Enough already. You can play scales. Congratulations on the lessons paying off. How about you write a fucking song next time.

You got that right.

It's called math metal, doods. You just don't get it, you're obviously not smart enough to comprehend such intricate forms of music creation.

I always sucked at math. Funny now that it's the math that sucks.

i thought this thread was about solace.

I like some of this stuff. But not much. It's boring, but sometimes The Riff is boring, too.

I agree. I'm more of a blues/ heavy blues guy--Sabbath, Motorhead and all my favorite heavier bands seem to be more rooted in blues scales that may sometimes spill over to the harmonic scale (ie: the evil/ snake charming scale), but most of those guys, even though they're good players, are pretty loose and aren't perfectionists....they can play fast, but they're not extremely technical or hung up on hitting every note, and they often change solos and entire parts up, live. Complete perfection and speed is pretty boring, to me.....it usually has no soul or feel, it seems like it's just paint by numbers....it's muscle memory and you've played it a zillion times. You've perfected that last night at last night's show....how about giving the audience something new within the expected realms? The reason that Hendrix copyists can never get his style right, is because he always changed it up every night and went off of what he felt.

That's what I said to myself when I decided to quit listening to it. Worked like a charm..

there's a big difference between virtuoso prog bands like dream theater, who I can't stand for more than 10 seconds, and a band like meshuggah (are they even prog?) who have a lot of bare bones riffs, and in most songs have a lot of groove.

I like Atheist and the new Atheist album, but I guess they were sort of pioneers of this or predated all the horrible stuff. At least I'd like to think so. They've got quite a bit more Slayer in them than the slicker, fruitier stuff you here in 2010. I think Cynic are more responsible for that part of the prog metal camp. :)

i like this and that's about it for this stuff.

i heard that the people who play it look like this

they also eat this.

And wear these:

calculus metal..

I DO know this kid fucking rules, Colin of Behold… the Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, Krallice, Gorguts, various production credits:

yeah marston kicks ass.

I think modern Prog rock is the way it is because the people playing it are TRYING to play in a technical fashion. Older Prog rock bands like Yes or King Crimson seemed to play that way because it was natural for them. It's cool to hear some of the crazy stuff newer bands can do technically, but without good songs, it's just not very listenable.

Yeah, without the songs, it gets boring pretty fast. I guess that there are those that are really into that stuff, but i've never really liked Malmsteen for much of the same reasons--lots of talent, no doubt, but nothing really resembling anything that i'd like to listen to in any capacity for very long. Though I suppose if you can play like that, it would seem like it's boring or not challenging to play straighahead stuff, but to put it in perspective, i've known drummers that can play blastbeats no problem, but then they can't play a 4/4 beat worth a shit and can't keep a regular time signature without it being a trainwreck. Playing regular 8th notes is definetely a challenge.....people thought Phil Rudd was a no talent drummer for years, but that definetely takes talent to do what he does--holding down a straight beat that never wavers. Bonham was so great at what he did because he could do the fancy stuff, but on stuff like "Kashmir" or "When The Levee Breaks", he could do a straight 4/4 thing that gave the rest of the band room to breathe. And those beats are arguably more massive than his faster stuff.

I read an article once that said James Brown would audition guitarists by first asking the player if he could play something like an E9th chord. If the guitarist answered yes, Mr Brown's next question was, "How long?"

Heh, that's funny. If you think of it, James Brown just pretty much grooved around a main progression.....sort of a trance-like, hypnotic effect like how drone tries for the same thing. Most of James' stuff is a textbook example of simplicity, but his players knew how to create a huge rhythm and could improvise well when needed. They had the chops, but they also knew when to pare it down. I saw Maceo live here some years back--he's still got it.

ryan, who did you post as at sr.com?

There's some techy stuff I can get into, like Atheist, Cynic, Demilich, The Chasm, Suffocation, hell even Morbid Angel, Immolation and Incantation get pretty techy at times. I like mathy stuff like Keelhaul and Botch also.


As long as the riffs are cool, I like atypical or drawn out arrangements. I just don't like stuff where the primary point of the songs is to show off the playing. If you have to play to a certain level to get your ideas and aesthetic across, fine, I can respect that, as long as the ideas and aesthetic are good. If you get like Necrophagist or Dream Theater, where it just turns into wank for wank's sake, I lose interest and might even call you ghey.