Metal Reviews

I'll take that as a compliment!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Skk9Q0Qd_k :50 second mark is funny.

Maybe it's because I don't enjoy listening to shredding (playing fast on a guitar just doesn't sound good so I see it as kind of a weird and pointless skill for a musician to pursue) but I have a hard time being very impressed by it.

There are a bunch that find neoclassical shredding to not only sound great but find it to be a superb mix of complex technique and melody.

I have nothing against neo-classical shredders except that they all basically sound the same. One album from Vinnie Moore, one from Yngwie Malmsteen, one from Tony McAlpine and you're good to go. Everything else is pretty much a variation on the same theme.

Andy LaRoque
Glen Tipton
KK Downing
Hank Shermann
Wolf Hoffman
Mark Shelton
Lars Johansson
Andre Olbrich
Bob Vigna

Forgot about Tosin Abasi. People rave about him. He does have a lot of skill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt-RoSzsEKA

True. But that's only one aspect of playing the guitar. Yes, playing with technicality and complex forms intertwined with melody is an aspect of outstanding guitar playing but another huge aspect remains those guitarists that hit the right notes and deliver with complex emotion rather than the utmost technicality. You cannot find many of those but you can always find musicians that deliver technicality and complexity that merely convey some sort of formalism in melody.

It's funny, because, try as I might, I can't seem to be impressed at all by any of the dudes listed by noodles, especially whatsisname from Colour Haze.
I don't imagine it would take long to master the "stoner metal" technique, and there is nothing unique, distinct or remotely special about it.
Oh well, there's something for everybody out there.

Anyway, regarding Neo-Classical shredding; people that say "it's just scales played fast" don't really understand the style.
It's called Neo-Classical for a reason.
Is Paganini "just scales, blahblahblah"?
Or Stravinski? Bartok? Rachmaninoff?
No, they are not.
I mean, it's not as if it is just random notes.
It's a very strucured and very disciplined style that takes years of serious dedication, and anybody that claims that "it's just scales played fast" is full of shit.

I'm sure its incredibly complex listening to bands like Windham Hell reminds me that the music can be played at a maestro level yet still sound great. The guy is a musical genius, and runs circles in terms of composition over shitty modern tech bands and prog bands. I personallt detest most forms of shred unless the guy can use all of that wanking talent to devise a song, I can care less how many sweeps he interjects into a song.

This.

Comparing shredders to classical composers ?
It's like comparing the processed cheese in the burgers with some fine farmer's cheese. Silly.

Explain.
Neoclassical is called that for a reason; the phrasing, the structures and the approach are all derived from classical music.

If you are saying that Malmsteen, Ulrich Roth and the rest aren't playing in the same style as Paganini, Stravinski, etc., you're fucking clueless. True it is a metal guitar players interpretation, but it is still drawn from classical music, especially the violin.

Furthermore, if what you take from my post is that I am saying that Malmsteen, etc are in the same league as those composers regarding compositional skills, then you need to brush up on your reading comprehension.

Noodles, there is something called "Note Tolerance" which is the amount of time it takes you to subconsciously hear a note and find it's point of resolution. Some people simply don't have a very fast one, such as whoever that guy is who plays for Pink Floyd. There is a certain "liquid" sort of quality that happens when the notes are played in a more or less predictable manner with 64ths because your brain is not able to catch up and breathe at all. It can be done a hundred different ways, but essentially the speed of the song and the notes that are supposed to "overlap" are worked out to produce this. I have a friend who was in the original Iced Earth (Purgatory) that could do this extremely well, but he couldn't explain how it worked at all.

The problem is that if you don't have the note tolerance more notes are going to overlap than you can handle and it will sound like noise rather than a seamless sea of notes.

I read about this in Guitar Player/World/One about 5 years ago and it perfectly explains everything. It isn't a negative quality. It probably means the same moderately paced music you might like would bore the shit out of someone else. The opposite happens that way. The mind will literally have to wait for the next note and in some cases may actually predict or expect something and if it doesn't happen it will sound off-key.

I can't listen to slow music myself. Those mid-paced hard rock tracks everyone hates that PM has been producing are exactly to my tastes because they are played at a very leisurely pace as far as I'm concerned. That's about as slow as I can tolerate it.

Different things for different people, obviously.

If one considers the likes of Bach and Vivaldi, they composed with the utmost skill and technicality and brought a tremendous amount of melody to their other-worldly melodies. The Baroque-era in general brought about the emergence of pure technique. After that came the likes of Beethoven and Mozart which both intertwined melody and technicality and made precious and enormous structure to their music.

If one considers Bach, I think his technicality and counterpoints are extremely unique along side with Vivaldi's technique. Although, if one takes into account Handel and considering he was in the baroque-era, he composed some simplistic music alongside with Mozart, compared to Bach and Vivaldi. Moving into the Romantic period and program music and the likes of Chopin, Schumann, and Wagner, each, composed music with technicality and good dose of a more simplistic approach. The whole point of Romantic-era was to bring out a more unpredictable approach to music away from technicality of for example Brahms which was a leading figure of the Romantic period.

Let us not forget Beethoven and how he somewhat bridged the Classical era and the Romantic era with his technique and structure. Neither Bach nor Beethoven went to school to actually study music to perform technicality. Whether being the technicality of formalism of our modern day guitarists, or the more unpredictable melodies of the already mentioned program music, they are both deeply influenced by classical music in terms of structure, rhythm, and harmonies.

Technique matters, but what matters more is what melodies are used and how the structure is composed and arranged.

Well, you do seem to. If that's not what you meant, rather than my reading comprehension it's your phrasing and its intent I'm questioning.
Anyway, since your last post corrected the wrong impression you previously manage to create in my silly brain, I'd just say that I agree with you (including the comment regarding Noodles' list).
Still, I have more fun with archetypical stoner guitarist than their peers in the shredding department. I agree shredding (and doing it well) demands more skill but, well, it just bores me past the initial "wow" at how technically flawless those guys are.

I like Stefan Koglek more than all other (stoner) rock guitarists 'cause he's got an elegance to his playing that others don't and his tone is the best. It's so distorted but kinda soothing at the same time. Can never get my amp to do that :(

I don't think I've ever heard Colour Haze. Which album is the best to start?

"All" is pretty great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoAWHS3i ... re=related

Well, I very rarely listen to shred artists, myself.
It's awesome in small doses.

Actually the whole point is that the few bona-fide shredders at the top of the heap definitely deserve mentioning in a thread titled such as this one.

To me, neoclassical is: heavy metal guitar infused with the baroque stylings of the classical virtousi, e.g; Bach, Hayden, Paganini, Stravinski, etc.

And above all, Malmsteen. He basically pioneered the style... sure Roth and Blackmore kind of tested the water, but Yngwie really took off with it.

I'm not sure...

I think I'll try "Los Sounds de Krauts" since I like the album's title.

Seeing as how nobody has mentioned Scott Gorham / Brian Robertson, I'll go ahead and do so.