Metal/Speed Solos: Annoying?

NaturalScience wrote: Sometimes I find shredding accompanied by rapid fire double pedal work (as you'll find in most speed/thrash metal) to be cathartic in a way.  Maybe I have some underlying aggression to work out or something... I have various moods in which I like different types of music, sometimes soft, gentle acoustic stuff or lighter poppier sound works...but sometimes I just need a band to kick some A.  Ergo metal.

If that's the case...maybe you should try listening to some HEAVY death metal...I'm thinking along the lines of, say, Morbid Angel or Hate Eternal...

The Ryan wrote: Rushatlantic wrote: To me, in prog metal, all i hear is people playing overly fast guitar solos with the same 32nd and 64th note rhythms the entire time. I don't not like them (i actually love a great speed solo (see John Petrucci), it's just that they are so repetative that i can't tell them apart. I just wish that guitarists would incourperate more chops and rhythms into their solos like they used to (Yes, Rush, Zappa, King Crimson) and then maybe throw in a few speed solos. To me, skill isn't how fast you can play. This is why I believe rock and roll is superior to all offbrand genres, such as metal. That's a big generalization though, metal can be great but rock and roll (with all the varying rhythm) is far more diverse.

Yes, rock and roll is astoundingly diverse, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Cliff Richard...

As for shred - depends on the player. Some of it is delicious, some is random/predictable/simplistic. Also that whole "I'm faster than you" mentality is ridiculous to the extreme. Practice only to become fast enough, simply put.

That said, I think there are few really innovative guitarists out there, and I don't think you can find them in prog (bear in mind that I don't really consider fusion/RIO/Kraut/Zeuhl prog - more progressive than the symphonic bands, for example, but not prog). Most guitarists still seem to be up to their elbows in blues. I love their playing, but I really think blues is overused and holds the music back instead of propelling it. Same with jazz, actually. There are exceptions, but they seem few. 

If you mean speed solos they can get kind of annoying after a while. But more in the mood solos, like Gilmour, are beautiful. Every guitar player has his/her own style of emotion through solos, and I agree comparing em with each other is not cool.

Don't you think there should be more bass solos?(or maybe there are and i'm not acquainted with them?) Imagine four minutes with dude Myung swinging his hair back and forth or Squire and his faces or Geddy Lee's?

 that's a staggering post if I ever saw one.

(gets beaten up by the bad joke police)

 and what's Jimmy Page doing up there?

Malmsteen and Michael Angelo

I don´t like Petrucci´s shredding with Rudess doing the same thing on keyboards. I love Petrucci´s slower stuff like the guitar solo on "Lines in the sand" but when it comes to shredding Petrucci is annoying.