Gone With The Riffs

Where are the memorable licks, riffs and catchy songs in today's metal scene?

Photo by Evgeniy Smersh on Unsplash

Heavy thrash metal icons Kreator released their new song ‘Seven Serpents’ from their up coming album ‘Krushers Of The World’ on September 26th 2025. This will be the bands sixteenth full length album. As of this article that single itself on Youtube has racked up a whopping 1M views. Making it the bands most successful single launch to date. The first twenty five second’s alone into the song is unbelievable and so catchy. After listening to the full song, the intro was looping in my head for hours. Please listen to the full song. You wont be disappointed at all. Link is below.

Kreator- Seven Serpents

Listening to that particular song brought back so many memories, especially just how amazing the riffs of that song are, the production and also it shows that the band have not lost their step in all the years in the industry. They still have that classic Kreator thrash metal style that has been the bands signature sounds since they came onto the scene in the early 80’s. Not just Kreator but giant’s the like of : Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Slipknot and Megadeath. These bands have brought us so many awesome songs and iconic riffs and sounds for the last forty years and more. Lets not forget the pioneers before them: Black Sabbath (RIP Ozzy), Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Judas Priest and White-Snake. Iconic songs: ‘Paranoid’ ‘Ace of Spades’ ‘The Trooper’ ‘Smoke on the Water’ ‘Here we go again’, ‘Seek and Destroy’ ‘Angel of Death’ ‘Walk’ ‘Psychosocial’ and ‘Peace Sells, but Who’s Buying’. These legends not only created a vibe and an image with their music but produced such unbelievable songs, riffs and jaw dropping solos, that it inspired generations ( and still do) of guitarist’s, drummers and bassist that have launched a thousand similar bands.

So, here we are in 2025. Metal has been around since the 70’s. We had our Black Sabbaths, our Motorheads, Metaillca’s, Pantera’s, Triviums and BFMV(Bullet For My Valentine). Songs have been written, riffs have been recorded and albums are now archived into the metal vault of iconic riffs. But, here is the thing that I am noticing lately in metal (or that has always been there, but I haven’t noticed) and especially with the new bands that are emerging from the scene. The question that keeps coming to my mind when I try to get into these new bands is: “Lads, where are the riffs?”

Before you say anything and make a list of riffs and songs that are heavier than a elephant dead-lifting a building, hear me out. I am not gate-keeping metal or any era of it. I am not saying that their aren’t any good, fantastic or brutal new bands out that are crushing the scene or finding new ground in metal. My core focus on this article is to ask: “Where have the riffs gone?” or “Is metal songs these days more of a sound or rather then making any memorable riffs?”

For example, the band Kublai Khan TX (who are one of the most heaviest and baddest bands I’ve come to listen to the most, so don’t come for me) have a song called: ‘Theory of The Mind’. It is probably one of the most rawness, heaviest song’s my eardrums ever heard. I love the grittiness, the atmostpheric feeling of the song and just the chugs of the open guitar. It is a mosh pit worthy, headbanging glorious song’s. Now, my rebuttal. Is that guitar in that song a riff? or is its more of a sound and vibe they are going for?

Listen to the song first:

Kublai Khan- Theory of the mind

Isn’t that just a teeth grinding, fist clenching belter of a song. It is everything that you want from a metal song, yes. This is where I feel I am nit picking now, ok. Is the song more of a vibe then being remembered for it’s riff? Is it trying to just be as brutal as can be? Do songs really need those catchy riff’s anymore or is the sound more what they are trying to potray?

Kublai Khan TX have similar songs that are just as heavy as the last which I am a fan of and listen to: ‘The Hammer’ being one and their latest ‘The Mountain of Corsicana’ with it’s crushing tone and lyrics, what a song BTW! Yikes! Goodbye my neck.

Again, is this more of a vibe then a riff to be remembered or is there a shift in how metal fan’s listen and engage with the music nowadays? Gone are the 80’s guitar riff’s with chord progressions and clean memorable riffs. Now it is distortion, open 6th string hammer on’s and maybe a pitch harmonic thrown in cause it feels needed.

I can say the same for a lot of similar bands that are out nowadays like : Paleface Swiss, Knocked loose, Slaughter to Prevail, Thrown and more. These bands are streaming millions of hits online, racking up mind boggling numbers on videos and non-stop touring. These are the new faces of metal and they aren’t the metal pioneers of yester-years. They aren’t looking to create riff’s, they not looking to write catchy songs or balance between radio play and underground sounds, no. They play hard, slow and sometimes brutal riffs with deep growling vocals and breakdowns that shake rooms. The bands nowadays are not chasing the same audience of metal fans anymore. The fans nowadays don’t care about the riffs (respectfully) but metal nowadays is more of a feeling, a vibe. The sound is now more important.

Metal has a new look, a new audience and a new pioneers that have taken the rein’s of the lost carriage that was the genre for the last few decades and have stirred it in a new direction. Metal is different then it was and has evolved with the times and with that it’s fan base, it’s direction and finally it’s sound. Metal finally sounds what it always sound of sounded like. Does that make sense?

I think that what makes it so intriguing especially for someone like me who has taken a massive step back from the music scene in general for the last few years. I have not given the time of day to any of the new metal bands that I have mentioned above, until only in the last year or more. It wasn’t that I was gate-keeping metal by saying: “Everything nowadays sucks and it’s not like the metal of my day”. It is nothing like that. The metal of my day, wasn’t even the metal of my day. I grew up in the early 2000’s but was raised by the metal/rock bands of the 70’s and 80’s. So I was already not in the current metal scene in my youth, to now look at this current metal scene and be taken back from all the artist’s that have emerged and still breaking down barriers. I wasn’t gate-keeping metal. I was gate-keeping myself from it.

And that is a very tough pill to swallow. Especially for someone like me at my age (36) who loves everything that is metal. The scene, the music, the concerts, the vibes and all the rituals that come with it, the long hair, leather jackets and boots. All of it. It is hard for me to realise that the band’s I’ve listened to growing up, where already grown up and the bands that are now considered staples in the metal scene like: Trivium, BFMV, Goijira who have been in the scene for more then twenty years and have numerous of albums to their name, are now considered legacy bands. It’s not that I haven’t listened to these bands or albums in those twenty years, of course I have, it is just that I have always kept it distance from me. At arm’s length, I enjoyed listening to them but I never really listened to them. You get me?

Now the metal scene has all these new kids on the block that grew up with the bands of the early 2000’s and have replicated their sound with the new heavy slam metal riff’s that are now everywhere in metal. So when I say: “Where are the riffs?” that is just me really saying: “Oh? so, this is metal now?”

There are no more iconic riffs, licks or melodies. It is replaced with chug palm muted drop A tuning guitars and the tremble turned up to ten. Screaming vocals and growls have always been a staple, but gone are they clean vocals ( not all of course) and drums that are so fast that it is impossible to believe that drummers are getting faster. Double kick pedals sounds like machine gun rounds and blast beats are so fast, I’m surprised they have a skin on the snare drum at all after every song.

Maybe the riffs are gone, but the vibes and chaos that these new bands are creating in the scene nowadays are simple amazing. I seen new metal bands in these new media landscape reaching audiences that were unheard of years ago. Some bands are racking up to 5M to 10M views for just one songs on the likes of Youtube. Never mind the albums and the playlist that they have.

Metal never had any gatekeepers. It was always an open genre that was one of the very few genres to allow quite a lot of experimental bands and gag bands in and yet still were considered apart of the wider community. Metal has always been the weird brother of the music industry, left alone and forgotten about by the main stream. That’s is why I loved it and fell into it. I was an outsider with other outsiders listening to music that felt it was only for us and use alone.

So in my closing of this article I want to just say that, this is not throwing shade at any bands nowadays that don’t have riffs in their songs ( of course you do, I have ears) This was just a perspective that I hope you have enjoyed reading and maybe I made a point in some way? Or maybe I just rambled on for no reason.

If I stepped on any toes, that wasn’t the intention nor the reason for this article. I’m just a thirty six year old man who grew up on my Fathers generation of metal /rock with those iconic songs and riffs that still take me back. I stepped out of the metal scene for so long that I now fell like I’m that outsider looking in and questioning everything. The scene didn’t pass me by, I’m the one who stopped going.

Now, I have the opportunity to listen to all these new bands that are coming up, finding new ways to redefine metal and reach a global audience that some bands back in the day could only dream of having.

So here’s to the vibes, the new scene and the ‘Arf Arf’s’ vocals that are now in metal. Long may it last.

Thanks for reading this think piece of mine. I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for taken the time to read my thoughts and words. Please consider subscribing if you like my work.

Slán go Fóill

-Marc Sean

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