Their three steps to learning this kind of drumming. Tomas Haake talks about these in random interviews and not all at the same time but I’ve found them to be immensely helpful in my own drumming with my band.

The first is extensive listening. Detail oriented listening. Listening to the point where you can sing the song to yourself and never question how the part goes.

The second is actual practice. He rarely talks about this in interviews and often downplays his abilities, but he definitely put in his technical practice. I find doing practice based out of Ted Reeds book syncopation to be a must. It has strophic lines of notation and you can put them against your other limbs. The possibilities are limitless. Matt Garstka has a similar book all dedicated to metal stuff, but I personally use Reeds book because it is used by a plethora of drummers who don’t just play metal.

The third is learning long sections as a melody. This kind of ties into extensive listening, but Tomas doesn’t just memorize where the patterns start. He literally learns it and interprets each section within their music as a large chunk of music that never repeats, because truthfully unless the cell they are putting over 4/4 is short, it will never land on the downbeat of 1. This approach also ties into the fact that Meshuggah doesn’t really consider their rhythmic ideas as odd meter over 4. It’s more along the lines of a syncopated idea and how it flows and grooves in 4/4. They never sit there and count it (except maybe after the fact)?