Metal is a genre that prides itself on its technicality – but sometimes a meaty guitar riff is all you need to serve a great song. Getting faces scrunched and heads banging is one of the best things a heavy band can do, and it’s a fine art that takes years to master. Sometimes, writing a caveman riff is trickier than it seems.
One person that should know all about that is Sylosis frontman and guitarist Josh Middleton. “I’m not good at many things… but I think I am pretty good on the guitar,” he tells Metal Hammer as he sits down with us on a Zoom call. In advance of his band releasing their new album A Sign Of Things To Come in September, we asked the British metal virtuoso to name 10 songs that used immense complexity to make a riff that sounds so simple.
