Riff Of The Week: 2007 Edition
And what a year it was…for those who can remember it.
First thing’s first, last week’s Star Riff came down to the wire! Literally all the way down. After travelling all that way, it was tired and was rendered unable to make an informed decision. Torn betwixt the selections of Ted Nu-Djent and Esusmoose it cleaved said wire in two, placing a riff from Danzig in one pocket and one from Astronoid in the other. Then, just prior to departure it deposited a small nugget of shit on Richter’s Island riff for its troubles. As Masterlord reminded me of his hatred for ties/draws, I’m left with no choice but to award last week’s victory to Richter. This totally has nothing to do with him having the objectively better riff, and is definitely because I feel sorry for him being soiled with excrement in such a manner. Well done you armless fuck you, go have a shower.
This week we asked for riffs from a decade ago, the mid-2000’s wasteland known as 2007. Good thing about socio-political economic wastelands is that they have a tendency to breed exceptional metal. Just look at [insert whatever country you live in], see what I mean? The relationship is uncanny. Seriously, it’s been measured by anthropologists, negative 9 cannys. Can’t argue with simple maths. Further proof can be found in the riffs we’ve got here this week.
Son Ov Wolf
Unsane – “Against the Grain“
Richter
Wolves In The Throne Room – “Vastness and Sorrow“
According to Wikipedia, the only metal album I bought in 2007 was Wolves in the Throne Room’s Two Hunters. How can this be? A quick sift through my library revealed that Island also released something in ’07, but since I submitted an Island riff last week and haven’t submitted a Wolves riff in a dog’s age, Wolves it is. Here is the best black metal riff ever written. Introduced at 2:30. Reprised in break-everything-you-own-mode at 9:17.
Ted Nu-Djent
Skeletonwitch – “Baptized In Flames“
The first minute of the song builds perfectly to my selected riff this week which can be heard at the 1.00, 1.55 and 3.15 mark of the song. Skeletonwitch are going for full At The Gates worship on this riff and by gee, by jingo, by crikey they done pulled it off. Cheers
Lizard
Animosity – “Progression In Defeat“
“Progress is hiding in the cracks even when looking ahead seems like a series of mistakes,
I can see the beauty of failure in that we have got a second chance
Standing over the witch’s grave, I can see…
Where are we now?
And where are we going?
In an era of seeming defeat, we look ahead for change to get back on our feet”
When selecting a riff from 2007 for this week I decided to go through my collection alphabetically and didn’t need to go far. Riff @0:11.
Boss The Ross
High On Fire – “Rumors Of War”
2007 was a pretty important time for me as a metal head that was trying to find his own voice. My sophomore year of high school had started and up until that point my music and metal intake was all based on my parents’ collections. Enter Headbanger’s Ball. MTV was trying to rehash their glory days and restarted this video series, the kicker was it only played at 1 o’ clock in the morning so I didn’t catch it often. On one fateful night however, staring in the illuminated 12 inch tv in my room, the volume turned down to a whisper, a video started and its opening riff completely floored me. It was heavy, thick, sludgy, brutal, in my face and in my ears. I was enamored with the sound emenating from the little box. The vocals kicked in and a gravely smile greeted me while the band tore through my eardrums(on low volume, nonetheless!). As I had been laid to waste by the song before me, I crawled up to the TV as the song information was showing to reveal the name of the band. And what did I see? High on Fire, of course.
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Next week we’re only going to be accepting riffs from a band’s debut album (demos and EP’s are fine too). To submit you have to:
