the snare on each third beat, for 16 bars. At the same time, the guitars and bass are playing same quarter notes, albeit in a different time signature; eventually both sides meet up again at the 64th beat. Hagström notes about the polymeters, "We've never really been into the odd time signatures we get accused of using. Everything we do is based around a 4/4 core. It's just that we arrange parts differently around that center to make it seem like something else is going on." Contradictions Collapse, Destroy Erase Improve and Chaosphere The early work of Meshuggah, influenced mainly by Metallica, is "simpler and more straightforward than their more recent material, but some of their more progressive elements are present in the form of time-changes and polyrhythmics, and Fredrik Thordendal's lead playing stands out". According to AllMusic, their debut album is a relatively immature, but original, release. Double bass drums and "angular" riffing also defined the early work of Meshuggah. With the groundbreaking Destroy Erase Improve, Meshuggah showed fusion of death metal, thrash metal, progressive metal. AllMusic describes the style as "weaving hardcore-style shouts amongst deceptively (and deviously) simple staccato guitar riffs and insanely precise drumming—often with all three components acting in different time signatures". Thordendal adds the melodic element with his typical lead guitar and uses his "breath controller" device most famously on the opening track "Future Breed Machine". Chaosphere incorporates typically fast, still tempo changing death metal. AllMusic compares the genre also with grindcore fathers Napalm Death. Rockdetector states: "Whilst fans reveled in the maze like meanderings, critics struggled to dissect and analyze, hailing Haake's unconventional use of dual 4/4 and 23/16 rhythm, Kidman's mechanical staccato bark and Thordendal's liberal usage of avant-garde jazz". Nothing, I and Catch Thirtythree On Nothing, Meshuggah abandons the fast tempos of Chaosphere and concentrates on slow, tuned down tempos and grooves. The album was intended to be recorded using custom-made Nevborn eight-string guitars, but the prototypes were faulty so Thordendal and Hagström used down tuned Ibanez seven-string guitars instead. This technique caused the instruments to slip out of tune during the sessions, which created additional problems. When Ibanez provided Meshuggah with special eight-string guitars with two extra-low strings that worked properly after the initial release, the band re-recorded the guitar parts for Nothing and re-released it in 2006. Hagström notes that this allowed the band to go lower sonically and to