what djent means so to just call it technical death metal would be pointless (and possibly inaccurate, many of those bands are not death metal).

      • DemonicLemming

        Because, honestly, you could drop each band in its own specialised genre, if you wanted. Sure, Within Temptation and Nightwish are both technically symphonic power metal, but Nightwish is much more operatic, while Within Temptation is much more gothic-rock driven. Should we have “operatic symphonic power metal” and “gothic rock symphonic power metal” just to differentiate between the two bands? No.

        Simple reasoning, too – once you break a full genre down into various sub-genres, further characterization becomes pointless. Someone who likes symphonic power metal is probably going to like most of the other bands tagged in that genre (same with melodic death metal, prog death, etc). It becomes a pointless exercise to break things into sub-sub genres, because there’s no use for it. Likewise, if you leave everything in monolithic chunks (and I’ll play the power metal aspect here – Nightwish and Kamelot are both power metal, but much different, and chances of a person who likes one not liking the other are much higher at this characterization level), bands are dropped into too broad a pool for the average listener to deal with.

    • Monochromic Sound

      You guys are all retarded, particularly you Mordecai. Do you even listen to ANY of these band mentioned? Animals as Leaders or Periphery are in the same exact subgenre as Necrophagist or Cryptopsy? Like I’m not saying we should exactly categorize everything, but if you think those bands sound pretty much the same, you obviously don’t listen to any of them, or any metal for that matter. I mean, Cynic is much closer to the two latter bands, but still…

      If anything, they should be categorized in the prog metal genre. But if you’re gonna lump all these guys in with either Necrophagist or bands like Dream Theater, then why the fuck not create a new genre and lump all these bands with each other under djent? Makes a lot more sense to me…

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ben-Robson/1375985482 Ben Robson

        Weezer sound nothing like The Foo Fighters, but they’re both considered alternative rock. Why does every subtle stylistic variation entail is own subgenre?

    • http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/ Alkahest

      Periphery, Animals as Leaders, and Tesseract are nowhere remotely close to tech death.

      • Scourge441

        Djent has close to nothing in common with death metal in general. They use distorted guitars, drums, bass, and harsh vocals… and that’s about where the similarities end.

        I mean, yeah, Cynic probably contributed a lot to this genre (almost as much as Meshuggah, I’d say), but I’d hardly call Focus a death metal album.

        Oh, and it’s no wonder why Cloudkicker are more popular than Born of Osiris. It’s because Cloudkicker are good and Born of Osiris blow.

      • Bicro

        That’s cool.
        They don’t have to have an asinine word as a sub-sub-genre for the purpose of edifying the blogger demographic.

  • calebzia

    gojira is djent now?
    mnemic?
    ::puzzled::

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Taylor-James-Hamilton/1178820034 Taylor James Hamilton

      And of course, several NON-DJENT bands are included too, such as Strapipng Young Lad, The Ocean, Mnemic, Gojira, The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza, and others.

      • Bastard

        What the fuck are fucking Scarve doing on there? Fuck this.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Juan-Jimenez/1313838369 Juan Jimenez

      Sons of the System is definitely djent.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mikey-Ck-Vandertiptiddleleederp/502827008 Mikey Ck Vandertiptiddleleederp

    lol karen made it on!

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Christian-Varg-Voltaggio/1409575074 Christian Varg Voltaggio

      hes the man

  • chainchomp

    that big four would be fuckin’ amazing and someone somewhere with the capabilities should make it happen.

  • Random

    this is more of a people who like djent like these bands type list. Scale the Summit is a lot of things, but it is not djent.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Taylor-James-Hamilton/1178820034 Taylor James Hamilton

      Yeah, he said that at the end of the article.

      And of course, several non-djent bands are included too, such as Strapipng Young Lad, The Ocean, Mnemic, Gojira, The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza, and others.

  • http://www.myspace.com/barbelzoa Lordassenfroth

    FUCKING BARF. sucks meshuggah has to be lumped in with all the other crap.

    • KC

      How can you be mad that Meshuggah are lumped in there when they are clearly the band that influenced those other bands more than any other almost?

      Also, furthermore, how can you like Meshuggah and not like most of the bands listed? Nostalgia aside because Meshuggah were definitely ahead of their time, the similarities in style alone should logically lead you to liking the bands listed for the most part. It just seems odd that you can like one band in a genre, but dislike the rest of it.

  • The Curmudgeon

    Not a fan of the Djent name. I don’t mind there being a new genre but atleast make up a better name.

  • NoNameNoSlogan

    the term “djent” is for cunts

    • Bicro

      Co-signed hard.

    • timmah

      +1 billion

    • Mordecai 9000

      That was what I meant basically.

  • ittoa666

    Good genre. I like it. It gives a good alternative to all of the deathcore clone bands these days while still having it’s roots in what I know.

    Also, how many times have the main practitioners of this style said that “djent” is just a description and not a genre title? I see that a lot.

    • OBEY1019

      I like a couple bands from both genres…but it seems djent is becoming the new deathcore.

      • AetherJake

        Thats fine with me. It least it’s actually good.

  • Biff Tannen

    Buncha gas ass fucking bands, of course.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Austin-Ramsey/505845463 Austin Ramsey

    THE SAFETY FIRE ARE ON THERE! HOO RAY!

  • datrick

    DJENT > Haters

    who gives a fuck what its called. personally, i love the term. preferences aside, the term is obviously gaining popularity, so you might as well get used to it… penis crinkles.

  • Matthew Grant Anson

    Cloudkicker. That is all.

    • datrick

      1

  • Kuranes

    “[A] very specific subset of music fans — namely super-nerdy Internet dorks that are mostly musicians themselves and gravitate towards a certain sound — so this map shouldn’t be taken as a definitive measure of overall band popularity.”

    Except that only super-nerdy Internet dorks are aware of or like these bands. I think it’s a pretty representative sample.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jose-Daniel-Garcia/1346020687 Jose Daniel Garcia

    It would be pretty cool to see a few of these made for different subgenres like doom, thrash, black, or death. Some one should get on that!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Anthony-P-Stine/1314021455 Anthony P Stine

    I fucking hate the name “djent.” It’s why it won’t gain real traction as a sub genre of metal — not because of the quality of music, but because whenever you say “djent” when anyone with functional social skills and brain cells is present, they burst out laughing.

    • AetherJake

      I mean, I bust out laughing whenever anyone talks about deathcore, and that didn’t stop it from becoming successful.

      I’m pretty sure there are only so many combinations of “death/metal/core/groove/black/grind” that you can use before you need to bring another word into the mix.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Anthony-P-Stine/1314021455 Anthony P Stine

        Yeah, but ‘djent’ isn’t even a word. I also hate the ‘lets add CORE to everything’ shit too thing that’s been going on for 10 years or more.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Christoph-Fin/1567502385 Christoph Fin

    I hate any style of metal that doesn’t fit into the genres that have already been established. Another NEW genre of music is being created? Fuck that I want to listen to only old metal. Tesseract and Periphery both sound EXACTLY like Meshuggah anyway (or technical death metal) and anyone who is a true metal fan can see that.

    • ZackP

      +1 for the awesome Sargent D impression

    • HARRYDICKERSON

      TROLL DETECTED

  • nigbot

    I think Meshuggahclone or chugcore is better then djent. fuck these bands.
    I can only really respect meshuggah tbh

  • fuck you all

    i can respect all of these bands, because I’m not an asshole….

    • nigbot

      I’ll take that.
      But really, most of these bands are just ripping off (and badly..) an already established sounds. Maybe if they made an interesting twist on the sound (like most other genres) I could stomach these bands.
      Until then…no

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Christoph-Fin/1567502385 Christoph Fin

        This is such a common perception of djent-haters and I dont really understand it. What “established sounds” are they ripping off? The “Meshuggah” sound of course is the answer, but all they really take is the use of 8 string guitars (is Meshuggah the only band permitted to use distorted 8 stringed guitars?), and poly-rhythmic riffs based on a 4/4 structure. Not a single riff is taken note for note and, in fact, there is much more, musically, to a band like Periphery or Tesseract than to Meshuggah. I guess Venom is the first band to write tremolo black metal riffs with a treble-heavy tone so the rest of the BM bands are just Venom clones by that logic

        You can argue the “djent” tone isnt very dynamic, but the good djent bands utilize the rest of the instruments to give the songs more dynamics. Listen to Tesseract’s Concealing Fate and try to tell me it sounds just like Meshuggah or has no dynamic. Im pretty sure they have the interesting twist you speak of.
        /rant

      • yes, exactly

        Listen to Animals As Leaders and come back and talk to us about ripping off established sounds

      • HARRYDICKERSON

        What’s the deal with all of these people that hate this entire genre, but love Meshuggah?
        You people act as if the only band allowed to have this certain sound is Meshuggah and that’s all. Newsflash, music wouldn’t progress if bands didn’t copy other bands’ style and tweak it. Personally, I’m excited about the popularity of this style and I can’t wait to see what else this genre brings.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Yevgeniy-Reznichenko/1053344492 Yevgeniy Reznichenko

    I care about this almost as much as I would care about a big 4 of Deathcore,

  • stacked pandas

    “insert descriptive”- Metal, “insert descriptive”- Core

    Yawn

    • Bicro

      Klingon word sub-subgenre

      yawn

  • Max

    I honestly don’t understand what “djent” is. Is it just music with the goofy guitar tone? I like several of the bands I see on this, but I have a hard time seeing what distinguishes some as djent. I like Meshuggah, Animals as Leaders, and Gojira. But I wouldn’t be able to pick out any similarities between Meshuggah and Animals as Leaders so striking that they require a new genre, and by the same token I don’t see anything that would put those two bands in a category specifically separated from Gojira. They all share elements that are typical of the greater progressive/technical metal style, but each also draws influences from other sources. I’m not totally denying the term “djent” of any credibility, and I’m definitely not trying to understate the accomplishments of any of these bands. I just need someone who knows what he is talking about to explain all this.

    • Bicro

      It’s mostly an awful non-word made for the purpose of edifying the internet crowd so they can claim they brought it into existence when it gets into mainstream continuity.

      • DemonicLemming

        I called djent djent before Al Gore created the internet.

        /”hipster kitty” meme picture

        • stacked pandas

          Dave Mustaine says he invented Djent and wrote most of the riffs on their second and third albums.

    • Rik

      “Djent” actually IS that “goofy guitar tone”. It’s just that some people have decided that it is somehow a genre of music now.

  • bitchass

    i think after the burial should be removed from this list after in dreams

  • http://got-djent.com benanne

    Holy shit, thanks for posting this guys :D

    Just one remark: got-djent.com isn’t really based in any one country. Our moderation team is spread out over the globe, although most of them are European. I’m from Belgium myself. The site is hosted in Texas, though.

    • http://got-djent.com benanne

      Oh, and as for some bands on this map not being djent – I just scraped this from our database. Early on in the site’s lifetime, we weren’t as stringent in checking whether a band really belongs on our site or not, which is why the bands you named show up on this map. These days we always have a listen before publishing new submissions.

      II would definitely call Danza’s latest album djent though, and that perfectly demonstrates the problem we’re facing: djent is very ill-defined, and everyone has a different take on it. We are basically having to decide whether a band should be considered djent or not, and we figured that the best policy would be the liberal approach, in order to piss off the least amount of people. Though glancing over these comments, I’m not sure if that worked out the way it was supposed to.

      Anyway, haters gonna hate… djent is here to stay, deal with it :)

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Derek-Baumer/1520671260 Derek Baumer

        So you are saying you guys are the gods of djent and you get to pick and chose which bands make the djent list or not. Your fascism amuses me. Thanks for inventing a genre that you get to pick who qualifies for it.

        • rage

          Holy fuck you cannot read.

  • Tommy

    “Djent” is a riff.
    This music is just called Metal/Progressive Metal.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Anthony-P-Stine/1314021455 Anthony P Stine

      That’s probably the best descriptor yet. The genre purists would want to differentiate the differences between the bands and other, more well known prog acts.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sam-Arundell/580195009 Sam Arundell

    HEART OF A COWARD!!

    Such a good band. Awesome dudes as well.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brad-Whiteside/857390297 Brad Whiteside

    Why the fuck isn’t Sikth one of the “Big Four”? These bands are ripping off them even more than they rip off Meshuggah!

    Can’t wait for Djent and their computer programmed drums and shitty songwriting to fade away. A 2009-2010 trend that will die, much like the anticipation for Periphery’s disappointing debut album.

    Animals As Leaders is here to stay, however. That band is sick!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tre-C-Watson/506737562 Tre C. Watson

    cloudkicker deserves some love, glad to see him getting some

    i was just surprised i made the list.

  • Tyrant Of Death

    Humans, throughout out all of our time and history have a notion to categorize things, and put everything in proper order. Segregate, and file information. We dislike chaos and disorder. It makes us feel better. Maybe its just in our genes, i don’t know.

    One things for certain, i think metal would be more interesting without cutting it into pieces. Metal is chaos and disorder, and that’s the way it should be.

    T.O.D

  • CrestalMyth

    Someone explain what SYL are doing in there.