Metal Reviews

I think the perfect length for a song is 5 minutes and 30 seconds, generally speaking. Although...

Sometimes I am in the mood for a 3 minute power house like Dethklok's Thunderhorse. Other times I am too lazy to select another song, and I just jam out to a 10 minute song like Led Zepplin's Achille's Last Stand.

Tell me what you think of different track lengths!

I generally like long songs... anything 8 minutes or more

What noodles said. Long songs make me happy. Though generally anything over 6-7 minutes is long by my count.

I usually prefer my songs concise and to-the-point; anything from 3 to 5 minutes usually fits that bill. Occasionally I'll get into the mood for a 10 minute monster, but there are few bands that could create consistently long songs and keep me engaged the entire time (like...I dunno, Opeth )

I'm game with any 5 minute-ers. I like long songs as well, as long as it's not too repetitive and have a proper progression to it. Maiden's AMOLAD was just perfect. I enjoy lengthy ones like Opeth's as well. The guitar riffs are pretty repetitive, but the drummer and the bassist keeps changing theirs beats halfway through the repeated riff, creating a different mood to the riff. I enjoy stuff like that.

Depends on the genre. If it's prog or doom metal, I prefer ten to fifteen minute songs. If it's black or death metal, I prefer three to five minute songs. And so on.

depends on the song!!!


wow!!

Depends on a bunch of different things really. I think a longer song of 9+ minutes is alot harder to write. Ive heard long songs that would have worked better being shorter, at their current length they come off as boring and unlistenable. However when done right (Blind Guardian - And Then There Was Silence, Avantasia - The Seven Angels, Rush - Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres, Savatage - Morphine Child, Virgin Steele - Veni, Vidi, Vici) longer songs can be truely epic and exciting.

I guess I'm basically saying that if you have the ideas and material for a long track, then go for it. Some bands however need to cut it down.

I agree with SilentMan. Some bands don't really have what it takes to come up with something that is long and sounds good. Many end up just filling the time frames in with messy riffs (most probably done impromptu at the studio) or just recycling older ones which makes the song boring.

By the way, let me add Maiden's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' in your list. Been listening to it a few times a day these past 2 weeks.

The perfect song lenght is the one that suits better the song. It depends of the pace, the structure... Each song is a world.

Agree with Husker and Ganesha, it really depends. Obviously I tend to listen to tracks that are <10 minutes long more often, hardly ever get to play any Sunn O))) these days.

That depends on the song. Dopesmoker couldn't have been a minute shorter.

around four minutes.

I thought you were into grind? 32 seconds should be enough..

Usually 3-5 minutes, like emperor said rare song keep me going over 5 minutes, it even sometimes becomes irritating (when song is too long) but it pisses me off what happens on live shows, like big band comes and plays one of their most famous songs and then just before the solo or some good parts they stop! aaargh!

HeHe more into brutal stuff. But my perfect grind song lenght is around 1.30.

This is such a loaded question. I like songs from 3 munutes to 20 minutes. It depends on if there are enough ideas to support the length of the song. That is about it really.

Just like Blind Guardian in their live DVD. They played 'And Then There was Silence'. They played a good 10 minutes of the song and stopped. I liked the ending to that song, which they didn't play. But I was more than pleased that they played the folkish-dance-along tune

I prefer them to be 4 - 5 and a half minutes long. Of course there are songs that are long and still great. Two songs that spring to mind are Iron Maiden's Rime Of The Ancient Mariner and Shadow Gallery's First Light which is over 34 mins, but fantastic. There are shorter songs like Slayer's Dittohead that blow you away.

A good song is as long as it has to be. The most versatile length without being too long or short is probably around five minutes, if you ask me.