Cythraul
Active Member
- Dec 10, 2003
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Coherence and Parts
- Thread starter My Man Mahmoud
- Start date
DarkBliss
...And okra for all
Seeing you use the word cool in this context is akin to hearing a monk, who's taken the oath of silence blurt yo mama, upon catching glimpse of a woman's exposed breast. I thought most of your kind frown upon such generic colloquialisms and aspire to higher ideals.
I guess, you're one of the younger/lesser saplings of ProzaOak, then?
And I thought elitists should be united in their worship of the bands that "truly matter" This doesn't appear to be the case, though. Half of your camp sees bands like The Chasm and Nokturnal Mortum as icons while the other half dismisses them as cheesy and untalented. Where's the truth then? Is there a discernible truth? Should there be?
Or do some of you simply fashion your view of a certain band after an opinion of some highly-esteemed member in your clique?(like Falco)
The biggest hip thing in your circles now is Crimson Massacre-the heirs to Gorguts, right? Why don't you conduct an opinions survey on the Anus boards to see how many of you really "get" what this band is on about.
P.S.I know of course that many of Anus' frequenters are ordinary people with no interest in promoting your agenda, they're just in it for the music.
There was a "Criticism of this Metal Site" thread posted some time ago and it has illustrated this point well. It's good to know that not everybody there is a mindless sheep.
byrne
Certavi et vici
coherence was defined in the first post. the marriage of execution and meaning. if you choose to disagree with it, raise a valid argument as to how that is wrong.
my first post pointed out that defining "meaning" through musical delivery (i.e. execution) was what was actually undefined. once this has been defined, you can then determine what is coherent and what is not.
coherence does not equal good music, correct. but incoherence DOES equal bad music.
holy fuck, did you just repeat what i said like a day after i originally posted it?
you are an idiot. but continue to argue with yourself if it pleases you.
putting "coherence" into practice, the way i see it is, carcassian is completely right. that's how i interpreted the original post in this thread.
Opeths parts are more coherent and focused than majority of metal bands. Opeth have a traditional play your intruments in a similar way with musicians before the 80's.
Some tech death metal like say Cryptopsy for example is not coherent music.
Some tech death metal like say Cryptopsy for example is not coherent music.
DarkBliss
...And okra for all
Wires & Waves
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ohiogrinder
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Armageddon's Child
New Metal Member
Lykathea Aflame and Gorguts offer a great example of the difference between coherent and incoherent music. Obscura's phrases are shaped by their position in a given song's narrative, and they evolve into each other in a way that is essentially seamless. The end result is music that is aesthetically and conceptually coherent.
Lykathea Aflame, on the other hand, doesn't tie individual phrases to the song or to one another. Instead, they have a stylistic formula they essentially apply to every song. A 2-5 second "melodic" riff followed by 2-5 seconds of blasting, rinse, wash, throw in either an 'epic' (often accoustic) interlude or a nice chugging bridge, repeat. It's a meaningless fucking mess, but I guess it impresses the easily amused.
Lykathea Aflame, on the other hand, doesn't tie individual phrases to the song or to one another. Instead, they have a stylistic formula they essentially apply to every song. A 2-5 second "melodic" riff followed by 2-5 seconds of blasting, rinse, wash, throw in either an 'epic' (often accoustic) interlude or a nice chugging bridge, repeat. It's a meaningless fucking mess, but I guess it impresses the easily amused.
MasterOLightning
Optimator
@Armageddon's Child:
I wonder if you've heard either album actually. You have no idea what you're talking about.
I wonder if you've heard either album actually. You have no idea what you're talking about.
DarkBliss
...And okra for all
Mate, you have RANDOM progressive metal from Finland on your best ever list Give it a rest already. And you still haven't replied to my post.
Armageddon's Child
New Metal Member
I think it's clear at this point that you're a deluded fanboy. And yes, I've heard both albums (listening to Gorguts right now, as a matter of fact).
Armageddon's Child
New Metal Member
One can only assume you mean Demilich, whose music isn't even remotely random. Lots of different riffs, sure, but each riff presages the next in way that is entirely logical if you approach the songs holistically.
DarkBliss
...And okra for all
What you wrote is absolutely meaningless. I could use the same template and say:
One can only assume you mean Lykathea Aflame, whose music isn't even remotely random. Lots of different riffs, sure, but each riff presages the next in way that is entirely logical if you approach the songs holistically.
There, I proved jackshit
Armageddon's Child
New Metal Member
Except that there's clearly no relationship (musically or conceptually) between one riff and the next in Lykathea Aflame - it is a formula applied indiscriminately to every song.
DarkBliss
...And okra for all
Prozak is such an erratic piece of shit writer. Ah, but this is hardly surprising. What is surprising is that he has so many zealous fans who flock to defend his point of view at the twitch of a string in their backs. Master of Puppets indeed. Of course it's easy for him to control his audience since most it is probably comprised of rebellious teens. Are you one of the marionettes answering in his stead, by chance? Or is that one of your many trollicious guises, Sir Prozak?
Moving on:
So it basically comes down to this: Demilich is coherent because [insert some
vague oblique statement here]
Lykathea Aflame is incoherent because [insert some vague oblique statement here]
Tell me then how does the blastfest known as The Luster of Pandemonium fare in terms of coherence? For instance, the song Epoch with the clearly sung part in that just screams: "we just had to insert it there because it sounds so cool but serves no real purpose"
Armageddon's Child
New Metal Member
If you can't tell the difference between a band that uses a series of similar riffs flowing one into the other to develop a narrative and one that has developed a formula (melodyBLASTmelodyBLASTmelodyBLASTbridgemelodyBlast) that they apply to every single song regardless of concept or context, I really can't help you.
DarkBliss
...And okra for all
Armageddon's Child
New Metal Member
What about it? You bitch about personalities and ignore the substantive elements of the discussion.
DarkBliss
...And okra for all
I mean what's the status and your personal view of those controversial bands like The Chasm, embraced by some of you but ignored by the rest. If the Chasm's music is art why is it that so many fail to grasp it? I forgot to add: if it isn't art then why is there so much fuss about this band ,and finally if it's completely arbitrary as to what band's output should be considered art then what's wrong with calling your favorite albums-woks of art? Isn't that why we call artists -artists?
Eventually this whole argument of incoherent vs. coherent music is void since it boils down to how the music comes across to the ears of the behearer.
In conclusion, Demilich's music is coherent because Prozak likes them
Lykathea Aflame's music is incoherent because he doesn't like them
You could've phrased it like this All that word wizardry, you displayed was quite redundant
As a sidenote, I must say that I'm quite fond of the majority of bands that the Dark Legions Archive promotes. What bugs me is the idiotic attitude that many fans of that site adopt. Why is it that they can't simply enjoy the music without being pretentious, patronizing gits toward fans of "inferior" bands?
Eventually this whole argument of incoherent vs. coherent music is void since it boils down to how the music comes across to the ears of the behearer.
In conclusion, Demilich's music is coherent because Prozak likes them
Lykathea Aflame's music is incoherent because he doesn't like them
You could've phrased it like this All that word wizardry, you displayed was quite redundant
As a sidenote, I must say that I'm quite fond of the majority of bands that the Dark Legions Archive promotes. What bugs me is the idiotic attitude that many fans of that site adopt. Why is it that they can't simply enjoy the music without being pretentious, patronizing gits toward fans of "inferior" bands?
This is beautiful writing but does not contain one actual reference to music.
Gorguts and Demilich actually do pretty well with development. Demilich especially, they tend to actually develop riffs melodically and rhythmically occaisionally instead of just scrapping them and moving on. Dave Mustaine was a master at this, listen to Holy Wars, or Black Friday... Anyway I can't fault either of these bands with what you guys have termed "coherence", but that doesn't make them beyond criticism. Both are HIGHLY stylized forms of death metal, and for most listeners who aren't huge fans of the style the lack of dynamics makes it very difficult to sit through an entire album. How many times can demilich rewrite the same breakdown riff? How far can they go with a vocalist with no dynamic range? How many riffs can you write with the same few tonal ideas? Same with Gorguts, awesome ideas on that album, but it frequently boils down to that same idea/chord pattern being expressed over and over and over again. Their grip on harmony is shaky at best so all the whole moving diminished/augmented sounding chords up and down in parallel motion just gets tiring after awhile, especially when there's very little changes in dynamics or texture (other than what.. a violin solo?) Look both Obscura are Nespithe are great albums for people into that style, but surely not without their warts.
Yes, Opeth has some songwriting deficiencies. Compare Damnation to any band it was trying to emulate and Opeth comes up really short. But when they get cooking, Opeth have great use of dynamics to keep a listener engaged throughout the album, even if the parts don't always blend together perfectly. Plenty of rhythmic variance, lots of nice different harmonic ideas, very good understanding of vocal lines and harmonies for a metal band. They're not _that_ incoherent. Opeth will usually modulate keys using the appropriate harmonic framework, and time sig changes are usually somehow related.
Someone mentioned Burzum as coherent? Well... it's not hard to be coherent when you fucking stretch one horribly voiced chord progression out over a 15 minute song. Moving on...
Atheist, yes, that was in fact a very fucking well put together band... The new Emperor? I mean it was completely over the top, but musically (harmonically, rhythmically, melodically) most of the parts had some reason for being where they were, in fact I remember ihsahn actually surprised me for an extreme metal musician with how generally accurate the harmony in his transitions were. I mean they were probably stolen from early classical composers, but still...
Look, if you need your musical parts developed properly, grab a megadeth, gorguts or demilich disc, if you need dynamics grab some opeth, or new emperor, and if you want to hear what None So Vile would sound like played by an all-homosexual cryptopsy cover band, then grab that Lykathea Aflame disc.
Before you become a snob about your music, go learn some theory and music history. Then come back and torment the crew here all you like, maybe I'll even join in. Until then the phrases of your narrative are just not evolving into something that is aesthetically coherent... man!
D.
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