Author Topic: Best metal riffs?  (Read 2228 times)

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Offline WildRanger

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Best metal riffs?
« 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


Offline The Walrus

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #1 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.
From a Mega Man Legends island jamming power metal to a Walrus listening to black metal, I like your story arc.
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Offline Elite

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #2 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
Hey dude slow the fuck down so we can finish together at the same time.  :biggrin:
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Offline Crow

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2019, 02:19:39 PM »
one direction - what makes you beautiful  :metal :metal :metal

Offline Dave_Manchester

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #4 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).

Online Adami

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2019, 03:19:26 PM »
Metallica.

Pick a song, it's all good.
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Offline Crow

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #6 on: February 22, 2019, 03:23:04 PM »
Metallica.

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

Online Adami

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #7 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.
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Offline pg1067

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #8 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)
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Online MirrorMask

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #9 on: February 22, 2019, 03:54:59 PM »
Breaking the Law and Iron Man should have already been mentioned  :hat
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Offline Dave_Manchester

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #10 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.

Offline pg1067

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #11 on: February 22, 2019, 04:44:46 PM »
Grim Reaper - All Hell Let Loose
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Offline Ninjabait

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #12 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.

Offline Big Hath

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #13 on: February 22, 2019, 06:29:02 PM »
Book of Thel
Winger would be better!

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Online Stadler

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #14 on: February 22, 2019, 09:04:29 PM »
Supernaut (Black Sabbath)
Woman From Tokyo (Purple)
Burn (Purple)
Makin' Love (Kiss)
Crazy Train (Ozzy)

Offline dparrott

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #15 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
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Offline Elite

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #16 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.
Hey dude slow the fuck down so we can finish together at the same time.  :biggrin:
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Online DTA

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #17 on: February 23, 2019, 05:05:30 AM »
Metallica Blackened main riff.

Online Dream Team

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #18 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.


Online TAC

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #19 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.
would have thought the same thing but seeing the OP was TAC i immediately thought Maiden or DT related
Winger Theater Forums........or WTF.  ;D
TAC got a higher score than me in the electronic round? Honestly, can I just drop out now? :lol

Offline ChuckSteak

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #20 on: February 23, 2019, 07:28:37 AM »
Hmmm.. most Voivod songs. The second part of Le Pont Noir

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #21 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.

Offline max_security

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #22 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







Offline dparrott

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #23 on: February 23, 2019, 10:45:22 AM »
Endless Sacrifice!!! Pretty much all of them
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Offline jammindude

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #24 on: February 23, 2019, 12:23:39 PM »
Rock Candy by Montrose
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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #25 on: February 23, 2019, 12:40:09 PM »
UFO-Rock Bottom
would have thought the same thing but seeing the OP was TAC i immediately thought Maiden or DT related
Winger Theater Forums........or WTF.  ;D
TAC got a higher score than me in the electronic round? Honestly, can I just drop out now? :lol

Offline Dave_Manchester

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #26 on: February 23, 2019, 12:43:15 PM »
Tool - Lateralus

Offline jammindude

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #27 on: February 23, 2019, 12:46:33 PM »
"Better the pride that resides in a citizen of the world.
Than the pride that divides when a colorful rag is unfurled." - Neil Peart

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Offline WildRanger

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #28 on: February 23, 2019, 02:25:08 PM »
Accept - Fast as a Shark

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #29 on: February 23, 2019, 02:31:03 PM »
Accept - Fast as a Shark

Accept has a million!

Love Child
Losers And Winners
would have thought the same thing but seeing the OP was TAC i immediately thought Maiden or DT related
Winger Theater Forums........or WTF.  ;D
TAC got a higher score than me in the electronic round? Honestly, can I just drop out now? :lol

Offline max_security

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #30 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

Offline 425

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #31 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
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Online El Barto

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #32 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.

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Offline cygnusx1jg

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #33 on: February 23, 2019, 10:14:47 PM »
The opening riff of Working Man always makes me smile.
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Offline Architeuthis

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Re: Best metal riffs?
« Reply #34 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
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