I try to keep abreast of new music coming out. To be perfectly honest, most modern rock sounds pretty generic to my ears and doesn’t excite me at all… and then occasionally, I hear something that makes me go “Wow! How did they do that?” This is one of those tracks:
yup, this is good stuff. Some of that first riff didn’t work for me that slide part. Different. I thought the chorus was killer tho. Each time i listen to new work I realize that my hearing in the vocal range just ain’t makin it. Without the words across the screen I wouldn’t get the story. I wonder if that is why the video incorporated them? good to hear fresh stuff like you said Andy
I like what they’re doing with that simple opening riff. The sliding notes are a different spin than the usual. There’s lots of good stuff going on in this song and they seem to be trying to break out of the typical regurgitated standard stuff that we hear endlessly.
That production is pretty big sounding too. I had the same experience as Paul had while I was listening to the singing. A lot of the lyrics were hard to make out. It doesn’t bother me though because I’m hearing the melody and the expression of the vocal.
Big Wreck have been around for quite a long time but I’ve never heard this song before.
Not sure if this is appropriate for this thread but I can delete it if not.
I was mentioning the slides in the guitar riff from the Big Wreck song above. I sometimes try to incorporate exaggerated string slides into my playing. Here’s a riff I made and recorded last month to give an example of what I mean.
There’s no bass in this example.
I like that riff much better than the one we were talking about. Do you make one and loop it? I wish I could get that sound. I also am guilty of wanting your riff to graduate to another and another… ha ha well done Mr W
Wha??? I LOVE that! Best part of the song IMO!..anyhoo, you know what they say - “one man’s meat…etc.”
Don’t take this the wrong way Paul, but singing ain’t a sport where “stronger, faster, more” equals “great”. Some of the most revered singers in history had quite small ranges. You sing like you and it’s perfect for what you do. Yes, Ian Thornely just happens to have an incredible range but I don’t think that is the sole thing that moves people when they listen to him sing.
You’re right, the vocals are mixed quite low. My guess is that was done on purpose to enhance the sense of power in the music.
Lyric videos have been a “thing” for a while now. Most bands release a lyric video with a new single now. I guess it might be sort of an inexpensive way to get something visual to accompany the song without having to plump for a full-blown music video budget.
Yes, that’s what caught my ear. That riff is a real innovative hook. I really love hearing stuff like that. At first I thought it might have been a whammy pedal trick, but I think it is just a neck slide.
Big Wreck are great at creating gigantic guitar tones. There is a song off “Albatross” called “You Caught My Eye” which is basically just a blues, but the guitar tones are so massive, it takes it to a totally different place.
Yeah I first heard of them in the 90’s, but this is brand new - they just released it.
That is a really cool riff! Can’t wait to hear the finished song!
Thanks Paul. The riff is copy and pasted 1 time. So I played half of the clip you heard above and the second half was pasted. There’s 3 guitar parts playing the same notes but in different octaves. I doubled all 3 guitar parts manually, so there’s a total of 6 guitars.
Thanks Andrew. I’m glad you like it. Hopefully I can turn the riff into a good song.
After hearing that Big Wreck song I think I need to check out more of their recent stuff and even go listen to their back catalogue.
I’ve been guilty of the faster, higher, harder, stronger aspect of musical performance many times in the past. I even still sometimes find me asking myself “Am I showing enough of my performance skill in this song”, whether it be vocals, guitar, drums or bass. On the other hand I don’t think I have one recording where I’ve come close to my absolute best as far as technical skills are concerned because like you said, music is not a sporting contest and those things always seem to end up being not what’s best for the song and can sound very “un-relatable” to most listeners.
For a long time, I’ve been meaning to write and record a song that I intentionally create to be as technically difficult as I can handle just as an exercise. I probably haven’t got around to it because I place a lot more value in the “song” aspects of a song rather than the sporting, competitive side where music is viewed as an athletic performance. I also find that simplicity tends to be more catchy more often than complexity.