Fuck chugging (never good) and even a great band such as early Mortification had an incredibly amateurish riff on their album "P.M.A." I'll have to listen to it at home and mention the song tomorrow.

Riffs are great, even the simplest ones are effective depending when they're used. What I don't like is when bands continuously adhere to the lowest chord in their arsenal (E-standard, C#, B or whatever their guitars are tuned to) to supply all the riffs for the duration of the song or even album. I can deal when other aspects of the band are strong enough to compensate for the sameness of the riffs, but it still bugs me over time while listening. Lots of thrash bands and old Swedeath groups do this among others. That's why I'll always appreciate bands like Morbid Angel that provide riffs from all over the fretboard while something like Immortal's last batch of releases wears me down to drowsiness due to almost everything based off the same chord.

Liturgy seem like something that would piss me off, but that's mostly down to just the way people talk about them, you saying they go up to 11 is promising cuz I just thought they were one of those "creative" type bands who spend half the time making soft stuff that could accompany a 9 year olds dance recital, I'll check it out cuz nothing better than pretentious bullshit that actually backs itself up in terms of sheer force

[ if I play a riff in say for example the in between the 5th and 8th frets it sounds way more evil and disturbed than if I play the same thing lower on the fretboard,

Curious, what tuning do you use that stuff you write sounds more evil between the fifth to eighth frets?

Personally I think way too many people are way too focused on the tuning when they should be focusing on keys. Different riffs sound better in different keys. I tune down to C standard and my most common keys to use are Cmin, Dmin, Emin, and Fmin. The way I change keys is to move up or down the fretboard.

I dislike the boring lifeless plodding 'non-riff' you find in a lot of gothic metal. I know, I know, who the hell listen to gothic metal for riffs?



Yeah, I can hear guitars. Would have been nice if they did anything remotely engaging.

I hate the way those bands go 'chugga chugga chugga weeeeeeeee weeeeeeeee chugga chugga diddly dooooooooo' y'know?

We've all been impressed by great, even amazing riffs, but sometimes we might be disappointed by a riff that doesn't hit the mark. Of course we all have our own preferences so my question is: What makes a riff bad for you? Is it being too generic, too simplistic, trying too hard, or something else? Or is it just being played in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Personally, I don't like riffs that spend too long chugging/tremoloing on a single note. It's alright when the guitars need to make space for the vocals in a verse, or as a short break to transition from one riff to another, but outside of that, it gets boring quickly.

I dislike the boring lifeless plodding 'non-riff' you find in a lot of gothic metal. I know, I know, who the hell listen to gothic metal for riffs?



Yeah, I can hear guitars. Would have been nice if they did anything remotely engaging.