Stylistic origins Progressive metal
metalcore
extreme metal Cultural origins Mid-2000s Europe and Washington, D.C. Typical instruments Electric guitar
bass
drums
percussion
vocals
keyboards
synthesizers | ||
Djent /ˈdʒɛnt/ is a style of progressive metal, named for an onomatopoeia for the distinctive high-gain, distorted, palm-muted, low-pitch guitar sound first employed by Meshuggah and SikTh. Typically, the word is used to refer to music that makes use of this sound, to the sound itself, or to the scene that revolves around it.
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Development
Fredrik Thordendal, the guitarist of Swedish band Meshuggah, is considered the originator of the djent technique. However, the band did not coin the term itself; the djent scene developed from an online community of bedroom musicians, including Misha Mansoor, whose success with Periphery brought djent "from the virtual world into the real one." Other bands important in the development of the style are SikTh, Mnemic, Animals as Leaders, TesseracT, and Textures.
The scene has grown rapidly, and members of the original online community, including the bands Chimp Spanner, Gizmachi, and Monuments, have gone on to tour and release albums commercially. Other bands that are often considered djent include A Life Once Lost, Veil of Maya, Vildhjarta, and Xerath. Born of Osiris have also been described as being inspired by the djent movement. Furthermore, Hacktivist and DVSR are djent bands that use rapping as primary vocal style.
Characteristics
Djent as a style is characterized by progressive, rhythmic, and technical complexity. It typically features heavily distorted, palm-muted guitar chords, syncopated riffs, and polyrhythms alongside virtuoso soloing. Another common feature is the use of extended range seven, eight, nine, and ten-string guitars.
Reception
Some members of the metal community have criticized the term "djent", either treating it as a short-lived fad, openly condemning it, or questioning its validity as a genre. But other bands such as TesseracT and Animals as Leaders have gained positive reviews, such as awards and highly-acclaimed albums. Post-metal band Rosetta is noted as saying, "Maybe we should start calling doom metal 'DUNNN'." In response to a question about 'djent', Lamb of God vocalist Randy Blythe stated, "There is no such thing as 'djent'; it's not a genre." In an interview with Guitar Messenger, Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor said:
I was looking for gear that was djenty. I was like: ‘Are these pickups djenty?’ For some reason it caught on, but completely in the wrong way, because people think it's a style of music and they think it's a style of music I play.
In a later interview with Freethinkers Blog, Misha Mansoor stated that he felt djent had become "this big umbrella term for any sort of progressive band, and also any band that will [use] off-time chugs [...] You also get bands like Scale the Summit [who are referred to as] a djent band [when] 80% of their stuff sounds like clean channel, and it's all beautiful and pretty, you know [...] In that way, I think it's cool because it groups really cool bands together [...] We are surrounded by a lot of bands that I respect, but at the same time, I don't think people know what djent is either [...] It's very unclear." Later in the interview, he stated, "If you call us djent, that's fine. I mean, I would never self-apply the term, but at the same time, it's just so vague that I don't know what to make of it."
Tosin Abasi of Animals as Leaders also takes a more lenient view of the term, stating that there are specific characteristics that are common to "djent" bands, therefore implying legitimate use of the term as a genre. While stating that he personally strives not to subscribe exclusively to any one genre, he makes the point that a genre is defined by the ability to associate common features between different artists. In this way, it is possible to view djent as a genre describing a particular niche of modern, progressive metal.