Repeating Riffs: Laziness or Continuity?

[Carpe Mortem]

Within a single album, do you find rehashed sound to be a unifying or an overused concept?

Personally, I'm fuckin for it. I think there's a lot of great songs out there, but a great album usually has a particular hook throughout every track. Something identifying it as that fucking album.

I anticipate a pretty even split on this question based on what friends say, but definitely curious on your thoughts.

I know most people would wanna say 'it depends', but that's a coward's answer. Choose a majority.

 

[Draehl]

For a specific song? The same base riff but with subtle/not so subtle changes throughout.

Album? Maybe not the WHOLE album, but its nice to see a band revisit the same musical idea 2-3 times throughout.

 

[no country for old wainds]

it depends

 

[HamburgerBoy]

For the most part, laziness. If you're going to write a massive epic with a theme to return to or similar (Fates Warning's A Pleasant Shade of Grey, Edge of Sanity's Crimson, etc), it's probably fine. If the songs don't seem to have any intentional link, simply using mild variations on the same couple riffs over and over comes off as extremely lazy.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

it depends

Indeed. I argue that Beherit's "Engram" is nothing more than the same main riff played at different tempos and with slight variations. At their core, each song is just as fucking dumb as Salomon's Gate or Sadomatic Rites, except the songs on "Engram" are heavily layered.

And especially if bands have their own distinct "sound" it's totally cool if they use similar riffing structures.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

This question came up while discussing Iced Earth, if that clarifies things.

 

[no country for old wainds]

it kind of totally does.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

This question came up while discussing Iced Earth, if that clarifies things.

A thread in which black metal fans reveal themselves to possessing the same standards as Iced Earth fans. I love it.

 

[no country for old wainds]

i'm not convinced 'riff repetition' is high up on the list of reasons why iced earth are shit

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Nah, it is. On their earliest stuff most songs were at least somewhat distinct from the next, but past Burnt Offerings it gets really samey.

 

[Pitiless Wanderer]

I don't really understand the OP. You say, " I think there's a lot of great songs out there, but a great album usually has a particular hook throughout every track. Something identifying it as that fucking album."

A particular riff (assume that's what you mean by "hook") that identifies something, or makes it distinguishable from something else by definition can't be a repetition of something came that before it, can it? I hope that makes sense...it doesn't as I read it again haha.

Anyway, for me it definitely exudes laziness. Song distinction is one of the primary traits of a good album. Each song has a diversity of original, organic riffs. There's more to it than that obviously, but riffs are a major part of it. At least for me.

 

[no country for old wainds]

I hope that makes sense...

it doesn't

 

[Eligos]

ITT old wainds is rockin the one-liners.

I think that some bands use repetition as a crutch, some have mastered it to the point where they can push a riff just a little farther in one direction of the tension-release continuum if needed, and others fail so hard at the concept that their music is unlistenable (Spastic Ink comes to mind).

 

[puggy]

Honestly, repetition is an important part of music. Too many bands go to great lengths to avoid it when it can work really well sometimes.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I can't think of a single great trad or thrash album that gets away with one or two hooks repeated throughout its duration. Maybe tiny portions of riffs, e.g. a number of riffs on Bonded By Blood do that descending-power chord thing at the end of a riff, or you can find certain bands that may rely heavily on galloping (e.g. Iron Maiden), but the difference is that those tiny little bits aren't the hooks themselves.

 

[divine_torture]

And especially if bands have their own distinct "sound" it's totally cool if they use similar riffing structures.

I was thinking this myself. Hypocrisy, Rotting Christ, Slayer, etc... They all have their own riffing style that could be considered repetitive, but definitely marks them with their own distinct sound.

 

[no country for old wainds]

captain beyond s/t is a good example of an album using variations upon one core theme without it getting repetitive. i'm not sure most metal bands have the compositional chops to do it well though.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

captain beyond s/t is a good example of an album using variations upon one core theme without it getting repetitive. i'm not sure most metal bands have the compositional chops to do it well though.

Actually, excellent example.

 

[Eligos]

Grabbed that record from Amoeba in San Fran a couple months ago