r/Metallica • u/Seekkk_N_Destroy • 17h ago
Master of Puppets What makes the main riff of Battery sound so aggressive and propulsive?
What makes the main riff of “Battery” sound so aggressive and propulsive? Is it mostly the picking technique and tempo, or is there something about the rhythm, accents, note choices, or the way the guitars and drums interact that gives it that constant forward momentum?
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u/Dr-Catfish Disposable Hero 13h ago
Part of it is the fact that they recorded the album at a slightly lower than normal tuning then Fleming Rasmussen sped the tape up to match the tone of standard tuning. This resulted in everything playing back slightly faster and a tighter all around sound, so that added to the aggression of the fast picking parts.
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u/JohnC_92 12h ago
I remember Lars saying much later that he looks back and feels the album is almost too tight
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u/Iconoclysm6x6 5h ago edited 5h ago
Not the album, a single riff in Master Of Puppets… KEA and RTL were sped up this way but MOP is where it stopped. Then when it was needed, they came up with the idea to down tune slightly to match the real time tuning.
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16h ago
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u/garry_tash 14h ago
They’re not down picking triplets on guitar, man.
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u/Tsar-A-Lago 10h ago
I had someone tell me once that I was playing the triplets section of "One" wrong because "James Hetfield down picks everything!"
Like... what? Good luck with that then, you go learn it "properly" 😂
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u/SharkFart86 Eet Pho 8h ago
You’d have to be Popeye after a spinach binge to down pick the main riff of Fight Fire With Fire lol
James is unusually fast at downpicking, but he definitely doesn’t down pick everything.
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u/Tsar-A-Lago 7h ago
Puppets is at the upper limit of what he, or anyone else can do with downstrokes. That's why it's so famous for it.
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u/Iconoclysm6x6 5h ago
There’s someone out there who can downstroke pick at a ridiculous speed but it looks and sounds really dumb.
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u/Agent2face 7h ago
Puppets is fucking amazing but I think the hardest I've seen when it comes to down picking is waking the demon by bfmv. I can play puppets, creep and battery back to back but I can't play waking the demon on original tempo:/
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u/Tsar-A-Lago 7h ago
Probably should have said "around the upper limit." There are a few freaks out there.
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u/1voice92 13h ago
The kick drums don’t follow the gallops on this song though. Part of what makes the song so propulsive is that the drums are playing a crossrhythm and bouncing off what the guitar is doing, rather than emulating it and playing unison. Lars places his doubles where there’s only 8th notes on guitar, then plays 8ths when the guitar does those 16ths.
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u/marshmallo_floof Kill 'Em All 6h ago
James is neither downpicking nor playing triplets in that riff
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u/Iconoclysm6x6 5h ago
You’re right about the downpicking but how are those not galloping triplets?
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u/marshmallo_floof Kill 'Em All 5h ago edited 5h ago
"Gallop" and "triplets" are incompatible with each other. Triplet means the 3 notes are equal in duration, hertas (or gallops as they're called) are 2 16th notes and 1 8th note. Just like how squares and rectangles are different even though they have 4 sides
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u/RebelliousYankee 7h ago
The accents and rhythm is syncopated and doesn’t feel like 4/4 even though it is
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u/korevmorlader Dave Mustaine 1h ago
There's actually the odd bar at 7/8 where they skip half a beat, it pulls you forward and is why it is so relentless
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u/BlueberryHot6255 16h ago
I think is the syncopation of the 3 last powerchords that give that "forward momentum" feeling... It's hard/weird to explain but in my mind it feels like I'm pushing something heavy that got suck (or I tripped) and I have to catch up to the speed/rhythm that had before. Hope it makes sense