Djent

Djent is a style of progressive metal built around a tight, choppy, palm-muted guitar sound played on low-tuned guitars in complex rhythms.

The word imitates the sound of that guitar tone. Players use seven- and eight-string guitars, stop-start riffs and overlapping rhythms. The sound comes from the Swedish band Meshuggah, and it became a scene of its own in the mid-2000s, when guitarists who admired them traded tips and home recordings on online forums. Some musicians say it is a guitar sound and not a genre.

Artists it is known for: Meshuggah, Periphery, Tesseract, Animals as Leaders.

Family: Metal
On Spotify: A current genre
What it is: A genre
From: Sweden (Meshuggah); online scene, mid-2000s
Trackify listeners who play it: 3%

About 2,400 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have djent among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.

Djent artists

The djent artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.

Sources

The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.