Riff Of The Week: Storm Edition

January 13, 2018

3534

STORMING, WITH RIFFAGE!

Last week our theme was centered around a band’s very First Riff. Despite a strong showing from both the Grave and Ghoul contingents, the swamp rock stomp of Tim Sult et al took home the prize.

This week our theme is STORMS. Now I made it an easy theme after the issues with last week’s criteria, and you punished me by submitting 439 entries. As I have limited time to do this, those kind folk whose entries require the least amount of formatting will receive a few bonus votes. Big thanks to those who already do this unasked, you rule. From now on though, if your riff submission text is in the same order as I lay out below, you’ll get a 5% boost or something.

Name
Band – ‘Song’ (Riff @ ?:??)

[URL link]

Blurb.

Hans
I – “Days of North Winds” (Riff @ 1:34)

While Immortal came up short in the ice department a few weeks ago, they sure have a fair share to say about storms and winds and such. However, the first thing that popped into my head was the opener from this record (“The Storm I Ride” – so much for getting creative). But then I saw this and found out it had a neat riff that I had somehow overlooked up until now. It first occurs somewhere around the 50 second mark, but this part of the song has more iterations of it.

Gorak
Sepultura – ‘From The Past Comes The Storms’ (Riff @ 0:00)

THE SKY THROWS UP STORMS TRYING TO AVENGE ITSELF
YOU FEEL A PAIN THAT BURNS YOUR FLESH

Taz
Amon Amarth – ‘North Sea Storm’ (Riff @ 2:01)

FFLLEEPPPRRTTT!!! TAZ THINK CHOOSING HARD!!! TAZ AVOID OBVIOUS KREATOR ‘STORMING WITH DENNIS’ AND ‘STORM OF BEAST’ COS TOO EPIC AND OBVIOUS!!! TAZ THEREFOREAFTERWITH CHOOSE THIS COS TAZ HAVE SOFT SPOT FOR MELANCHOLIC HARMONY WHAT FOR THAT ANOM AMRATH ARE GOOD AT, EVEN IF FRUIT STILL LOW AND DANGLY AND EASY TO PLAY WITH!!!! ALSO, TAZ BEEN IN LOTS OF NORTH SEA STORMS AND TAZ LIKE WINTER STORMS!!! RIFF AT 2.01, (AND AGAIN AT 2.56 AND 4.20)!!!! EEP!!

wesselbr
Immortal – ‘Unsilent Storms In The North Abyss’ (Riff @ 0:00)

Immortal has a total of five songs with the word ‘storm’ in the title in their discography. This is my favorite out of the bunch and one of my favorite black metal songs overall. Just imagine yourself trapped on a boat, somewhere in the northern hemisphere, admist a vicious storm on the open sea. That is exactly the atmosphere Immortal manages to create with this album opener, as those majestic riffs rise like the waves!

TheGranulatingDarkStormyMilfs
Sepultura – ‘The Past Reborns The Storms’ (Riff @ 0:57)

Sepultura storm riffs awesome of Schizophrenia thrash metal so English grammar fuck it.

CT-12
Panphage – “Storm” (Riff @ 0:10)

Since this ROTW will be posted a day after the release of their third and final full-length album, I thought I’d take a moment to celebrate the incredible debut of Sweden’s one-man powerhouse, Panphage. Front to back this album is damn near flawless, but this is the first true riff to really bring the thunder. Toss on your rain gear and get ready to headbang!

NDG
I – “The Storm I Ride” (Riff @ 1:57)

0 – 3:27…the entire track is riff central but 1:57 is probably my favourite. It builds just the right amount of anticipation for Ice Dale to unleash that killer lead break and is never seen again.
As a friend of mine once said “Album of the Year every year since 2006”.

g3intel
Slayer – ‘The Antichrist’ (Riff @ 0:00)

Best song off of Show No Mercy. Dissection covered this as a bonus track for Storm of the Light’s Bane, so it counts

Lone Biker of the Apocalypse
Quo Vadis – ‘Silence Calls The Storm’ (Riff @ 1:30)

Like a drunken sailor in the crow’s nest during a hurricane, this song blew me completely away when I heard it as the opening track on a Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles CD sampler in 2004. The intro growl to the song is still one of the most impressive bellows I’ve heard in any song since, and the main riff, (that is more distinguishable 90 seconds in) in conjunction with the very fluid double bass and fret-less bass work of Steve Digiorgio is definitely as breathtaking and destructive as a storm…either on the open seas or within the confines of this here virtual toilet.

Lord ov Bork
Morbid Angel – ‘Brainstorm’ (Riff @ 0:18)

Let that weird tremolo riff at :18 roll around your brain for a minute and get right with the Brainstorm.

Positronic Brain
Voivod – ‘Tornado’ (Riff @ 0:16)

How much more “Voivod” could a riff be? And I love how it just keeps going, all discordant and whatnot, higher and higher and higher and higher.

Ianrigg
Iced Earth – ‘Stormrider’ (Riff @ 1:45)

Im going with Stormrider from Iced Earths Night of the Stormrider album. The riff starts around 1:45. It continues on behind the solo for about the next 30 seconds or so. It changes slightly throuout the solo with some different variations of the main riff. There are several rad riffs in the song so I’d recommend giving the whole track a listen.

GrungierNine0
Hail of Bullets – ‘General Winter’ (Riff @ 0:11)

My logic with this being that winter brings storms, I present to ye a riff born on the coldest battlefields of the Eastern Front (actually a recording studio in Rotterdam but you get my point). Hail of Bullets disbanded last year, but goddamn if they didn’t bring the riffs, and Martin van Drunen’s vocals will always fit the heaviest of the heaviest riffs. Enjoy some crushing death metal about the most indescribably vast and violent conflict in human history.

DeathToFalseMetal
Stevie Ray Vaughn – ‘Texas Flood’ (Riff @ 0:00)

You say storm, I say flood. This riff starts right off the bat and it’s the only blues riff I could listen to on loop for the rest of my life and never tire of.

Mitch Trvbisky
Absu – ‘Earth Ripper’ (Riff @ 0:20)

A song about a catastrophic climate change disaster caused by sorcery. Is it a statement on society’s responsibility to our planet? Is it a chinese hoax? More crazy Proscriptor lyrics? WHO CARES, EARTH RIFFER!!!!

GRUMP DUMPUS
Cathedral – ‘Violet Vortex’ (Riff @ 1:18)

GET YOUR MIND BLOWN TO OZ BY THIS VORTEX OF MELODY AND TOSS YOUR RUBY RED SLIPPERS OFF AN ETHEREAL CLIFF BECAUSE HOME WAS BLACK AND WHITE GARBAGE ANYWAY

Yarnhawk
The Dillinger Escape Plan – ‘We Are the Storm’ (Riff @ 4:04)

This riff appears throughout the song, including the intro, but my favourite variation of it is the one at 4:04. A musical storm, indeed. Also, this song title might be the most accurate description of a band ever.