Combustion - A Musical Study

Listen to the song first and notice how a beat of "snare-bass-snare-bass" is implied through assuming the very first note of the song is actually the first note in a 4/4 measure:


Meshuggah - Combustion

Notice the vocal patterns sound a little "off". Now, this only recently popped out at me, but I noticed that the beat is distinctly "bass-snare-bass-snare" throughout the entire song due to the guitar part starting 1/16th note earlier than the drum part, as you can tell through the hi-hat seemingly hitting 1/16th note after where it should be:



Those crashes you hear which seem to signal the beginning of a new measure are actually on the very last 16th note of the 4/4 measure, with the first 16th note on the next measure tying into it (where a bass drum beat would normally be).



The second guitar riff (the one where the drums hit on 2 and 4) actually gives you a hint that this is the true meter of the song.

The guitar part itself is actually written so that it is 4/4 all the way through, but it starts one 16th note earlier than the drum part to give it a weird feel that isn't very easy to pick up on after many listens, but once you get it, it's hard to hear it the way you did before. I noticed this because if it was truly "snare-bass-snare-bass", the cymbal crashes would be on the snare drum hits. They knew many people would hear it the way it is implied through the guitar part, so during the second part of the solo the crashes are on the snare hits, but even then the 4/4 meter remains the same.

Listen to the song again to see if you can pick up on the hidden, musically accurate way of hearing the song. The vocal patterns will sound way cooler, and let you know that you are hearing it right. It definitely takes some getting used to if you are hard-set on hearing it as "snare-bass-snare-bass", but I've been learning how to play this song on guitar so that is the only way I've noticed this. It really helps having a metronome hitting on the correct 4/4 beat, with the very first 16th note in the song omitted. I just think it's cool that if you do start on that first 16th note, you can more easily pick up the feel of the guitar part, since the guitar part is written in straight 4/4 as well, but so is the drum part, the drum part is merely shifted over one 16th note.

You don't need to know all this stuff to enjoy the song though... If you consider that most of the guitar part is pull-offs, it is perfectly acceptable to learn the song the way you initially hear it so that you don't have to upstroke all the pull-off notes! I've tried it, and getting used to the drum meter is pretty tough.