The Harmonic Minor Scale

Remember 80s Metal? For awhile there, Neo-Classical got really big and you guessed it, that’s why we’re going over the Harmonic Minor scale. The Harmonic Minor scale was the most used scale by the Neo-Classical Metal guitarists of the 80s, until of course in the late-80s, someone gave them a memo to all start learning Jazz Fusion and Metal started getting really weird.

Well, here’s an ode to the 80s before things got really weird. It’s one of the three scales I warm up with in the morning.

What is the Harmonic Minor scale?

Simply put, it’s the minor scale with the seventh note sharped. Yes, it’s that easy. That’s what gives it that exotic sound.

With the following fingers:
1 – Index finger
2 – Middle finger
3 – Ring finger
4 – Pinky

The Harmonic Minor scale

The Harmonic Minor scale

Once again, I used E because it’s easier. You get two dots so you can see exactly where it is on the guitar.

Learn the pattern. Play it forwards and backwards. Then start playing it in other keys on the fretboard.

Go for accuracy first

Like always, go for accuracy first. Learn it and get the scale to flow well. The speed will come. Get accuracy down first. Learn it correctly before building up your speed. That’s very important and I can’t emphasize how important that is. Very few things sound worse than a fast player who’s missing all over the place. That stuff sounds like crap. (Don’t be that guy).

Once you’ve mastered it, build it into licks and runs. Throw in some bends. Heck, incorporate it into your riffs. Riffs built off the Harmonic Minor scale sound really cool.

Randy Rhoads used this scale in one of my favorite Ozzy Osbourne songs – Revelations. This scale is what gives the song such an exotic sound.

Enjoy! There’s no limit what you can do with this scale.

Roman


Roman orchestrations Astral Eyes
Roman writes the orchestrations for Astral Eyes. He plays Guitar and Piano and has a Bachelor’s degree in History.

The Blues Scale

I use the Blues Scale as one of my three warm-up scales. In any order, I start the morning off with the Major scale, the Harmonic Minor scale, and the Blues scale. I’ll go into the other two another day, but today, I’ll focus on the Blues scale.

What is the Blues Scale?

The Blues Scale is simply a pentatonic scale with an additional flatted fifth. It’s very simple, but sounds quite awesome.

With the following fingers:
1 – Index finger
2 – Middle finger
3 – Ring finger
4 – Pinky

Simply take the diagram and practice that pattern up and down the neck, forwards and backwards. I chose E because E has 2 dots. Let’s keep it simple.

The Blues Scale

The Blues Scale

Starting from the fat E string, play with your index finger on the twelve fret and your pinky finger on the fifteenth fret, then work your way up. Do it slowly and accurately at first. Go for accuracy first. Let speed develop with time.

Don’t rush speed

Don’t rush speed. Speed will come. You should never rush speed. That’s a shortcut you don’t want to take because your sound will suffer, big time.

You want to practice this very slowly. Get a really nice flow first. With repetition comes accuracy and with accuracy comes speed. I know speed is a bad word to some, but whatever. I happen to think you should have as many weapons in your arsenal as possible. If you can play the mean Blues, great. If you can play fast, great. Or if you can play jazzy, great. If you can be groovy, great. The more tricks you have up your sleeve, the better. Don’t limit yourself because some jackass got offended because he’s being a purist snob.

So learn this scale if you don’t already know it. Learn it up and down the neck. Become accurate at it first, then let the speed develop on its own. You can incorporate it into your licks or runs or other bags of tricks. There are times when I’ll do this one on its own too. It’s got a pretty cool sound. Add a few bends somewhere in there and you’re golden.

Enjoy!

Roman

Roman from Astral Eyes
Roman is one of two guitarists in the twin lead guitar band Astral Eyes.

Image of Roman shot by Kate. Thanks Kate!

You do have time to practice guitar

Yes, you do have time to practice guitar. I’m assuming if you’re reading this, you have a day job. If this isn’t a complaint of yours, you can safely ignore this article. If however, you feel like you do not have time to practice, read on.

To make time to practice guitar, you need to make time to practice. You need to start creating the right habits. One thing you’ll see in life is that people who are good at anything have consistently good habits. People who are bad at everything tend to have very bad habits. Luck actually plays a small part in life. You might hate me for saying this, but it’s true. Some folks are consistently unlucky, but with the right habits, they can make the best out of bad luck. But that’s another rant for another time. Let’s talk about practicing guitar.

Pick up a guitar first thing in the morning

What do you do the very first thing in the morning? Pick your nose? Drink coffee? Check your email? OK, if you didn’t answer “practice guitar” or anything equivalent, you gave the wrong answer. Very first thing you should do in the morning, before the coffee and before checking your email is pick up your guitar. Even if it’s for only five minutes, pick up the guitar and practice scales.

Yes, you don’t want to be late for work. I get that. Then only do it for five minutes. At least you got your scales in for the day.

You need to do that daily. Every. Single. Day. Wake up, grab your guitar, and do scales. If you got ten minutes, even better. Practice first thing in the morning. Always. No excuses.

Find time to practice guitar while watching TV

Second, do you watch TV? If you answered no, then you have time to practice. If you answered yes, then practice guitar while watching TV. It may drive your girlfriend or your boyfriend nuts, but that’s their problem. They’ll get used to it. Grab the guitar, don’t plug it into the amp, and practice while watching TV.

You can multitask. Your ancestors did it. If you’re watching an hour show, get an hour in. You’ll still absorb the show but more importantly, you’ll get your hour of practice in.

Every chance you get, practice. Coming home for lunch? Squeeze in five to ten minutes of practice. You cooked and the food is in the oven? Good. That gives you time to practice guitar. Doing laundry? Let the machine do the work and practice your guitar.

Every chance you get. Make time to practice guitar. Get those good habits going and within only a few years, you’ll be a pretty good guitarist. It’s all about time. The more time you practice, the better you will be.

Roman

Roman from Astral Eyes
Roman is the Guitarist, Pianist, Composer, and Orchestrator for the world’s first Romantic Metal band – Astral Eyes. Their first album “Another Sacrifice Gone Wrong” is available now!.

Image of Roman shot by Kate. Thanks Kate!

Metal is about to enter a second Golden Age…

Heavy Metal music is about to enter a second Golden Age. How do I know this? I don’t. It’s a prediction. However, we have some signs:

1. People are saying that Metal in America is dead. We’ve heard this before when in the late 70s, the talking heads declared Metal dead and punk to be king. We all know what happened next.

2. The experts are declaring that music in general is dying because nobody can make money except for a very few pop acts. I hesitate to call these pop acts “artists” because most of these people are performers, not artists. Artists involves making art. This ain’t art.

3. The kids need something to listen to. I’ve talked to so many kids who are musically stuck in previous generations because they can’t stand the most of the music coming out today. (You may interpret this as a bad thing, but it’s a really good thing. It’s like buying into the stock market when everyone else has left it).

4. You don’t need a major label to record good music. There’s an excess today of extremely talented Producers and guess what? They’re charging less than they were charging in the 80s and 90s. Bad for them. Good for young bands with limited budgets. For the first time in your lifetime, you can hire these people with a bank loan or credit cards to record a full album. This has never happened before. You’d always need a record label to front you the money. Now, you can do it yourself.

5. There’s an excess of places where you can get people to listen to your music. Not too long ago, you had the radio and MTV. And that’s it. If you don’t get on the radio and/or MTV, you don’t get heard. Period. You had no career. This is a pretty epic change.

So, what does this all have to do with Metal?

Everything. Except for the 80s, Metal has been underground. Metal still has a strong, devoted following. More devoted than any other form of music. By far. Metalheads are more devoted to their music than punks are to theirs, or rap fans to theirs, or ska fans to theirs, or jazz fans to theirs.

Just being realistic. You know this is true because you’ve seen it first hand.

All we need now is for four or five Metal bands to lead the way. When it happens, it will be the second Golden Age of Metal. Mark my words. It will happen sooner than later.

Sevendust Band Review

OK, so I haven’t posted in a while, life was hectic for a while there. Without further introduction, I choose Sevendust as the next band review. I was supposed to see them a few months back, but unfortunately didn’t make it on time to see them on the stage.

Sevendust band review

Sevendust

Sevendust band review

Sevendust has been around since 1994 and continuing and they have 10 CDs. For the sake of this article, and just like before, I will not review all 10. I respect your time in which it would take to read a review about 10 CDs and all of their tracks. The band members are Lajon Witherspoon as lead vocals, Clint Lowery and John Connolly as guitarists and backing vocals, Vince hornsby as bassist, and Morgan Rose as the drummer and percussionist.

The CDs I have picked for this review is the self titled and first CD, Sevendust from 1997, Seasons from 2003, Chapter VII: Hope and Sorrow from 2008, and the latest Time Travelers and Bonfires from 2014.

The debut CD has 11 tracks, I will use track 1, 6, and 11 for this CD’s review.

The first track, “Black”, is relatively simply yet very entertaining, mostly due to the rhythm of the song as a whole. It is very bluesy type of jazz… Which metal and rock are influenced by traditionally, much like Alice Cooper’s generation of metal/rock genres. It is not a heavily or, rather, over produced song style. It is rather raw yet still polished. The guitar solo around 2:40-3:06, and it is really groovy. I love groove in music; no matter what genre. So this song is very simplistic, both lyrically and musically. It is refreshing because so many bands now try to had too much. It reminds me of the simpler music that the old school rock and metal had, and I actually really like this song. I love fancy music, but sometimes, it can be a little too much when it is done constantly.

The sixth track, “Prayer”, is a slower song, that picks up and you can hear the jazz and blues-y influences even more in this. Specifically in the guitar, bass, and vocalizing. Then the drums pick it up making it a little heavier. The lead singer’s screaming during “Who do you pray to?” is on the weak/newbie screamer side, so it really does show how fresh to the music scene they were, and that is also probably why they took a few years after being formed to put this CD out in 1997. I do like his voice, and the song is pretty self explanatory. A 2:22-2:43, the music is picked up and a little heavier, it is fun and it really made me want to sway and dance while trying to head bang…I don’t recommend doing those three things all at once if you get dizzy though. It gave a nice change to the otherwise pop style lyric pattern. The lyrics are honest and well meant, it can get stuck in your head due to the pop style they used during writing it. Most of the time, pop style lyrics can be annoying, and which it is for this song after a while. Although I still love the lead’s voice and the guitar and bass in this song.

The 11th track, “Born to Die”
This track comes in to a very heavy dark cloud of awesome. the singer’s growl is a lot stronger on this track. This whole song is meant to do head banging with. I could not stop myself, especially with the part where the drums and the guitars are pounding together in pulses.

The lyrics have no special meaning and it would of been perfect to have some kind of purpose with such potential to the vocal lines. The singer is giving of his best anger to this song but it is just very simple lyrically. It gives it a kind of genius to have something so instrumentally fun with very plain lyrics, while also making me wonder why did they not write stronger lyrics. My favorite part of the song is from 2:41 – 3:48. Because after the 3:48 mark, they do this loud static buffering distortion and my ears are very sensitive to that type of sound, otherwise the whole last part of the song would have been my favorite.

The second CD, seasons, has 12 tracks, and I have chosen 1, 4, 8, and 12 for this CD.

Song one is titled “Disease”, this CD is a HUGE improvement on all fronts! Vocals, lyrics, and overall instruments. The singer’s vocals have strengthened and have developed depth that was originally missing. The song is pretty much up to interpretation, ranging from greed, prejudices against those with body modifications, or to how hypocrisy is plaguing the world (wanting change while not doing anything about it). Lajon’s voice has this pleading quality in the song in parts, which quickly changes into rage. Then his voice changes into a wise understanding tone back into rage; constantly going back and forth between each tone throughout the song. The drums and guitar are very catchy and very well defined – very enjoyable.

Song 4, “Broken Down” starts with this electronic filter bass, the whole song has the electronic filter but in hints, not overpowering. the guitar riffs are subdue to match the overall feel of the vocalizing. the drums and guitar pick up slightly during the chorus. It is tastefully done. The song sounds like is may have a female vocalist in there, pointing out clearly this is a failed relationship song, possibly someone is still attached. The Female voice I am hearing could possibly be Rose. It is very gothic in its arrangement while being very electronica metal. I think the two voices match well together; adding a blend of love, tenderness, and morosity, effect.

Song eight is “Disgrace”, and the intro is very jammin’ with the bass, perhaps the coolest bass intro from Sevendust so far. The song is pretty much about regret in one’s life, these mistakes make the it clear it is the writer’s fault and he takes responsibility, but wishes to move on. It is definitely very relatable. This song shows off Lijon’s strong singing voice (no growls are included in singing, sorry.) the rest of the song’s riffs are simple and muted. The focus is Lijon’s voice, up until 3:35, where his voice is slowly leaving the song until the song’s end. I can literally feel the concern and the regret from his voice.

The last song, twelve, is “Face to Face”, heavy distortions on guitars and bass, vocals are raw but still improved, so it is like a visit to their past vocal style. The main feelings I get from this song, it has been done before. The sound is not fresh and reminds me of a few other artists’ songs. It isn’t bad, but since it sounds like another song, it isn’t good. The vocals are boring in this song, and it gets very korn style like also. but the guitars and drums are still solid. The main unoriginality is the vocal lines, the message of the lyrics, and the overall melodies and rhythms. But you can still rock out to it, and if that is all you are into, or you want a decent workout song to get pumped to, this could work.

Chapter VII: Hope and Sorrow has eleven tracks, the tracks for this CD review are 1, 6, and 10. I am looking forward to 6 has it has Chris Daughtry featuring in the song.

Song numero uno, “Inside” has the drummer using her percussions, about time! I am a huge fan of percussions! It is very electronica in the beginning, with a slow build up, a powerful shred on the guitar’s and bass’s riffs, along with a very cool and sweet drum fill. Lijon’s vocals come in hot and growly, then he starts singing and his voice once again improved. His screams are seemingly influenced by Disturbed (yuck) and Lijon has outdone that band’s lead singer’s own style! The normal singing style is almost like Rush’s (over rated) Geddy Lee meets R.E.M’s (too whiney) Michael Stipe. The difference is the fact he is not nasally or whiney, his vocal tone quality is a hundred percent better. The reason I compared him to those two singers is because of how he sings certain words and vowels; like “yourself this time”, “try”, “inside”, “Coming”, “Warnings”, and “me”. Then there is dueling guitars and bass right at 3:09, then at 3:24, there is a kick ass guitar riff. So this song is already an amazing start to this CD.

Song six, “The Past”, is a ballad, The voices are a great contrast, Lijon doesn’t have a rasp like Daughtry’s, plus Daughtry has a folk/country/rock quality to it. So it is perfectly balanced out by Lijon’s smooth vocals. In this particular song, there is a very brief moment in Lijon’s voice that reminded me of Primal Fear’s Ralf Scheeper. The guitars are acoustic for this song and is a very nice touch. This song is about moving on and repairing from any type of depression or incident. And dealing with the constant up and downs of the mind and emotions that life, relationships, or chemical imbalances throw at you.

Number dix! “Contradiction”, There is not much to say about this song vocally. It does have a cool soft electronica intro and awesome riffs. This seems to be the first song with real guitar solos, in several places. The one towards the end is my favorite. Vocally speaking, it is another unoriginal style. This is disappointing due to the really cool instrumentals and short instrumental breaks. I really like the distortions and the drums and the guitar solos though. It even as a “Psych! Song isn’t over.” ending. It is worth listening to just because of the band’s work on the music – minus the vocals.

The latest CDs Time Travelers and Bonfires. This CD is what I am most familiar with.
The three tracks for this CD’s review is “Come Down”, “One Life”, and “Black”.

“Come Down” is perhaps my favorite song, it is also the CD’s first track. I love it because of the vocals and the simple intro that continues down throughout the song. It has a very different feel to it than all the rest, which is amazing since it is original. They are known to have songs that sound like other bands’ music, because those music melodies sell. This is also one of the most mellow of their songs besides their ballads. This song is like new age meets metal, and I really like how they did it. the bass and guitar shine to me in this song, especially at 2:30.

“One Life” is the ballad on this CD that is absolutely addicting, not because of how mushy it is, which it is, but I just really love the raw emotion in it, and the melody is beautiful, especially when it picks up in parts. The drums add a very nice atmosphere to match a scene in a TV show right were something dramatic happens in a relationship. the timing is perfect and I loved the piano. It sounds very honest, like all of their music, but this song in particular is the most honest of them so far. The song’s guitar solo is epic yet short, at 3:18, it gives an extreme sense of the emotion behind the lyrics.

“Black” has this great intro, using bass, guitar, and acoustic guitar, the sound is amazing when it is combined. His vocals has a great edge to this track also. A type of subdued anger I wish he would use more often. This song isn’t the best off this CD, but his voice is something to take note of here, and as earlier stated, the intro is pretty cool. That being said…

Ratings:

CDs: 7/10
Guitars/bass: 10/10
Band: 10/10

I just wish they would kick their style up a notch, since they have the talent and all…


Bridget duh-guitars.com Sevendust Band Review

Review by Bridget. Bridget is a professional writer. Her hobbies include guns, knives, and archery. Image of Sevendust by Jodo and licensed under Creative Commons 3.0. Thanks Jodo! Image of Bridget used by her permission.

Huntress Band Review

Huntress Band Review by Bridget for duh-guitars.com

Bridget’s Huntress Band Review

Now, I’ve heard many complaints about how metal has been taken over by symphonic metal bands and thus decreased the quality of metal. Huntress is not a symphonic metal, but a 2009-present traditional metal band.

Huntress is an American Metal band and is fronted by Jill Janus with Bake Meahl on lead guitar.
They currently only have two CDs and have been to Mayhem Festival 2013 ( I got to attend but sadly did not make it to see them.)

Their debut CD is the 2012 Spell Eater, with a total of 11 songs. The first song on the CD is that of the same title “Spell Eater” and was the first song I listened to from the band that made me a fan. The intro of the song has a nice strong guitar strumming along side a cool rhythm guitar melody. The drums follow shortly; this intro is nothing short from being bad ass. At about 0:30 the drums speed up and the guitar and rhythm guitar are dueling for the melody. Jill’s strong vocals then start at 0:34, leaving no time to get tired of the riffs and drums. Around the one minute mark, the guitar riffs change to this really cool melody but gives way to Jill’s strong voice so you are not overwhelmed. At 1;10 that changes into this really racing tempo for the lead guitar, right as Jill is not using her full vocal power. When she goes back to taking the focus, the guitar eases up. They really know how to be well balanced. If there was a way to copy the sounds of the riffs on to paper, I would…but would read “Bun duuuuun dun buh…digdiot do dit do do do DOOOOO” In English, the guitarist is pretty awesome. Specially since I lost hope for any American metal band out there. The whole purpose of the guitar riffs in this song is to convey power and greed and being unable to stop due to dying if the “spell eater” and her coven does. So it turns to not wanting to stop to not being able to.

“Night Rape” is another noteworthy song, however, there is not an official video for this song.
From 1:19 – 1:30, there is this maniacal riff before the vocals come back, following the riff with the lyrics “Can’t sleep can’t breathe”. The vocals describing victims and the riff adding the menacing atmosphere to the song. Starting at 1:45 there is a kickstarter to a longer guitar solo, which starts at 1:53 – 2:21, consisting of scales, shredding and string bending. Giving the song a new urgency besides the danger earlier in the song. Lyrics wise, I feel that “Night Rape” is about society forcing beliefs onto others, not actual rape. Or, you can go for the face value and say it is strictly fantasy lyrics talking about a demon summons gone terribly wrong. Either way, the lyrics are interesting even if they are a little short. And the song gives way to an awesome guitar solo due to how short lyrically it is.

“Terror” is another song from the first CD, the 9th track, actually. The very start of the song, the guitar and drums live up to the title, portraying, terror; shit is about to get real. “No one stays alive” is part of the beginning lyrics…”this is war, you will never get out” is after. The guitars definitely scream that this is strictly war and you won’t be able to fight back. Throughout the song, the guitarist adlibs quite frequently and nicely at that. At 2:05 the guitar solo starts, and it is powerful and distorted and angry and ends at 2:30. Jill’s growl at this point was pretty sweet at that too. Starting at 4:00, the rest of the song is instrumental, telling the listener it was not a very good outcome for those who were attacked. The guitar riffs throughout the end were well worth the wait. One of the best songs to listen to the guitarist in my opinion.

The Second CD is Starbound Beast from 2013, 11 tracks as well, the last track (gasping) a Judas Priest cover! In this CD, there is another guitarist, Anthony Crocamo. You can hear the two different styles of the guitarist throughout the tracks of the CD; it is really awesome to have two guitarists teaming up with two different styles! It gives a cool effect, like that in the song “Blood Sisters”. It is in the whole song, where you can hear the two distinctively. The song is not very thrilling, but musically speaking, especially the beginning until 0:28, the musicians are really talented. This seems to just be on the CD just to show off her band, which doesn’t happen often in a CD.

So, the next song is “I Want to Fuck You to Death”, The vocals are the main point in this song, and rightly so, she is amazing. And then at 2:01, the guitar solo reaps out even more lust to the listener. Back to the song though, at first listen, you will think it is just about, well, sex. However, to me, I hear this coming from a succubus, because “Let me suck your breath”. Succubi, are the female versions of Incubi. Both use sex to drain life out of the person they seduced and they cannot reproduce; so either way it is a provocative song indeed. The guitar solo really makes me want to dance and I can see this being used in a strip club. Not for the obvious reasons honestly, but for the guitar solo, which ends at 2:28. This song should also be noted for having the lowest note I’ve heard her sing so far. The ending instrumentals are pretty fun and her echo of the title until 3:30 is a nice touch and then it just ends. The guitarists do a splendid job all the way up to the last second of the track.

The Last song to judge is…the Judas Priest cover! “Running Wild”. She is very grudging and growly in the song, an aspect I don’t really enjoy. But the long notes she gets to hold out, has nice vibrato. The guitarists and drums have no issue covering this song and they seem perfect.
I wish, vocally, she would have just sang it. Because there is a couple of notes I hear that she is just amazing on and then she starts doing the growly thing. Otherwise, the musicians did perfectly and Jill, not so much.

The rest of the second CD is amazing along with the rest of the first. The Guitarists are fun and talented and the metal style is refreshing since metal is being overrun by “bands” like Cannibal Corpse.

My ratings:

CDs 9/10
Guitar(s) 10/10
Band 10/10


Bridget duh-guitars.com Huntress Band Review

Review by Bridget. Bridget is a professional writer. Her hobbies include guns, knives, and archery. Image of Huntress by Floris Looijesteijn. Licensed under CC 2.0. Thanks Floris! Picture of Bridget used by her permission

Dream Evil Review

Welcome back! This review is for the Swedish Metal band Dream Evil. Here is the brief background information to get started: Swedish band, formed in 1999-still formed, and they have had different guitarist and other band members over the years. There are five CDs from this band.

Dream Evil for Bridget's Dream Evil Review

Bridget’s Dream Evil Review

The first CD, Dragonslayer, has 12 songs total. In the song “Heavy Metal in the Night”, you get this awesome riff, and the drums join in. It feels like the old epics from Homer if they had a Metal soundtrack; sounds like war, power, fame! About 2:50 or so into the song you get the start of the guitar solo. I loved how the guitarist entered in the solo by doing the sliding on the guitar. Throughout this song, they sound victorious. So, I listened to yet another song. So I tried the ballad “Losing You”, it is just the piano and the lead vocals, beautiful and painful, until 1:02 the guitar hits a strong strum, sending the shivers through even more than the start of the piano’s weeping melody. The guitar is slow, strong, and passionate, perfectly balancing out the piano’s sorrow and the vocal’s longing. The lyrics are powerful and it is done justice with the guitar and piano. As the song builds up vocally, the guitar solo starts using a lot of bending on the chords and strings and a lot of small slides; it makes the guitar sigh and cry.

The guitarist for this CD is Gus G. Hi is only 33 and is Greek. He has been with a lot of bands which include Arch Enemy and Ozzy. No wonder why he is so amazing! He is on Evilized and The Book of Heavy Metal. So, Evilized has 12 songs originally, however, since the band is infamous in Japan, they get three bonus tracks.

The song “Children of the Night” starts with a distorted rhythm guitar which leads into the lead guitar shredding. This song is calling out for all those lost souls, for all the insomniacs out there.

It is catchy and I could not help dancing to the guitars – lead and rhythm. “Children of the night, searching for the light…One can never be prepared” and then the shredding guitar solo kicks in at 2:33. I was singing along, the guitar solo picked back up. The guitar riffs are so…energetic and, well, metal! It seems to me, that the CDs going forward get better and better. The Rhythm guitarist has been there since 99’ – today; after all it is his band – Fredrik Nordstrӧm.

The second song for Evilized is “By My Side”, the moment I played this song, I went “woah…” my speech was taken from me from the drums and the rhythm guitar riff the started as soon as the YouTube video loaded. It is another fighting/war riff that pounds along side the drums. It is urgent and less about fun in a war like “Heavy Metal in the Night”. “By My Side” is more about pressing forward, loyalty and the stress of battle. You can hear the loss of war in the speed of the riff of the guitars and the drums. “dun dun dun dun…dun dun…(insert odd guitar solo here)”. By odd, I mean unique, I have yet to hear how the short solo is started anywhere else. It sounded almost techno like but is was purely just the guitar and how Gus G. was bending the strings and chords. You can hear the difference in the guitar riffs and solos from the two songs. “Heavy Metal in the Night” is saying “Yeah, let’s rape, pillage, and kill! We will win! We always are victorious, no matter the enemy!”. The guitars are joyous while you can still tell it is sounding like war, while “By My Side”’s riffs and solo is more about just surviving in war.

The third CD The Book of Heavy Metal, Gus G stayed around for the recording and was then replaced by Markus Fristedt for live performances of previous music and for the fourth CD United. I will not review the third CD as the line up of band members kept changing. You can hear the difference is though, and it is still a good CD musically. Just really confusing. As the singers, drummers, and guitarists were in and out of the album. The musical direction also changed slightly. But it isn’t of any complaint.

United, the fourth CD, has a great and fun opening song “Fire! Battle! In Metal!” It is just pure fun, with amazing entering guitars! It is, in my opinion, more pop-y however, because it is so catchy.

The lyrics are not intelligent at all, and it obviously for fun. 2:38 has a short guitar solo that should have been longer, as it was really fun and very enabling of dancing. The whole CD is very different. You can hear the change in drums and guitars, it is more tin sounding and more hammering and a kind of not so good but not bad either. I personally like it, yet miss the sound of the first two CDs. Some people might not welcome the change as much as I did, which is why I had stated it is not bad nor good. The guitar riff in “Let Me Go” is still really strong and unbridled, just, different in style. Markus is a lot different than Gus G and you can tell. This song’s major solo starts at 3:08 and is a lot more melodic and slower than that of Gus G. It is all about preference, I like both styles. So I will also talk about “Love is Blind” off of this CD. It starts slowly and builds up. no specific solo until 3:34. Until then, the slower parts are arranged awkwardly for the vocals and the heavier parts are better. The solo is pretty awesome as in one part sounded for Native American music-ish.

The Latest CD is In The Night. The first song “Immortal” had an awesome guitar riff and intro. the vocal are back to normal, the guitarist is Daniel Varghamne. His style is amazing, definitely better than Markus from United and is good if you preferred Gus G. No foul on Markus, he is just as talented, just a style preference for me. Even lyrically is back on track of the first two CDs.

“In The Night” is nice and heavy; it sounds like another war anthem. The riff during this song is distorted and angry; it seeps out demanding intentions to rally the troops. It is a war anthem for Metal music! The whole CD (not counting the Japan bonuses) is beautifully done. It is definitely a nice come back from all the line up issues.The only thing is, the CD’s theme, it is about being a rock star, about being in a metal band, about hardship and beliefs.

The only thing is, Daniel left and Markus came back, so the current line up is: Fredrik (rhythm), Niclas (vocals), Peter (bass), Pat (drums), and Markus (lead guitar).

Each musician is amazing. It just comes down to preferences.

Ratings:

I will rate things from a talent perspective to prevent my own biases

CDs Overall 10/10
Guitarist(s) 10/10
Band overall 10/10

Each member has talent, and each CD has something for everyone. I would have spent more time on each CD but probably would be a novella if I analyzed every detail.


Review by Bridget.

Bridget duh-guitars.com music reviews Dream Evil Review

Bridget is a professional writer. Her hobbies include guns, knives, and archery. Dream Evil image shot in 2008 by Anchjo. Anchjo allowed this image to be used as Public Domain. Thanks Anchjo! Image of Bridget used by her permission.

Gojira Band Review

Gojira live in 2006

So, Out of all the new metal bands and its sub-genres, the few bands that, in my opinion, that are any good, are the old metal bands from the 70s to the 80s. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Black Sabbath, the list is continuous. But, what about today’s metal? Well, from the 90s – Today, will be what I base my reviews on for Guitar riffs and then the band as a whole. There will be two ratings thus given.  My reviews will be starting at the band’s recent song/album, then working backward to affect the ratings.

Bridget’s Gojira Band Review

The first band for this brand new and exciting website/blog, is Gojira. They are a French electronic death/thrash/groove/progressive metal. The style of electronic, or technical enhancements are focusing on the Singer’s voice, and so far that does not sound too good. But then the guitars kick in and it is amazing, especially when the vocals finally start growling. The first song to judge is the “Born in Winter” off of their latest CD L’enfant Sauvage  2012, (The Wild Child).

The Song starts off with drums and guitar, my two favorite instruments together. The guitar is nice a calm and highly relaxing. It is paired quite nicely with the drums about three or so seconds after the guitars are started, giving a mood pick and urgency to the guitars. This is where the progressive part of the band comes in, it because boring due to the length of time it is played. The the crappy electronic vocals kick in. Now, I do love tech/electro but this specific style picked out for the vocals leave little to be desired. SO the over used guitar and drums go on until about 1;50, then the drums pick up first and the band finally starts to actually do something different. At 2:19, you get to hear how awesome the guitarist is. Riding with the guitar is the singer’s long growl and heavy drums, but they are done in a way to not overshadow the guitarist while actually emphasizing the different chords the guitarist is playing, mainly the scream, which goes along side to the main notes you can hear in the riff.

Unfortunately, the boring part kicks back in, the song has a rating of 3/10. The guitarist has 10/10. It, however, would not be fair is I only just rated that one song. So I then listened to the song of the same name, “L’enfant Sauvage”, and immediately a smile had crossed my face, the guitarist had come in heavy, angry, loud! The drums smashed right with the guitarist in the same “I hate the world and I don’t give a fuck” attitude which immediately gave me a sudden chill which fueled a need and desire to mosh and break faces. Then the crappy electro/tech vocals kicked in, and then the no change in guitar nor the  drums, giving me that boring dragging of the progressive metal. At least I can say the riff is a little bit better. The reason why I kept listening, is because at 1:10 the singer takes of the voice effects and screams, the guitar riffs change and the drums change and everything is once again incredible. Then around 1:25, the melody increases and they prove that they are very groovy, I wanted to dance and then towards the ending they repeat the boring beginning but briefly before they go into a riff and musical frenzy, adding a much needed change. The coolest part for the guitars is the slide between 2:26-2:28.

the screaming during the 2:00 mark is remarkable, the guitarist is just insane and incredible, the drums are epic, and then, the stupid electro/tech vocals kick in again and then you get a nice chill piece of instrumentals at 3:45 where the guitar is impeccable because of how soft and melodic the chord arrangement is. This song is 8/10 and the guitarist is again 10/10, it made me want to know his name; Christian Andreu

I will say this, I will listen to the rest of this CD but based on these two songs, they will follow a pattern of interesting > boring > amazing>back to the original boring> and something totally different than started with. So, the CD, knowing the singer will not change the effect of his voice, and knowing prog metal, I will rate 6/10 as the guitarist and the drummer save the band. I would only see Gojira live because of the guitarist and drummer, they make an excellent team.

The band’s rating as a whole, after I went back to the previous CDs, I have to say, the older stuff is a lot better, guitar wise, riff wise, even drum wise. the song “Rise” from the first CD is amazing!!!!!! the guitar, drums, and vocals are pure, effortless, angry, evil, neck breaking, ear shattering goodness. All that is holy of the music Gods, this song from their first CD Terra Incognita is the best recent death metal I’ve heard besides the other very obvious metal bands that make any headbanger say:  “Well duh, of course [that band’s name here]”

“Go back! To the source!” I found myself singing to “Rise”

Then I listened to “Love” the first emotion I am filled with is this mellow, calm, empty longing. It is a great day when a guitarist and bassist can make you feel emotions through their talents. Then the drums get heavier with the guitarist’s riffs. The singer is amazing, why did he even bother adding in the tech/electro aspect to the band? There is a hint of it in “Love” but it isn’t overdone, and it is a different vocal filter. Immediately as it is used, it is gone and filled with his amazing guttural growling. The guitarist begs you to headbang, the drummer makes your body sway, this CD is this band’s first and best. Filled with passion from all members. I can now tell you, that with the added prog metal aspect and tech/electro, the guitarist is not doing half the decent job as in this CD compared to their latest. So, after I went to the From Mars to Sirius CD and to the song “Flying Whales”. It is then I can hear the prog metal genre sneak its way into their music.

Thus, leaving me bored, even with the intro’s grooviness.The song is little over seven minutes. I love my lengthy music, I love classical too, duh, however, with prog metal, it is very hit or miss, you can’t take something repetitive and call it good. Nor can you make a seven minute song that repetitive and boring and expect people to like it. Yes, I realize there are prog metal fans, and I apologize; Seriously, even classical music is not this repetitive. at 2:28 in the song, the guitarist and drummer change beats and melodies (finally) but then you get the tech/electro on the vocals… WTF guys, wtf happened! And yes, the guitarist saved them, yet again, but his talent cannot stifle the amount of boring this song has. He has extreme talent, but the amount of time each little thing he changes, goes on for a long period of time. And from 5:01 -5:38 they go back to what the first CD had, but a little bit more well produced. and then back into the majority of what this song has.

I am afraid to go back the the CD before Sirius and to even listen to the other songs. I am however, giving the band a 7/10 because I know what they can do, from the first CD, which I will hold dearly to my chest and scream “WHY?!?!?!?!” as I cry to the fact they are wasting their talent. Well, thanks for reading and I will write another review in a week!

Ratings:

CDs overall: 4/10

(due to hit or miss within the same song of any given CD after the first CD)

Guitarist overall: 10/10

Band overall 6/10

(if the first CD was anything like the newer ones, it would be 3/10, the first CD saved them)


Review by Bridget.
Bridget duh-guitars.com music reviews Gojira Band Review

Bridget is a professional writer. Her hobbies include guns, knives, and archery.

Image of Bridget used by Bridget’s permission. Image of Gorija shot by Jarkko Iso-Heiko on July 2, 2006 and has the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

How to get a Killer Metal Tone

How to get a Killer Metal Guitar Tone

I’m going to give you some pointers on getting a killer Metal guitar tone. Now keep in mind, guitar tone is subjective. What might be music to one’s ears may be noise to another. But for Metal, the majority of guitarists with over a decade experience will agree with at least half of what I say for a reason.

The honest truth is tone is about half technique, half equipment. You can have a guitarist with the best equipment, but if she’s a shitty guitarist, she’ll get a shitty guitar tone. I’m not talking about performance here, I’m talking straight up tone. Now, take a technically proficient guitarist with mediocre equipment, and she’s getting some pretty good tones out of what she has to work with. So first off, work on your technique. Equipment is secondary.

Guitar tone depends on several physical things – the guitar’s body, the guitar’s pickups, and the amps. There are even minor things that will affect your tone, like old dirty strings will sound like old, dirty strings. And of course, a bad chord will make the worst sounds at the worst possible moments.

But assuming you have decent, relatively new strings and working chords, you want a heavier guitar. Heavier guitars tend to have better sustain and they are less likely to have muddy sounds.

tube amps help considerably in how to get a killer Metal guitar toneThe second thing you want is a tube amp. We could argue until we’re blue in the face which tube amp is best for Metal, but 9 out of 10 Metal guitarists who have been playing for awhile will go with getting a tube amp over a solid state one. Now, you can get good sounds from a solid state modeling amp. You don’t absolutely need a tube amp to get a killer Metal tone. But solid state amps break up at higher volumes, whereas when you push a tube amp to its limit, that’s when it sounds great. And, I’m assuming you’ll be playing in clubs or recording in a real studio. So you’ll want to turn it up.

And lastly you need good pickups. I used to be a Seymour Duncan fan boy. I love the pickups Randy Rhoads used. But I have one guitar with DiMarzio’s and you know what? They’re just as good. Pickups are another thing that we can argue until we’re blue in the face on which pickups help you get that killer Metal tone, but once again, it’s subjective. Don’t cut corners here though, because 9 out of 10 Metal guitarists who have been playing for awhile will agree that cheap pickups are cheap for a reason – they tend to suck.

Now, all that said, assuming your technique is really good, for some odd reason, some amps don’t work well with some guitars and some pickups don’t sound good with some guitars. You absolutely have to bring your favorite guitar into the guitar shop and try her with different amps. This is a MUST. You’ll have to find a combination that fits together.

Lastly, this is my personal opinion. I do not like using too many effects. I prefer to go guitar straight into the amp 90%+ of the time. That’s just me though. The more you cut the signal, the more you affect the tone.

And one last thing – I don’t like active pickups. I just don’t like them. Yes, there are absolutely awesome guitarists out there who use active pickups. Not denying that. I’m just saying that I don’t like them.

If you actually want to hear my playing, go here. For these songs, I used various tube amps. Each amp is different, but generally for rhythm tones, I have the bass around 80%, the mid-range around 40%, and the treble around 90%. For lead tones, I generally have them all around 60%. But keep in mind, like I said for getting a killer Metal tone, there are a lot of factors. Each setup is different and you’ll have to adjust accordingly. Keep fiddling around with the knobs until you find something you like.

-Roman (the guitarist from Astral Eyes)

Roman Astral Eyes guitarist composer

Roman is a Classically trained Composer. He plays Guitar and Piano for Astral Eyes. He’s also an amateur historian, a gun nut, and a fan of the Green Bay Packers who still has a soft spot for Brett Favre, despite the harsh breakup.


Article and image reprinted by from astraleyes.com by permission from both Vampiress Records and Astral Eyes

Photograph of amp tube by Olli Niemitalo. Photographer licensed this image for public domain. Thanks Olli!