Word: riffs
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...after several years of live collaboration and half a year’s worth of hype, their self-titled debut lacks coherence and originality.“Monsters of Folk” oscillates between Oberst’s tired country tropes and James’ burnt-out classic rock riffs. The numbers that feature M. Ward’s vocals provide consistently solid songwriting, offering several truly fantastic tracks on an album that, on the whole, feels slap-dash, poorly executed, and only mildly enjoyable.On tracks like “Say Please” and “Losin?...
...Feeling Good,” a curve ball might crop up, but for the most part, Muse sing about one thing: the end of the world.A theme that big requires music of a similar scale to prop it up. For Muse, that means crunching guitar riffs and driving base lines overlaid with Matt Bellamy’s operatic, choirboy-gone-bad falsetto. When all these elements come together, Muse songs can be sublime slices of ominous, oddly euphoric prog rock; when they don’t, the songs veer quickly into the realm of the absurd. Through four albums...
...Movie buffs might appreciate this, because when Beck gets rolling on a particularly emotional riff, when the tears glisten and the shoulders shudder, Paddy Chayefsky, the great leftist playwright, looks like a prophet. He's the man who coined the phrase that, according to Luntz, is the rare thing Americans can agree on. He gave the line to Howard Beale, the mad anchorman at the center of the dark satire Network...
...most obvious example of this; its intro is marked by an emphasis on the off-beat. The drums, entering in the in the second verse, match the syncopation of the acoustic guitar perfectly, as the electric guitar pronounces the off-beats. A piano nonchalantly doodles a jazz riff. On top of all this is a string quartet that serves to double the melody and also support it with fugal harmonies. All of these elements come together and create a balanced song, at once energetic and easy on the ears. The choice of “Heartbeat Radio?...
...Furnaces, that means abandoning experimental tendencies for unexpected accessibility. The album opens at high energy, but the frenetic driving beat of the title track soon relaxes into a calm, agreeable record. An early highlight, “The End Is Near,” features a bluesy piano riff refreshing for its childlike simplicity. The guitar breakdown in follow-up track “Drive to Dallas” is one any shredder could be proud of, and its improbable fluctuations in energy showcase lead vocalist Eleanor Friedberger’s distinctive voice. At the Furnaces’ best, their...