Do you know some examples of metal songs where the guitar riffs sound nearly identical to some other songs?

"Into the Pit" by Testament, "Laid to Rest" by Lamb of God, and "My Plague" by Kittie all start out with more or less the same riff.

Halestorm's Mz. Hyde starts with a riff that's awfully similar to Sabbath's Children of the Grave.

Well, we all know that stolen riff from Behemoth's Slaves Shall Serve...

Aura Noir straight up rips a ton of classic thrash riffs on Black Thrash Attack

Judas Priest - Metal Gods

then listen to

Gamma Ray - To The Metal !

Yes, it's a tribute, but it's pretty shameless too !

Kai “shamelessly tributes” alot. Particularly from Queen.

Literally thousands, and there is a thread somewhere about this... the first one in my head right now:

Megadeth - Hangar 18
Arch Enemy - Burning Angel

yeah there used to be a "Similarities you have noticed in guitar riffs" thread but I can't find it now. Exodus's Strike of the Beast and Kreator's "Total Death" are pretty similar; obviously copied from each other. Metallica "borrowed" some riffs from Exodus on "Ride the Lightning" but that isn't really quite the same as Kirk Hammet wrote those riffs originally and just re-used them.

(edit) You can also tell where Burzum's song "War" came from; it's a pretty obvious tribute to Bathory's "Necromansy" on the first album.

Apparently there's a story floating around where Testament gave LoG their blessing to use the riff.



Also, Bullet for my Valentine - Hand of Blood takes this part as well.

And from Maiden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXuBCCBTJbQ

=

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6MEqU2N0co

Re-title thread to 'riffs that Kai Hansen HASN'T stolen' ?


Also - my second example -

Listen to

Ghost - Rats
Ozzy - Shot in the Dark

There's another one on Prequelle that directly lifts some Michael Jackson melodies, too.

Anthrax - Be All, End All (1988)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVvF2QIaIJc

Behemoth - Conquer All (2004)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38j-i8jH7xk

Trivium - Ignition (2006)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FxrgR9JGdE

Not identical, but clearly some inspiration.

Danzig - Snakes of Christ (1990)
https://youtu.be/elLQNOGi4ZA

STP - Sex Type Thing (1992)
https://youtu.be/8hhu-OyHqZM

I seem to recall Nile shamelessly stealing a Candlemass riff.

Didn't they say it was a tribute after they were caught? *laughs*

Heavy Load copied themselves: Monsters of the night chorus - Valhalla warriors main riff

Hold up Slaves Shall Serve stole a riff? I know the Conquer All riff is reportedly stolen and sounds quite similar but I was unaware of one for Slaves Shall Serve. Slaves is my favorite Behemoth song and one of my favorite songs period.

Each regular poster on this forum could post a song that uses the "War" riff and nobody mention the same song.

No kidding, I was thinking that just after I remembered that even I Want Out is lifted from a Gary Moore/Phil Lynott collaboration called Out In The Fields.

Incidentally, I don't consider When The World a Flash of the Blade ripoff. The riffs are different enough. Wrathchild does show up about halfway through Insurrection. I'm surprised more people don't call him on this, but its probably because he's so under the radar that nobody bothers. It's fucked because I consider him such a hero not only for helping create power metal, but also having such a strong output in the latter half of the 90s during a time when real metal was drying up. But goddamn man, its borderline Carlos Mencia levels of thievery.

I don't think Kai can really be considered "under the radar" when he founded two of the biggest, most important, and longest lasting power metal bands in the scene. An equivalent would be like if Dave Mustaine stayed in Metallica until Master of Puppets and then left on his own accord to start Megadeth and then had the exact same career, it's wild. I think the reason he isn't called out so much nowadays is one part because he's been pretty quiet over the last few years and three parts the fact that everybody is just kinda used to it and can't be bothered anymore. He's been lifting riffs from Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Queen, Metallica, etc for basically his whole career and it's jut not novel to point it out anymore. Everybody knows Solid rips off Rapid Fire, everybody knows Blood Religion rips off Tie Your Mother Down, everybody knows My Temple rips off Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, everybody knows When the World rips off Flash of the Blade, it's been a while since I listened to it but I'm pretty sure Empire of the Undead rips off Hit the Lights (and I skimmed my review and reminded myself that Demonseed rips off Wake Up Dead), I'm blanking on whether it's Hand of Fate or Wings of Destiny but one of the songs late in Power Plant rips off Dissident Aggressor, I could probably keep going for at least twenty more examples if I really put my mind to it. Kai jacks riffs, he's been doing it for decades, he just kinda gets a pass from metal fans because before he did that all the time (and even when he was) he put out like ten classic albums.



I find this kinda hard to believe. One of my friends told me this in high school and I'm sure I parroted it without giving it any real thought on these forums like a decade plus ago. Once I stopped to think about it a bit though it seems wildly farfetched that a band like Testament, who was absolutely struggling at the time, would allow one of the hottest new bands at the time to steal a riff from one of their best songs with no compensation.


I'll just get two obvious ones out of the way. There's the infamous "2 Minutes to Midnight" riff that shows up in nearly every trad metal band's oeuvre at some point. Yes I know it was used in Venom's Welcome to Hell and Accept's Restless and Wild and probably a half dozen others before then, but we call it the 2 Minutes to Midnight Riff because that's the biggest song to use it. It's just a simple, rocking heavy metal riff that's easy to come up with and easy to play so it gets constantly reused. My other favorite is the obvious one on Overkill's Elimination that's basically just the main riff from Master of Puppets. People get weirdly defensive about this one by pointing out that the tempo is slightly different and the last two notes go down instead of up or whatever but that's the exact same excuse Vanilla Ice used when he jacked the beat from Under Pressure so miss me with that shit. Years of Decay is loaded with Metallica-isms anyway (hell one of the solos in Elimination has an extremely similar lick to the last solo in Jump in the Fire as well) so come on.

For one that I think it slightly less well known, Nocturnal Breed's Scything Harrow opens with a riff nearly identical to Persuader's To the End and Iced Earth's Framing Armageddon. And one last one that's a bit of a stretch but hilarious if true is Nightwish's Dark Chest of Wonders opens on a heavy riff that is basically just the main riff to fuckin' Exodus's Toxic Waltz.

The Wickerman and Running Wild

No doubt whatsoever that When The World is replicated from Flash Of The Blade. Even when the drums kick in after the initial few bars - it's too similar to dismiss.

Another blatant one is Kings & Queens by Freedom Call (I think it's on Circle Of Life).
Now tell me what that sounds like. Hint - a former Sabbath singer and more recent reality TV show mumbler.
It's a real howler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcN-cbSz0W4

And I agree on Kai - he's good at what he does. Pioneer of the whole melodic European power metal sound. Why he needs to lift riffs from others is beyond me - he can create his own very effectively, he's more than capable.

The main riff on Sabaton's Cliffs of Gallipoli is basically Savatage's Gutter Ballet, but one of the riffs on Gutter Ballet is lifted from Maiden's Hallowed be Thy Name. But then Hallowed be Thy Name has that deliberate lyrical lift from Beckett's Life's Shadow and oh no I've gone cross-eyed.

Yeah but aside from laughs at Dragonforce and Guitar Hero mainstream American doesn't know anything about power metal. Someone brought up the Vanilla Ice example and how he got royally fucked by Queen (as he should have, fuck him) and then there's what happened with Coldplay and Joe Satriani, or a Mark Ronson and whoever claimed that he ripped off Uptown Funk.

The "quiet for the last few years" argument doesn't really work either cos this is something he's done, as people have mentioned, his whole career. If All of The Damned or No Stranger or Short As Hell became big rock hits, I'd be shocked if there weren't legal ramifications following whatever fame came with it as a result of Kai doing this over the years.

And yes Empire of the Undead gronks Hit The Lights.



A fair point on the drums, but I still don't hear it in the riffs.

In this thread - my two favourite reviewers arguing about Kai Hansen pilfering riffs. Christmas is MAGICAL

Ohhh I see, we're talking about two totally different things here. I'm talking purely in the realm of fans on the internet not making fun of him as much as they used to a decade ago. The entire concern of legality was completely out of the purview of what I was saying.

I know the whole idea of plagiarism lawsuits in a post-Blurred Lines world is really murky and dangerous, but even then I don't think Kai is in any danger of legal trouble. You've gotta remember that your hypothetical is just that, a hypothetical. He and Gamma Ray at large aren't chart toppers and they never will be, so I highly doubt industry lawyers are ever going to pay him any mind. Basically every single example of such a case was somebody going after a huge chart topping song, and Gamma Ray never had that even at their best, that's just not what power metal is. And it certainly helps that he never bases entire songs around lifted ideas. It's always just a riff here or there and nothing more, your best argument is probably that Solid and Rapid Fire are super close the whole time but even then neither song is a particularly popular one from either Gamma Ray or Judas Priest. I'm not saying that means it's not shitty to do (especially when Kai is so obviously capable of writing his own material), but I'm saying that everything can be reasonably explained as a mere tribute to one of his heroes. It never seems malicious, basically every example of a lifted riff he's got is from a band a million times more commercially successful than he is, he clearly has his own identity, he really just seems like a fun loving metal nerd who throws in little easter eggs for other metal nerds and nobody seriously begrudges him for it because it's always harmless fun from one of the most important pioneers in a niche subgenre.

I took this view when I reviewed Majesty, because it's usually pretty obvious (big bands and classic riffs), so I feel like those moments are put there deliberately for fans to pick up on.

When Machine Head released "Beyond the Pale" people were quick to bring up how the opening riff was basically copied from Strapping Young Lad's "Love?". Devin had to respond and Rob went "SEE! I DIDN'T COPY!"

Machine Head
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVdflCH76t4

Strapping Young Lad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL9Aohgd79I

The worst one for me was always Papa Roach lifting the closing riff from Iron Maiden's "Ghengis Khan" and basing their entire first hit single "Last Resort" on that plagiarized riff. Which should tell you something about the quality of Papa Roach's songwriting abilities.

I'd argue that particular case probably wasn't intentional. I don't doubt that Papa Roach know who Iron Maiden is even if their genres are very different simply because Maiden is one of the most popular heavy bands in history, but that particular melody is a very easy and natural one that I'm sure loads of people would come up with if they were trying to write something in that vein.

However, the main riff that the song is actually based around is absolutely a clear knockoff of Brain Stew by Green Day

Testament got Into the Pit from Ulysses Siren's Lake of Fire anyways.

Swords & Tequilla and 2 Minutes to Midnight?

Ambush The Chain reaction starts about the same as Judas Priest The Hellion.

https://youtu.be/9h0_ITfYMvY

Fans of Danzig need to hear 'The Minnesota Strip' by The Dictators.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgDuJy-j_Aw

Technically not metal, but we all know about the incident with A7X and Metallica between This Means War and Sad But True

Interesting!

I will say that the Testament arrangement is far more straight-forward and catchy though. I can see why their song took off and US did not. It does say something that US was recording this stuff in 85 while Testament kinda sounded like crap around that time though.

Slayer - Expendable Youth and Metal Church - Beyond the Black

not exactly a guitar riff but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN2Wg0Q-TS8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTunhRVyREU