Riff Of The Week: Three Letters Or Less Edition
_ _ _ ?
Don’t buy a vowel you fucking wimp!
Last week we asked for riffs fitting the theme of Black. Now, Joe updated some of the site plugins, including our regular polling thingo. Some things are different for the better, some changes are shyte; you’ll have to bear with me while I iron-out the kinks. The results are now in a much R O U N D E R format, which is kinda cool. Except for the need for me to manually assign colours to each individual entry so the whole graph isn’t rendered an absofuckinglutely redundant plain black. Anyway, Cadaveric Fumes gets to eat the vanilla blueberry pie this week, and rightly so!
This week I asked for riffs from songs with titles consisting of three letters or less. As I didn’t specify characters, we’ve had a couple of sneaky buggers get through the typically impervious riff membrane we’ve developed here in the Lavatorial Laboratories®. Here’s what you sent in…
Special Agent Dale Cooper
Machine Head – ‘Old’ (Riff @ 0:25)
Ah, Machine Head. Some people love them, some people hate them. I just find them wildly inconsistent. Seriously, when you have albums like Burn My Eyes, Through The Ashes Of Empires and The Blackening, you have no excuse to release shit like The Burning Red, Supercharger and that last shitty album you put out. Robb, buddy, get your head out of your arse and start doing better for god’s sake.
Anyway, this is a super dank riff, probably my favorite on the album, and it fit’s the description. Just be glad I didn’t submit Rio by Duran Duran, although I guess some people would prefer that considering that this is the same band who brought the abomination that is From This Day into the world.
Fun fact, this song is actually the closest they ever got to a hit in the UK, reaching no. 43. The fact it did better than the nu metal pandering bollocks they did makes me very happy.
GoatForest
Nunslaughter – “God” (Riff @ 0:15)
A simple title for a simple, yet punishing song. There is absolutely nothing in the way of subtlety here, and it’s beautiful.
Megachiles
Danzig – ‘777’ (Riff @ 1:39)
No one submitted either of my two favorite Danzig songs last week, so y’all can heck right off. To restore the natural order and appease Evil Elvis and his 12 cats, here’s the kick ass slide guitar song from Danzig II: Lucifuge.
I always assumed Lucifuge was a fun sledding event at the Annual Church of Satan Winter Potluck, however Wikipedia says some old book lists “Lucifuge Rofocale” as the head of hell’s government. That’s pretty lame sounding, so if anyone thinks of any cooler alternate meetings you should shout out.
P00pf4rt5
The Haunted – ‘DOA’ (Riff @ 0:25)
It’s extremely hard to find a song with 3 letters that has a riff worthy of submission, so I’ll go with a band on the cusp of sucking for the rest of their albums. These guys always seem to have a good grasp on riffage and the beginning of this track is just beautiful how it adds layer by little layer before settling into a somewhat standard haunted song.
ZMapp
Gotsu Totsu Kotsu – ‘203’ (Riff @ 2:59)
THE WEEB RETURNS! A band so underrated that I had to upload this song myself… shameful! These guys are absolute masters of their craft. This riff makes you feel as if you’re Susanoo slaying Orochi. Also, stick around for a while: there’s a solo waiting for you.
Hans
Discharge – “Why” (Riff @ 0:05)
*blows raspberry and gives everyone the finger*
Iron Goddess of Mercy
Brutal Truth – “KAP” (Riff @ 0:04)
Description: The first Brutal Truth record I ever owned and still my favourite. This riff in particular has an almost black metal quality to it, all while Rich Hoak drums almost too fast and Kevin Sharp gives one of the wildest vocal performances of BT’s oeuvre. “KAP” kaptures everything that makes Sounds of the Animal Kingdom an underrated grindcore masterpiece.
Howard Dean
Bölzer – “C.M.E.” (Riff @ 1:43)
The song title is an abbreviation, but the abbreviation is used as the song title on the album packaging and on databases like Discogs and Metal-Archives so I think it counts and fits this week’s parameters. The riff sequence from 1:43-2:10 is dynamite and repeats several times in the track. Bölzer have always been able to combine atmosphere and killer riffs without either one taking the spotlight or overpowering the other, which is no easy feat. Kings.
wesselbr
Morbid Angel – ‘I’ (Riff @ 0:18)
Because I will grasp every opportunity to plug Tucker/Rutan-era Morbid Angel.
Tom Warrior’s Beanie
Strapping Young Lad – ‘AAA’ (Riff @ 2:51)
I read somewhere that this song title is in reference to the weird tuning Dev and the guys use on this one. Either way its a big droning SYL riff and that’s always good.
vanNeun
Decapitated – ‘Day 69’ (Riff @ 0:52)
Short, sweet and inducing neck injuries. And that drum fill @ 2:16 ending with THE BEES is nice too.
Yarnhawk
Meshuggah – ‘Sum’ (Riff @ 1:13)
This riff does that classic Meshuggah thing where it’s a weird timing but still groovy as all get out. There’s that nice little pause leading up to it that lulls you into thinking you’re safe, and then it hits like a freight train, with the tortured scream of a man trapped inside an eternal paradox.
Lacertilian
The Great Cold – ‘EOS’ (Riff @ 2:00)
Had a few weird and wild selections for this week to choose from but this fave from a couple of years back stood out as it’s very serene, quite accomplished for a debut album.
Next week’s theme is RAIN. Be as creative or as blatant as you like.
Submission details below.
