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General => General Music Discussion => Topic started by: WildRanger on February 22, 2019, 02:03:43 PM

Title: Best metal riffs?
Post by: WildRanger on February 22, 2019, 02:03:43 PM
Name some metal riffs which move you most?

My examples:
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Black Sabbath - Into the Void
Megadeth - Peace Sells
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Mastodon - Blood and Thunder
Kyuss - Green Machine
Electric Wizard - Return Trip
Sepultura - Arise

Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: The Walrus on February 22, 2019, 02:15:31 PM
You know, this band is super far down on my list of 'favorite bands' - in fact I don't even think they'd be among my favorites at all - but every time I think of this question, in the end my favorite pick always goes to the main riff in Symphony X's Iconoclast. Seriously. There are a ton of awesome riffs out there that I love, especially among my favorite bands, but that one is the king of kings.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Elite on February 22, 2019, 02:15:45 PM
Meshuggah - Bleed
the ending of Graves by Caligula’s Horse
the ending of Deliverance by Opeth

and more I guess
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Crow on February 22, 2019, 02:19:39 PM
one direction - what makes you beautiful  :metal :metal :metal
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Dave_Manchester on February 22, 2019, 02:25:05 PM
Cemetery Gates - Pantera
Diary of a Madman - Ozzy Osbourne (at around the 4:10 mark, after the mellow section).
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Adami on February 22, 2019, 03:19:26 PM
Metallica.

Pick a song, it's all good.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Crow on February 22, 2019, 03:23:04 PM
Metallica.

Pick a song, it's all good.
Fran tick tick tick tick tick tick tock
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Adami on February 22, 2019, 03:27:27 PM
Metallica.

Pick a song, it's all good.
Fran tick tick tick tick tick tick tock

Bad song, cool riff.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: pg1067 on February 22, 2019, 03:37:13 PM
I started compiling a list and it was taking way too long, so I'll just pick one:

Fates Warning - APSOG XI - the part that's in 4/4, 4/4, 5/8 (which is also the basis for the acoustic guitar and keyboard part in APSOG VIII)
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: MirrorMask on February 22, 2019, 03:54:59 PM
Breaking the Law and Iron Man should have already been mentioned  :hat
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Dave_Manchester on February 22, 2019, 03:57:25 PM
If we're going down the British Steel route then The Rage gets my vote for best riff on the album.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: pg1067 on February 22, 2019, 04:44:46 PM
Grim Reaper - All Hell Let Loose
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Ninjabait on February 22, 2019, 05:41:03 PM
Gojira - L'enfant sauvage
Gojira - Silvera
Gojira - Toxic Garbage Island
Gojira - Flying Whales
Gojira - Backbone
Gojira - Heaviest Matter in the Universe
Meshuggah - Demiurge
Meshuggah - Combustion
Meshuggah - The Demon's Name is Surveillance
Dream Theater - Illumination Theory (band re-entrance)
Dream Theater - S2N (outro)
Epica - The Essence of Silence (bridge riff)
Diablo Swing Orchestra - Lucy Fears the Morning Star (tango outro riff)
Diablo Swing Orchestra - Stratosphere Serenade (main cello riff)
Diablo Swing Orchestra - Voodoo Mon Amour (breakdown riff)
Pocupine Tree - Anesthetize (blast beat breakdown riff)
Tesseract - Deception (bridge riff)
Creed - Bullets
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Nightwish - Song of Myself (A-section choir outro riff)
Mastodon - The Last Baron (middle section harmonics riff)
Haken - The Endless Knot (metalstep part)
Ne Obliviscaris - And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope
Blind Guardian - Wheel of Time (the one about 3:20 in)

I could probably keep going forever.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Big Hath on February 22, 2019, 06:29:02 PM
Book of Thel
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Stadler on February 22, 2019, 09:04:29 PM
Supernaut (Black Sabbath)
Woman From Tokyo (Purple)
Burn (Purple)
Makin' Love (Kiss)
Crazy Train (Ozzy)
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: dparrott on February 23, 2019, 01:11:17 AM
The main and verse riffs for DT's Home.  So simple yet so bad ass
PT  FOABP intro riff
Living Colour - Cult Of Personality main riff
Lots of Metallica riffs
Megadeth - Angry Again main riff
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Elite on February 23, 2019, 01:38:30 AM
Breaking the Law and Iron Man should have already been mentioned  :hat

Breaking the Law is a stupidly simple and boring song and the main riff is nothing special.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: DTA on February 23, 2019, 05:05:30 AM
Metallica Blackened main riff.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Dream Team on February 23, 2019, 06:37:10 AM
Breaking the Law and Iron Man should have already been mentioned  :hat

Breaking the Law is a stupidly simple and boring song and the main riff is nothing special.

Correct. There are a million other Priest riffs I would list above that one. The breakdown riff in Nightcrawler for example  :metal

As far as this topic goes, way too many to list.

Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: TAC on February 23, 2019, 07:23:56 AM
Black Sabbath - Into the Void

Living Colour - Cult Of Personality main riff

Makin' Love (Kiss)

The Living Colour and KISS ones are good calls.

Into The Void is a monster.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: ChuckSteak on February 23, 2019, 07:28:37 AM
Hmmm.. most Voivod songs. The second part of Le Pont Noir
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Indiscipline on February 23, 2019, 07:42:01 AM
Since we all probably agree on at least 1000 obvious ones, I'm going for one hiding in plain sight, DT's Strange Deja-Vu, and one buried by the sands of time, Deep Purple's Sail Away.

And yeah, Cult of Personality and Into the Void are brilliant calls.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: max_security on February 23, 2019, 08:28:11 AM
I Am A Viking - YJM
On the Run Again - YJM
Viking Kong - Paul Gilbert
Kick It All Over - Greg Howe
Screeming BluesOMania - Paul Gilbert
Technical Difficulties - Paul Gilbert






Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: dparrott on February 23, 2019, 10:45:22 AM
Endless Sacrifice!!! Pretty much all of them
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: jammindude on February 23, 2019, 12:23:39 PM
Rock Candy by Montrose
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: TAC on February 23, 2019, 12:40:09 PM
UFO-Rock Bottom
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Dave_Manchester on February 23, 2019, 12:43:15 PM
Tool - Lateralus
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: jammindude on February 23, 2019, 12:46:33 PM
Tool - Lateralus

OH YEAH!!!
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: WildRanger on February 23, 2019, 02:25:08 PM
Accept - Fast as a Shark
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: TAC on February 23, 2019, 02:31:03 PM
Accept - Fast as a Shark

Accept has a million!

Love Child
Losers And Winners
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: max_security on February 23, 2019, 04:28:27 PM
Princess Of The Dawn , Midnight Mover ...almost any Accept tune actually you are right.

Rush - Anthem
Megadeth - Angry Again
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: 425 on February 23, 2019, 05:04:11 PM
Metallica.

Pick a song, it's all good.
Fran tick tick tick tick tick tick tock

Bad song, cool riff.

Actually, Frantic is a Good Song. :P


People are right to just basically toss out Metallica without specifying a specific song, because of how many good ones they have. But just to give it a shot at only naming a few (limiting to 10), I would say:

Seek and Destroy
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Call of Ktulu (particularly the one starting at around 2:00)
Master of Puppets (the one at the start and in several other places)
To Live Is to Die (4:30)
Enter Sandman
Wherever I May Roam
The Outlaw Torn
The Memory Remains
Fixxxer


Metallica aside, a few that come immediately to mind:
Coheed and Cambria - Sentry the Defiant
Dream Theater - Home
Haken - Drowning in the Flood
Iron Maiden - Revelations (intro)
Iron Maiden - Aces High
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Nightwish - Ghost River
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: El Barto on February 23, 2019, 07:01:08 PM
Princess Of The Dawn , Midnight Mover ...almost any Accept tune actually you are right.

Rush - Anthem
Megadeth - Angry Again
While I was waiting for Saxon to take the stage the other night they played Princess of the Dawn and the crowd went wild for it. Apparently there are a whole lot of Accept fans in San Antonio because it wasn't 3 chords deep before they all lit up. Not a great riff, IMO, but definitely a fun song.

One of Metallica's best riffs is actually buried in Confusion from HWtSD. First riff after the intro about a minute in. Classic Hetfield.

As kickass as Into the Void is, for Iommi I'd probably go with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

In an example of it not being the riff but what you do with it, John Curulewski's return after the Moog solo in Suite Madame Blue. Blows my mind every time I hear it. One of rock's great moments.

And since nobody's gotten it right yet, Unchained for the win.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: cygnusx1jg on February 23, 2019, 10:14:47 PM
The opening riff of Working Man always makes me smile.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Architeuthis on February 24, 2019, 03:11:23 AM
The opening riff of Working Man always makes me smile.
I also love the riff in "Circumstances" leading into the chorus.  :hefdaddy
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: ZKX-2099 on February 24, 2019, 07:51:15 AM
Were on a Dream Theater forum an nobody mentions The Dark Eternal Night?  :|

Also The Beast & The Harlot by A7X   :metal
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: WildRanger on February 24, 2019, 02:34:04 PM
Another one that came to my mind: Candlemass - At the Gallows End

 :metal :metal

Very recommended song to metalheads here.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: pg1067 on February 25, 2019, 11:30:42 AM
Don't think any of these have been mentioned yet:

DT - "Beyond This Life" has a bunch.  The main 5/4 riff is good, but the one I absolutely love is the 9/8 Myung riff in the instrumental section that starts around 8:16.

DT - "About to Crash Reprise" - both the intro riff and the guitar/bass unison part after the keyboard solo at 2:42.

Judas Priest - "Tyrant" (main riff)

Iron Maiden - "To Tame a Land" (the 3/4 riff that starts at 4:08)

Fates Warning - "Traveler in Time" (intro riff)

Fates Warning - "Monument" (bass intro riff)

Horizons End - "Starfade" (main bass riff)

Helloween - "Halloween" (main riff starting at 0:54)

Scorpions - "Dynamite" (main riff)

Triumph - "Allied Forces" and "Fight the Good Fight" (main riffs); "Blinding Light Show" (main riff and the riff right after the acoustic section)
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Anxiety35 on February 25, 2019, 01:22:54 PM
All the great metal riffs have their origins in Black Sabbath's music. Tony Iommi was/is a riff machine.
Then you had Priest & Maiden.
Then you had Metallica & Megadeth.
Then you had Pantera (I love Pantera's opening/chorus riff in A New Level).

The progression goes on until today.

I heard it asked if all the riffs have been used and now it's just recycled and/or adapted riffs from other songs. I don't know. I'm sure mathematically there may be an end to the creation of riffs at some point simply because of the number of notes in music and the number of combinations there can be with notes, scales, harmonies, etc.   
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: JPX on February 26, 2019, 09:14:30 AM
My immediate answer to this question has always been This Love by Pantera.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Elite on February 26, 2019, 10:15:23 AM
My immediate answer to this question has always been This Love by Pantera.

Which one? There’s multiple riffs in that song, but none of them I can recall right now.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Learning2Live on February 26, 2019, 12:14:49 PM
My 3 favorites from Metallica are 5:49 - 6:42 (especially 6:16 - 6:42) from Seek & Destroy, 0:32 - 1:14 from Disposable Heroes, and the sextuplets section in One leading up to the ending guitar solo.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: TheCountOfNYC on February 26, 2019, 01:31:50 PM
I’ll try to limit my nominations to one per band (otherwise this would end up being all Metallica, Megadeth, and Pantera).

Metallica-Sad But True
Megadeth-Poison Was the Cure
Pantera-Domination
Gojira-Flying Whales
Avenged Sevenfold-Almost Easy
Led Zeppelin-Black Dog
Dream Theater-As I Am
Meshuggah-Bleed
Black Sabbath-Sweet Leaf
Slayer-Angel of Death (middle section)
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: JPX on February 27, 2019, 11:55:56 AM
My immediate answer to this question has always been This Love by Pantera.

Which one? There’s multiple riffs in that song, but none of them I can recall right now.

I mean the whole thing is perfect but specifically the riff at 2:46

I'll also throw Machine Head - Davidian into the ring.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: dparrott on February 28, 2019, 07:52:23 PM
DT - Honor Thy Father intro
TDEN definitely

Not really "metal" but...
PT - Blackest Eyes - main riff and transition to the break
PT - Futile - almost all of them
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: MrBoom_shack-a-lack on March 01, 2019, 01:11:27 AM
For me there's Meshuggah riffs that's above everything else and then below comes metal riffs.

Just because we talked about it in another thread Symphony X - Run with the Devil. Romeo has some killer riffs under his belt.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Nekov on March 01, 2019, 07:31:49 AM
Pantera - revolution is my name. The main riff is killer
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Anxiety35 on March 01, 2019, 08:57:19 AM
Darrell wrote so many good and great riffs. Heavy, groovy, catchy. He is missed.
Title: Re: Best metal riffs?
Post by: Elite on March 01, 2019, 10:54:02 AM
My favourite Dream Theater riff is probably the main riff in The Root of All Evil.