Meshuggah and Baroness, which appeared one after the other at Terminal 5 in Clinton on Wednesday night, both toil under the rubric of metal. They share some defining baseline attributes: exorbitant technique, driving propulsion, deft use of scale. Each band has forged a recognizable sonic identity. Both happen to have very good albums out this year. Beyond all that, they seem to reside on different planets.

Their recent alliance — Terminal 5 was the final stop in a roughly monthlong tour — could be construed as the latest reminder of metal’s teeming sprawl, though that argument hardly needs reinforcement by now. (A third band on the tour, the reconstituted Polish death-metal unit Decapitated, would render the point redundant anyway.) A better option might be to home in on the essential differences between Meshuggah and Baroness, in concept as well as execution, and judge the results on their own terms.

Baroness, from Savannah, Ga., has a far looser allegiance to its genre, bordering on strategic disregard. There’s a lot of artful haziness in its style, which nods to the early 1970s, a time before there were many fixed certainties in heavy music.

This show began with “A Horse Called Golgotha,” retrofitted to emphasize an embedded disco beat. It ended with “Isak,” a deliriously polyrhythmic workout, accelerating toward the finish. Those were older tunes, proven vehicles, but one highlight was a newer one: the turbocharged “Take My Bones Away,” from “Yellow & Green,” the band’s third full-length album, due out on Relapse in July.