So, have you ever noticed something similar about two bands, two albums, two songs, etc? For example:

We all know Burzum (the album) has a song named "War". Almost that exact same riff is present in Evocation's "Where The Headstones Shine". Not only that, but there are a number of titles on Evocation's album that have really similar titles to Burzum songs. (On A Journey To Heaven - My Journey To The Stars, Desolated Spirits - A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit, The Ancient Gate - My Key To The Gate)

Those last ones might be a little far-fetched, but anyway. Have you ever noticed anything like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J34_jWU0O1k riff in Urgehal - Mirror Satan that starts at 1:10 is lifted from the amazing...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQu1bpUkkfI Svartsyn -Dungeons at 2:47

another riff rip off by Urgehal, on this song Demonrape: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ox2SIuh94 the intro riff starting at :00 is stolen from Marduk - On Darkened Wings starting at :17
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLHSr6Fkyek

i like urgehal and own both those urgehal albums but they are/were infamous for riff "borrowing" from much better swedish black metal bands. it explains why they're one of the few norwegian black metal bands i actually like.


there's tons of examples of songs that steal riffs from each other, whether its knowingly or unknowingly. there are only so many variations and many people who have similar mindsets come to the same or at least similar conclusions.

Yeah well I thought the "coincidence" with the riff+the titles was pretty interesting...

Far more interesting if you ask me are the bands that rip off themselves.

good example is the first riff in both of these songs:
Cannibal Corpse - Fucked With a Knife

Cannibal Corpse - Disfigured

only a single album apart too.

Lol, that is interesting. How they didn't notice that (or simply didn't care) is beyond me, definitely.

The first time I heard Arch Enemy's "Burning Angel", I thought my iPod has skipped over to "Hangar 18" accidentally.

Overkills Elimination is pretty much rips off the main Master Of Puppets riff and Sabatons Attero Dominatus is very very similar to Nightwish's Wishmaster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_a4WgIctWQ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R82paQbF0Yo

I honestly only ever saw those as being vaguely similar at best. Elimination's riff is more than different enough.

Arch Enemy had a number of tribute riffs on Burning Bridges. Bark At the Moon, Astronomy, and another one I can't finger at the moment were all given tribute to on that album.

Blood Red Throne does awesome tribute riffs, as well. This one in particular, a nod to Killing Fields at the 2:55 mark:

immortal maiden is my fav example of these: where eagles dare / solarfall

also, concerning bands recycling their own stuff, bolt thrower just has to be mentioned with their cenotaph / embers / powder burns / the killchain (did i miss any?)

Stratovarius Reign of Terror has a lot of similarities between Megadeth's Symphony of Destruction

Bolt Thrower - Powder Burns and a Heaven Shall Burn - Counterweight.

The main riff on Counterweight is a complete and utter rip off of Powder Burns and what makes it even more obvious is that HSB cite Bolt Thrower as their main influence musically. I'm not against bands taking heavy cues from other bands and with the case of BT they are massively influential but that song is just robbery.

These two fragments are almost identical:

http://youtu.be/qIeoTXhQ_Uo?t=3m46s

http://youtu.be/sf7REF_qcxQ?t=8m28s

We can play this all night with Arch Enemy. Spot the riff in this one, from the Khaos Legions album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1SlcO0Fikc

There's a riff in Cannibal Corpse "Edible Autopsy" that sounds like one of the riffs in Death's "Leprosy" during the slower part.

1:51 in Leprosy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFyZvw84T3g

compare to: 0:33 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwH8NDCeA0k

There's also a Horna song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9131weOqyCQ

which has a main riff that sounds like Isengard's "Naglfar" at 2:53

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWLt2lf2IVg

Even Behemoth did this, I don't see how they didn't realize this

From the Pagan Vastlands
Natural Born Philosopher
Not exactly the same, but very similar

A while ago, someone pointed out a few times where Eluveitie basically ripped off Dark Tranquillity riffs. I don't remember the exact ones, though.

Onmyo-Za's Nemuri borrowed a riff from Iron Maiden's "Fear of the Dark". I'm sure its just homage though.

How about "Elimination" and the intro to Kreator's "Love Us or Hate Us"?

Yes, a riff in Sabaton's song Unbreakable and Rainbow's song Light in the Black
Riff in Unbreakable starts at: 3:03
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QoajxbbgFc

Riff in Light in the Black starts at: 0:01
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYrW3yONR44

children of bodom lifted the verse riff from dissection's "unhallowed" for a song on one of their earlier albums - it's a fairly complicated lick so i can't imagine it was coincidence, but more of a quick tribute.

Kalmah's main riff in The Heritance in Berija at 0:51 secs and the solo in Kill the Idealist at 2:44.

Oh wait, are we talking different bands?

I freaking loved that first Hades (US) Album, and used to rock out to the main riff of this song quite a lot.

Widows Mite (chapter 11)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnavmcVkQ1I

....Too bad Thin Lizzy came up with it first though!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSb2x-PmSM4

Hey, I don't blame Hades at all; it's a great frickin' riff!!

A fairly simple pattern as well as well as an often imitated riff.

1984: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdXx0A1sugI
1992: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNQe_Kw4xH8
1994: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRn7umLZY_g
1995: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiRPc254dGE

Plenty more have done it, the latter three likely all did it intentionally in tribute to Bathory. I even know someone who had never heard black metal before who wrote a song around a riff nearly identical to the FW one.

I hate threads like these. Is it impossible to appreciate every song individually instead of trying to lump anything that sounds remotely similar together?

Metallica - Shortest Straw and Sepultura - Inner Self were both written the same year with nearly identical riffs.

Judas Iscariot, among other bands, rip off Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas quite a bit in the riff department, almost as much as Dark Funeral and Abigor do.

I'd also say that Stratovarius' song "030366" is a rip off of Queensryche's "Screaming in Digital".

Fenriz, from Darkthrone, stole Quintessence from his own band and used it for Storm, which is a folk metal project he and Satyr had. I don't remember the song's name, though.

Imperial Crystalline Entombment - Apocalyptic Blizzard Regime sounds like Desultory - Twisted Emotions sped up
Carpathian Forest - Spill the Blood of the Lamb sounds like Merciless - Pure Hate (intro riff)
Horde - An Abandoned Grave Bathes Softly in the Fallen Moonlight (various parts) sounds like Mayhem - Buried By Time and Dust

There's also Gruesome Stuff Relish's self-titled song, where the intro riff sounds like it was lifted from the beginning Touhou's 3rd Eye, bizarrely. The song's not on Youtube though and the last.fm preview's of the wrong part. Speaking of Touhou, here's some blatant stuff. I'm not even going to list what the songs sound like because it's blatant, though perhaps it's meant as a parody?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKKV8seGoC0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPNzi0gledM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKcaK8kw2PI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMlQK0HmFe4
Does this even count as a tribute? It's practically modifying the original.

Aria is the king of ripping off Iron Maiden (plus other bands on occasion). On the title track of Play With Fire alone there's Flight of Icarus from the riff to pacing to the drum fills to a really obvious copy of To Tame a Land. It's kind of a shame because with just a bit of originality they could have created some great trad/power, but as-is they're worthless.

EDIT: Also, it's a brief part but Gamma Ray totally yanked their "Men on the mountain / from hell you came to destroy" part of Hand of Fate from Judas Priest's Dissident Aggressor.

Oh, and since Ulysses Siren was mentioned as mediocre and middling in the Bay Area in another thread, Into the Pit three years before the fact, bitch (and they didn't have to make it the intro riff of their most identifiable song). Of course, a lot of bands have used minor variants on that riff (Atheist, Nocturnus, Grinder, and Lamb of God all coming immediately to mind) so it's really more of a 2 Minutes to Midnight situation. Laaz Rockit also borrowed a riff from them although I forget which since Laaz Rockit it so forgettable.

Slayer and Heavy Load is my all time favorite similarity!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmTcgTLy_Ns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWfcz-JZaCo

The opening riff on these two songs is identical:

Kreator - Tormentor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-3H3LHRrGM

Guillotine - Leprosy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs-9rqNkQKI

bathory - under the runes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63km2fP8Ypg
sentenced - nepenthe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L-YJ-KU ... lpage#t=22
and there's a moonsorrow song with the same riff too, but i can't remember which one.

Candlemass and Death. The opening/main riff in Candlemass' Under the Oak and the chorus riff in Death's Spiritual Healing sound striking similar. Here's some links for comparison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JjKpy16FzY

http://youtu.be/LAJQOeCSs_o?t=3m

Metal Inquisitor - Restricted Agony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsZuQ4CcvhU

Exodus - Bonded by Blood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxCTVssoddo

Overkill - Hammerhead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmlA38RmMCk


Metal Inquisitor just put that Overkill and Exodus song together. This is pretty clear plagiarism.

To be fair that is only the intro section and it was done deliberately as a theme from album to album. They gave it up on ..for Victory because apparently no one picked up on it. Brought it back with Mercenary and got rid of it for HVP and back again etc....

One more to add: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QVPe24cNBg
Horna - Vapise, Vapahtaja

This is indeed intentionally a tribute to Bathory.

i was just listening to moonspell's wolfheart and this bit from the first track reminds me a lot of some bolt thrower riff, but i can't figure out which one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXIJFzl3 ... page#t=207

Gojira - Backbone (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi-w6mGn7U0) & Vader - Impure (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4Wc_mu7UMI). There's also a Hypocrisy song with an extremly similiar riff, but I can't think of which one it is right now.


Morbid Angel - Where the Slime Live (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYZktLCBxjk) & Bloodbath - Mock the Cross (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84hF6mitvCM)

Okay seriously, weren't there 100 variations of this thread before? Is is it really that interesting to share random songs you just found out have the same riff?

I mean, are there people who check out the songs posted to come to surprising conclusion "Yeah, they have the same riff indeed." ?

Speaking of Sabaton's Unbreakable, the riff in the first half of the song sounds like it borrowed the melody from the first half of Black Sabbath's A National Acrobat. They changed it up quite a bit, but it's still definitely recognizable. Especially when guitar harmonies come in.

Another one I noticed is the riff from Pantera's Domination at 0:11 is really similar to the riff from Iron Maiden's Sea of Madness at 0:14.