Metal Reviews

Why the fuck does it seem every semi-mainstream band feels like songs need generic melodic choruses as championed by Crapswitch Engage?

Fuck it pisses me off. People ruin perfectly good metal songs with mindless choruses that all sound the same.

It's hard to find melodic DM that does not do this.

Look at Scar Symmetry - ok melo death ruined by generic clean vocals on just about every song.


And it's softer and gayer than any fucking glam band from the 1980s.

I don't mind soft vox when done well and/or interestingly - e.g. Matt Barlow or Dan Swano or Mikael Stanne or bloody Axl Rose. But I can't stand the pitch shifted pop vox that plagues modern metal.

Metal bands need to get back to playing aggressive metal.

Just cause they've got a bit of commercial succes doesn't mean they shouldn't adhere to the lowest denominator.

the metal scene has never been as extreme as it is nowadays.

case closed.

Listen to some black or death metal instead of metalcore brah. Case double closed.

Metal bands should get back to actually learning how to play music if they are repeating themselves. I have it figured out as a matter of fact. There are 12 pitches that produce 36 sounds depending on the context and relationship to the other notes in the series to which they are played.

Not understanding the fundamental atonal tonality to all music is the genesis of repetition, banality and inexpressive and ultimately useless music. The key to unlock this is emotion.

I actually firmly believe that Rush discovered this fairly early and wrote 2112 as a nod and a wink to the others that figured it out themselves. Also see the "Hold Your fire" album.

A band writing generic mindless choruses is simply an admission of their own inability to communicate with an instrument as a direct transmission of emotion to an audience. And of course the lowest common denominator, as alluded to in the OP are those who really have experienced the more complex emotions of music in their most obvious forms, such as the classic strict adherence to "A minor" as being "Sad" or the transposition to E minor as being "carefree," "mysterious," "ambiguous," or otherwise "meandering" or open to vast interpretation.

It's a thing and just like any other thing it can be done poorly or really well.

Your wisdom is incommensurable my Lord.

Amen.

Still at it hey?

lol...I got up to "I figured it out as a matter of fact" and I thought "here we go....."

Actually, figuring that out pretty much killed any wont to learn any more music theory at all.

It's pretty simple, play a scale until you know what kind of feeling and flavor of emotional power it has, then play ow you feel. Easy, no?

I'll tell you a couple facts that make it real easy:

There are twelve notes that are all equal in measure

There is no reason other than the way they sound for notes to be labelled as flat, sharp or neutral.

Every single note (pitch) can sound natural, diminished (flat) or augmented (sharp) depending on the perception of the notes before and after it.

To paraphrase Lost Horizon

"Only with ears of pure heart, maybe one day you can hear me"

If anyone here plays, try swapping out A's and B's for A#'s and see what happens (assuming E is the root). Most of the time the swap will not be audible but will change the feeling of the note. This is called "soul" and every singer that has it does it naturally. You'll soon start to find you can do this trick with every single note and you'll be able to play melodies that use 4-5 pitches but sound like 12-16 different notes...

I firmly believe the above is a well guarded secret among a lot of musicians and those who have it figured out can write unlimited amounts of songs and untold of amounts of original melodies, that is what I was referring to in my post above.

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