There's endless examples of groups forging a new and distinct delivery thanks to that one special member, and on the flip side, losing their style. I'm not talking about genres, that's been discussed to death. I mean, who are some people that defined the very way the music is presented?

Chris Poland is my favorite guitarist to play in Megadeth, and his guitar brought something really special to the table. Somewhat off kilter, jazzy, disjointed and smooth all at the same time. Peace Sells has a quality I can't quite put my finger on. Marty Friedman came in later and we were treated to another change of pace centered around, like, just thrash metal shredding.

I'm drawing a blank on more good examples right now.

blasphemer in mayhem, obviously. I remember in the late 90's, when everyone was like, aww look at that unknown young guy, he'll never be able to fill those big shoes left by the king of black metal, blah blah. well, he did, and turned out to be one of the most daring, creative and diverse riffcrafters that still had their own distinct style.
in fact you could say the same about hellhammer and even more so about atilla csihar. it's weird to see how much teloch has NOT changed mayhem's music when he entered.

Jens Becker in Running Wild had this impact on bass guitar. During his time in the band the songs had more melodic and pronounced bass playing. It added a load of licks and lines that I still recall. An all-around badass that knew how to influence Rolf and leave his mark on Running Wild's music during the height of their career. His creative input is something I miss about later RW, even though they were still awesome for several albums after that.

Matias Kupianinen is another. A large part of Stratovarius' success right now can be attributed to him. Not only does he write the bulk of the newer songs, he's basically (along with Porra) responsible for saving a dying band. From the riffing to the vocals and how to connect pieces together without being melodramatic bullshit, Stratovarius would be very different without this guy. Let's not forget how pathetic this band sounded from 2000-2005.

It would have been interesting to hear how Metallica would have evolved with Cliff Burton remaining in the band beyond "Master of Puppets." While I do think they still would have likely experimented with more lightweight sounding material, I really believe it would have been much more interesting- more along the lines of, say, Cirith Ungol, Rush, or maybe even Kyuss, than the rather vanilla sounding hard rock of the mid-1990s. Cliff injected his own subtle flair in the songwriting and the overall sound of the band with his unique bass playing that is hard to appreciate but which cannot be overstated.

At the same time, Ozzy Osbourne's music never sounded as good to me as it did with Randy Rhodes. This is not a slight against Jake E.Lee, Zakk Wylde, or that other guy- whatshisname who did "Scream." Rather, Randy just had a flair for riff composition and a way of tastefully embellishing the songs with just the right amount of "Extras"- a short quick scale run dropped here, a pinched note there, and never over-did it. While at the same time his lead playing was exquisite- just the right balance of melody, heaviness, speed and aggression without resorting to just mindless shred or over-playing.

I have lots of examples, but one of the most hilarious is the arrival of the guitarist Uwe Osterlehern in Deathrow:

The radical change in technical skill of the whole band is so noticeable when he arrived, almost like if he pushed everyone to improve and write in a way more complex way: the difference between the early albums and Deception Ignored is night and day

Goes without saying; Les Binks in Priest. Especially considering Holland followed him.

while suffocation have been doing mostly excellent stuff to this day, they did noticeably drop in quality after cerrito's departure imo

also, alf the gates was always interesting and fantastic - after him they got rather boring

It's also important to remember how many effects Burton played around with at various point, the bass intro to Damage Inc. being a great example and of course his heavy use of wah on Call of Kutulu and Pulling Teeth. Tons of stuff live too. While I've listened to comparatively less of the Newsted era, I don't recall him ever using effects to the same degree, although I recall someone saying he used some slap bass on Load. Honestly, I bet AJFA would be very different (as well as a thicker bass tone) and the 90's albums wouldn't exist. Like Oxen said, they'd probably sound a lot closer to some of the trad stuff Metallica listened to and build their sound off of. Alternatively, Burton might have pushed them in a more progressive or neoclassical direction.

I'm at college right now so I can't listen to it and find the bit I'm referencing but this guy makes the case that Ride the Lightning has the heaviest Burton influence of the first four albums, so it might be that if he lived, future Metallica stuff would be more like that. Honestly, "What if it was Lars?" is probably the greatest what if question in metal, the possibilities for where they could have gone with Burton are endless. Before I forget, here's the video:




Les Binks staying in Priest would have been cool. He's my personal favorite Priest drummer and I love his jazzy, free-form stuff. In some ways though, perhaps Holland was a better fit for the band in the end. After Binks, Priest seemed to use more rock/metal oriented drummers with less of a jazz feel to them, although Scott Travis is probably more technical, certainly faster. Never really thought about how much the drummer in Priest mattered before but now it seems obvious.

Speaking of which, what if Simon Phillips joined as a full-time member? Would Killing Machine or Screaming for Vengeance even exist if Priest's drummer was that technical? Either way, part of me wishes he stuck around for at least one more album, Sin After Sin has the best drumming of the 70's albums by far.

He didn't really leave but what if Demonaz could keep playing guitar for Immortal? I recon At The Heart of Winter would be pretty different, probably a lot less thrashy. Immortal's last three albums (not including their upcoming one) would probably be faster and less epic in scope. I haven't read anything that mentions if Demonaz was still a riff writer granted so who knows, maybe he wrote ever note on those albums.

I might be wrong here, but when Esoteric Warfare came out, the word on the street was that Teloch was brought in with specific instructions to write material that could reasonably resemble Blasphemer's; no idea how much truth there might be to that.

Completely agree on Running Wild with Becker, and the same could be said about other members. Rolf just gives his best when surrounded by a proper band, no matter how much they actually write.

Some more I can think of:

- without Jack Owen and Ralph Santolla replacing the Hoffmanns in Decide, The Stench of Redemption would have never happened;

- as a writer, Sebastian Ramstedt did a fantastic job in Necrophobic, taking Blackmoon's unique style and helping the band's sound evolve through many great records without really losing its original feeling;

- speaking of Blackmoon, his touch is really missed in Dark Funeral;

- I feel Opeth lost a chunk of their magic with Peter Lindgren progressively withdrawing and finally leaving the band altogether;

- Alex Skolnick in Testament is an obvious choice;

- losing Duncan Patterson might have been a deadly blow for Anathema, but they still managed to deliver Judgement after losing him, so kudos to them;

- the inclusion of Lazare first and Vintersorg later made Bornkagar's proggy influenced a lot more overt.

I'm positive I'm forgetting a tone and will only remember them when I'm too loate for the party, as usual

He also handles the production. He really is every bit as prominent as Timo Tolkii was before him.

Normally the "new guy" gets the Jason Newsted treatment: their ideas ignored, their contributions minimized, etc. It's unusual for a replacement to basically start running the band.

Oh yeah: Orlok joining Countess obviously had quite an impact!

Most every metal band has been impacted by band members changes.

It's obvious in the case of Running Wild that Rolf was at his best when he had others contributing. The man was no slouch, mind, Black Hand Inn was all Rolf and it's their best album, but it seemed like with just Rolf doing the music, he ran out of ideas after a few records. If he allowed guys like Jens or Majk Moti to continue contributing, then maybe they would have had a few more good records in them.


Speaking of German power metal, Rage is a super good example. The Perfect Man lineup had a very distinct sound to them, and when Black in Mind came out with a new lineup, there was a marked change in sound. Still good, mind, and still distinctly Rage, but there were a lot of intangibles that went missing. The Smolski lineup also, particularly as the burden of songwriting shifted from Peavey to Smolski, their sound continued to change until they weren't much like older Rage at all (for the worse, IMO). The new lineup very obviously draws heavily from Black in Mind and End of All Days Rage, and the new Refuge album with the Perfect Man lineup is like an amalgamation of Secrets in a Weird World, Trapped!, and The Missing Link.

One change that doesn't get talked about a lot is when Mikkey Dee joined Motorhead. His performances aren't as intricate as what he'd done previously with King Diamond, but Lemmy himself was quick to admit that the band was a lot tighter than it had been during Philthy Animal's second stint and albums like Sacrifice and Inferno wouldn't have been nearly as heavy.

On the inverse, I find it just as fascinating when a band never changes sound despite massive member turnover. Crowbar is the biggest example that comes to mind; they've had such sludge icons as Jimmy Bower and Sammy Duet in the band but nothing ever changes about the band's sound aside from the production values. The band is usually credited as a unit for writing all the songs but you never hear any personal stamps on the material aside from Kirk's, not even any distinct instrument tones or playing styles. It's honestly kind of amazing.

I'll probably get some disagreement, but the addition of Michael Kiske to Helloween lead to one of the best style shifts, imo.

Samuelson should be listed alongside Poland, especially since they came from the same jazz-fusion band prior to Megadeth.

I don't think Les Binks joining or leaving had that much of an impact. The difference between Stained Class and Killing Machine is as drastic as any two adjacent albums in their discography, and Holland was basically just there to fill a role, with no creative contributions towards the band.

Uwe Osterlehner is one of the biggest examples I can think of, single-handedly turning Deathrow into one of metal's most progressive bands of the 80s with the release of Deception Ignored.

Manni Schmidt had a big influence on the Rage albums he played on, the band going from a four-piece to a three-piece and then back to a four-piece again, from a relatively more conventional speed metal sound to a really springy and subtly technical sound, and then back to more ordinary speed/power metal. Not to mention that the Refuge album sounds more like that period of Rage than anything in between.

EDIT: Whoops, overlooked the Osterlehner mention too. To add something that hasn't already been said, Harry Wilkens was kind of a similar case to Osterlehner. Destruction always had technical ambitions, but Wilkens was on a much higher technical level than Sifringer which rubbed off on their sound pretty strongly, to the point that losing Schmier had less impact on the band's sound (Cracked Brain) than Wilkens leaving after. He added a dark neoclassical sound to many of their songs as well, and all the sweep-picking stuff gave those albums a unique atmosphere.



Pretty much this.



Missed this, beat me to it.

I just want to say, oh yes, and also, some replacements can't play his counter-melodies properly. The Final Jolly Roger guy just follows the guitar on the intro to Riding the Storm. Awful.

That said, I think Peter Jordan has improved Rolf's songs more every album since Shadowmaker - if only he could recruit a permanent rhythm department, we'd have a real band again.

Even though most of it was written before he joined (except Cold Sweat), John Sykes gave Thin Lizzy a metallic kick up the arse on Thunder and Lightning (although I think Snowy White is unfairly maligned, and his playing, and Chinatown/Renegade, are great).

Getting rid of Roland Grapow and Uli Kusch was Helloween's biggest career mistake. They are not only far superior songwriters than their replacements but also better players with their instruments, they added a lot more to their sound.

Jack Owen- I dont think I've cared for anything he's written since maybe Bloodthirst. He and Ralph really added to Stench of Redemption, but the songs he wrote in Deicide sound mediocre to me.

maiden albums with Adrian Smith on them severely outrank those without... to me it's a bigger gap than dicky vs bailey.

without Messiah, Candlemass could have very easily split after EDM :/



true. then again, spiros and sven and of course the russian affected Peavy's songwriting to some extent... but I agree that Manni was "something else" entirely.



reportedly they're both twats, much like Weiki and Deris and the new poser boi guitarist, so yes, I honestly don't know how'd that happen

According to his own words, it was much more than that. Not only was he supposed to work within a framework that was a direct continuation of the work done by Blasphemer and Euronymous, but he also had to innovate and create a new angle to the existing style. I think he nailed it, and I don't think anyone could've done a better job.

very interesting, I didn't know that yet. if that is what was demanded of him, I agree in this regard teloch has succeeded. his riffing and songwriting style are still kind of blasphemer-ish and definitely and recognizably "new" or "modern" mayhem, but with its own twist on it. in a way esoteric warfare sometimes sounds like blasphemer going morbid angel going thorns. of course this is somewhat at the expense of originality, but whatever.
it's still odd to think of the other mayhem guys handing out guidelines or instructions to their new songwriter, seeing as how creative, unconventional and unorthodox their music was with blasphemer around. seems more like a hired gun than an integral part of the band.

do you have a corresponding interview with teloch about this (or another source)? I'm very intrigued.

My memory is a bit hazy on the whole Teloch thing, so if something doesn't add up it might easily be my bad. I think Esoteric Warfare turned out fine myself.



Good call. As far as heaviness goes, I also noticed a subtle but constant change since Würzel left and Phil C. was left as the only guitarist; the riffs got progressively heavier and kind of darker too. Maybe that would have happened anyway had they carried on as a quarted, but I've found it an intersting development nonetheless.



As much as I enjoy later Helloween albums, I have to agree, especially on the songwriting side. With the combined kick in the butt of Deris, Grapow and Kusch, the band was on fire; stuff like Better than Raw is just magic.

Interesting to see this topic now, because the first band that comes to mind is Pantera. Think of how many people tried to sound like them after Vulgar Display of Power. Yes, you can argue they lifted their sound from Exhorder or whatever, but Pantera was the band that made the sound "famous". Vinnie and Dime's playing, technique and sound, as well as Phil's vocal delivery have all been imitated for a couple decades now.

I'll see if I can find it. I didn't fact-check, so I hope my memory isn't too distorted. I think it was the same interview where he complained about the amount of desk work he ended up having to do for Mayhem ("musician, my ass").

Edit: Here's an interview where he discusses that topic. I'm not sure if it's the exact one, but close enough: https://jumpphilly.com/2015/01/06/caree ... -thursday/

Gwar before Cory Smoot and Gwar with/after Cory Smoot are practically different bands.

My addition would be Mortuus to Marduk. I like some of Marduks early and middle period. It has its strengths and its weaknesses. Just before Legion left they were at a creative standstill though. Much of what they did sounded like it had been done before. But with the addition of Mortuus to the fold the band was infused with new energy and fire. Things they did sounded fresh and relevant. Mortuus might be my favourite black metal vocalist of all time but he obviously deserves much credit in song writing and general ideas as well.



Yes! Euronomyous did create a black metal classic and should be praised for that. However Blasphemer took the ball and ran with it. I think at least three of the Blasphemer era records are absolutely fantastic. To do that when you have to take over from a legendary figure like Euronomous is inspiring.



Mikkey Dee is one of my favourite drummers even though I'm not a huge fan of Motörhead. His drumming is driven, its tight and you can immediately hear that it is Mikkey behind the kit. He's one of few drummers that has that quality of infusing himself without removing anything from the bands overall identity. He just adds and its always really good.

Another drumming example, that I've never seen anywhere else, is Patrik Räfling of Hammerfall. He was playing the drums on their two first albums and while not being flashy in any way, and perhaps lacking a bit of personality, I think he was perfect for the music. Quite machine like and very driven in the way he played. I think the band lost a lot of energy when he left the band. Anders Johansson felt like such an uninspired and tired replacement.

Eric Burnley in Novembers Doom. Stylistically, they were still basically the same band after his last record with them, To Welcome the Fade (at least for a while), but some of the nuances in the melodies and the riffs were very noticeably absent after his departure.

Instead of talking about the obvious change in Iron Maiden, or even the 2nd most obvious, I want to instead look at the change from Adrian Smith to Janick Gers. The Smith-era of Maiden is often times regarded as the Golden Era of Maiden and rightly so with 6 albums straight of quality music, but with his departure after Seventh Son, Maiden's musical direction shifted. The shift Maiden experienced was moving the instrumentations more to the forefront and adding more layers to extend songs. Gers is a fantastic player who manages to pull melodies out of nowhere consistently, and this is apparent on all the songs that have his names credited. The first real "hit" they had with Gers, or at least the most infamous, was "Wasting Love." This song has a lot more going on and in general is a departure from the classic Maiden sound. With Bruce still in the band for the first two Gers albums, the music is still geared towards what Bruce is doing but you can start to see the turn that could happen if the pieces fall correctly.

And the pieces do fall, Bruce leaves, Blaze comes in, and now Gers has more room to work with his guitar. Blaze is, and I don't think this will be too controversial, lacking the same range, power, and ear for vocal melodies as Bruce, and with that the band now needs to fill more of the songs with hooks to keep the song moving along. Murray has been much of a "follower" and less of a writer towards the second half of the life of Maiden, so now Harris leans on Gers who is playing out of his skin. Given room to work on "The Sign of the Cross," "Judgement of Heaven", and "The Unbeliever," Gers is now letting the harmonies and melodies get more attention and be the anchor hooks for the songs.

By the time Bruce and Adrian return, the stage is set to have a fully confident Gers paired with a rejuvenated Bruce. Together their songs, along with Smith's, have been the true highlights of the "Post-Reunion" Iron Maiden era we are in now.

Two of the changes that I remember making the biggest impact in me as a young metal listener was when Nick Barker and sometime after Robin Eaglestone left CoF.

The band was never the same after they left, and while Midian was still OK with Erlandsson in Barker's place, once Robin left, the worst period of the band had started.

Not that I find Pybus to be bad, I like his work in Anathema just fine, but things simply didn't work out during that period, though i guess we can blame Dani as much as anyone else for that.

At least things got better with the last 2 releases, let's see how long that lasts.

Rage - I do really love Manny Schmidt era, but when Spiros and Sven were in the band it was also brilliant time for them. All that they've done with Smolski is simply boring to me.

Barker was their best drummer for sure. Erlandsson was ok I guess, but his blast-beats always sounded weird to me. Markus is a good drummer, but I find drumwork a bit too busy, like he has trouble knowing when to let the songs breathe.

As for Robin, I really miss his bass works. He had a more melodic presence. Once he left, the bass parts became a lot more rhythmic with no personality.

I agree with this sentiment.

As an aside, I will say I felt Cradle's quality dropped when Adrian left. I find every album from Godspeed onwards to be largely forgettable. Thornography isn't great but I think there's still a number of strong songs on there. Does Martin have any creative input? I'm sure I read something about him doing keyboards, so maybe he's had an impact on their sound that I'm not particularly fond of.

Totally agreed.

I want to nominate Kevin Moore of Dream Theater. It took me a long time to realize but parts of what makes Images and Words and Awake the great albums they are is all about Moore. His playing along with his choice of sounds really creates a great atmosphere and to me it makes the music have a magical touch and takes it to the next level. Now, his replacement, Jordan Rudess is an amazing player but I have come to realize that I really don't like his choice of sounds. Technically great but he has a taste for synth sounds that I do not share. He's awesome when he sticks to a classical piano sound but as soon as he distorts the sound he usually looses me, or at least he doesn't bring that magical extra to the soundscape that Moore always did.





Yes! Nick Barker is up there among my favourite drummers. Very characteristic work. You can easily hear that it is him behind the kit. Always doing what the song requires, can be flashy but never to much. He suited Cradle of Filth so good and was a massive loss.
As for Robin I never thought of his impact in CoF but now that you mention it I also love his more melodic bass work that is very prevalent on the albums where he contributed.

I don't know if it was the absence of Chris Barnes, but I think CC's albums started to lose their sense of uniqueness during the Corpsegrinder era

I still enjoy a lot of post-Moore Dream Theater but I can't emphasize how much they lost when he left the band. His stirring sample choices and overwhelmingly personal lyrics had a great deal of pathos that they've come nowehere near close to capturing without him. Considering how the band wouldn't have even included Space Dye Vest on Awake if they'd known that he would be leaving after the album's release, it kind of sickens me that they went back on their promise of never playing it live.

The drummer on Enslaved's Eld makes it one of the stand out albums of their career. He's like the Randy Foxe of black metal; very fill heavy and driving. I have no interest in them as a mediocre/bad prog metal band but even on the follow-up they were missing something. He's really one of the things that make the album a unique experience in their discography.

I believe Grim's drumming on Gorgoroth's Under the Sign of Hell had a similar turbo charging effect.

When Dead came in mayhem, it became much more serious.

I'm a pretty big fan of "Midian", it's probably my 2nd favorite COF album, but the drumming is indeed far less noteworthy and unique. I think the all-around songwriting on that album is pretty great, though. I think "Damnation and a Day" is really where the bad times started - after Gian left, half the guitar leads left with him. His departure had a big impact, imo. The melodies weren't nearly as strong.

Ashok and Richard Shaw have done a great job on the two newest albums though. They've had a big impact on COF's sound, but in a far more positive way than the departure of Pyres. Much better riffs and melodies, some of which even remind me of their late 90s stuff (see: "The Night at Catafalque Manor" and "Wester Vespertine" from the newest album). Paul Allender's songwriting grew *incredibly* stale, and dropping him was the best decision they've ever made.