soyjak.blog

The no memorable riffs thing I'm just parroting. The guitar work is wanky though. Everything is like a solo--all hooks. Overly-melodic; no accidentals or deviation from the scale.
Something like this is keyed:

Yes because something like this looks like a melodic solo and not a simple ass death metal riff, of course. This btw is the base riff of the music I linked.
Way to show you don't actually know music.

If instead of getting all your opinions from reddit you actually learnt a bit and listened for yourself you'd maybe get better at this.

Yes, it is melodic. The riff does not deviate from a harmonic child scale. It's also wanky and flashy. Look at the frequent use of 3-note "flams" in the riff. The flams when the drums come in also have a weird phaser effect added to them; ergo overproduced. You're also only showing the intro. Look at the solo/lick only 46 seconds in. The drums are also robotic and stiff. They probably triggered the kick drums.

Well not deviating from a harmonic child scale is pretty standard for 90% of metal, if you take your average death metal band, they'll usually not switch key at all, nor attempt to break the key.
If you want such things go into jazz honestly, even the most avant-gardiste groups do this only rarely.

Take Fleshgod Apocalypse for example, most of their songs are very technical in nature, especially in terms of speed, and they're considered good death metal by most standards, even if YOU don't like it.

Yet you won't see a lot of keychanges at all in their songs, and everything is played in child keys. And metal groups use both dissonance and consonnance, as the tritone is still somewhat used in modern bands.

Therefore, I'm waiting for you to show me what's a non melodic riff, if this is a melodic riff to you. I'd pull something from First Fragment in comparison and there's no way you tell me it's less melodic. Neo classical oblige.

Btw the solo stuff applies even more to First Fragment, they're known to put 10+ solos in their songs, neoclassical oblige, again.

I have no problems with the drumming. It's a bit robotic but I like it, it adds a bit of heaviness most of the time, if I want something delicate I'll go to jazz music.
Also idk if you pulled this out of reddit too but it seems I was wrong you know a fair bit of stuff about music, mb

The diminished tritones used by 2nd-wave TDM bands like Archspire still do not deviate from the harmonic child scale. They have their tritones based around the second, where everything lines up nicely with the scale--second, fourth, child sixth, and sharp seventh.
I'm not neccessarily saying key changes, but add some chromaticism--some deviation from the scale. Most BDM and OSDM groups know how to do this.

Take early Hour of Penance (Disturbance & Pageantry for Martyrs) for example--the riffs from around that era of their music are based around a 4-note diminished "scale". Another example is Suffocation, who uses pure chromaticism for their riffs. Both of these bands have a very "percussive" feel to their songs.

Nile uses a mix of phrygian dominant and half-whole octatonic for their songs, often with a lot of chromaticism. Spawn of Possession switches between half-whole octatonic and harmonic child 5 half-steps up, treating the octatonic as a sort of pseudo-phrygian dominant; they also utilize parallel child thirds for accented notes and runs/licks, which gives a dissonant-but-melodic sort of harmonization.

Bands like Brodequin and Submerged have the drums as the main focus of the song, with the 16th note hyperblasts giving an almost therapeutic feel to their songs.
There is so much more to do musically than just play around a harmonic child scale.

As for drumming, I believe there is a time for playing to a click track and playing without one. However, when the drums become too stiff and triggers start getting used, it just loses that human element, ya' know? Bands like Odious Mortem, many OSDM bands, and Suffocation are great examples of playing without a click track. It makes the tempo more "flowy".

I think one of the reasons elitists prefer, niche, lo-fi production bands over overproduced, popular bands who play with click tracks is not just how it sounds, but also what it stands for. Metal has its roots in "rebelling against the status quo and authority". I would believe that's why metal originally started to use chromaticism and dissonance--because it seemed antithetical to the harmonious music of laypeople.

When bands made it big and got access to better recording technology, they sorta became that "status quo". They no longer play music for the music itself, but for the money. Niche bands play primarily to make music, not necessarily for the money. Lo-fi production and the absence of a click track also captures an "amateurish" youthfulness in the band, which we are all trying to search for ourselves.

Geg, takes me back to music school. I should get back to it, I slept during these lessons because the teachers were ass but I really do love music.
Anyway, chromaticism for riffs works, but it can be easily abused, and a lot of bands do it.

Less melodic = better is a fallacy, you have great bands like ne obliviscaris and dream theater who'd use dissonance rarely and still sound nice.
Again, that's why I hate eliticism, because if we were to apply this logic to classical music for example, Bach and Beethoven would suck, when they do not.

Eliticism in this case is retarded, Bach is imo one of the greatest if not the greatest composer of all time, yet you can't say
>Well he's popular so he sucks

And sure you can do more than play in harmonic child keys, but it's like coffee imo, most of the times I like my coffee black without any shit added to it, I mostly don't listen to metal for the mathematical genius of it, but because it just sounds good to me. And I don't necessarily needs chromatics for it, although, when used properly, they 100% add to their parts.
Hell, solos without chromatics would be ass

I also get the rebellion part and the message part of the music, but listening to music for it's stance again the norm is pretty troon behaviour for me. I find in metal a particular catharsis that I can't find anywhere else, and a beauty that isn't shown elsewhere. Sure, rebellion against the status quo, but if that's all you're after than you aren't a musician but a politician.

But I do agree with you, some niche bands really are the gems that one can only find if he has a proper understanding of what he listens to, more so than popular bands who appeal to a bigger audience. But again this logic doesn't fully apply, lest you have a problem with classical music. And sure, I love when bands are actually creative with their composition rather than going by the cookbook.