Riff Of The Week: Under The Influence Edition

July 27, 2019

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Riffs from The Zenith Passage, Corpse Garden, Sacramentum, Ripped To Shreds, Sadistik Forest, Guns Up, and Sothoth. Vote or die.

Everyone fell asleep last week and forgot to send in anything for our Chilean Edition. This made the contest a walk in the park for thrash titans Ripper, who celebrated by releasing a new track during the week (their first since 2017’s cosmos collapsing Experiment Of Existence).

This week our theme was bands displaying an obvious influence
Here’s what you sent in…

McNulty
Sadistik Forest – ‘Decades of Torment Then Death’ (Riff @ 0:14)

Hail Finland! (Can we do a Riff ov the Week from Finnish bands?) This band does such a great job imitating Cannibal Corpse.

Positronic Brain
Ripped to Shreds – ‘日月神教第一節 (Sun Moon Holy Cult Part 1)’ (Riff @ 7:30)

Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for…the guitar solo section of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”! And the funny thing is, this isn’t even the first time he copped that chord progression/riff under a solo – see 3:25 in “God Worshipping Society” from the previous album for pretty much the same thing.

GoatForest
Sacramentum – “Cries from a Restless Soul” (Riff @ 0:00)

Sacramentum sure liked Dissection, didn’t they?

Evhron
Corpse Garden – ‘IAO 269’ (Riff @ 2:08)

One can instantly notice the big Gorguts influence, both in the structure but also the production ( Colin Marston on the prod…). Would higly recommed to listen, if not the whole song, the whole section from where the riff comes from (2:08 – 4:00/end) there’s a few more riffs in there that are worth listening to. [Lizard Note: vote for this]
Also: dat fretless bass.

Iron Goddess of Mercy
Guns Up! – “Won’t Change For Me” (Riff @ 1:15)

I had this riff locked, cocked, and ready to rock. If we’re talkin’ Guns Up!, we’re talkin’ a band that was *so* cool in 2005 that it’s hard to imagine in 2019. If we’re talkin’ obvious GU! influences, we’d normally just point to No Warning’s *Ill Blood* and keep it movin’, but this here lil’ diddy bams it up a whole ‘nother notch when it comes to influence/citation. Or, to just quote the source directly: “Thanks again to Entombed for the da da da da da da da OOOOH.”

Spear
The Zenith Passage – ‘Holographic Principle II: Convergence’ (Riff @ 0:22)

The Zenith Passage could rightfully be called “The Faceless 2.0,” and not just because one of their guitarists had a brief stint in the latter band. This particular riff owes quite a bit to the closing track on Planetary Duality, and it won’t take much to see why. It’s definitely one of those things that skirts the line between “influenced” and “ripped off,” but given that TZP has done The Faceless better than The Faceless for a couple albums, I’m inclined to give them a pass on this one.