Is It Hard Rock or Is It Metal?

June 18, 2008

I know, labels aren’t what matters when it comes to music.

But I just realized that I have all forgotten about the term “hard rock.” When I described my liking of heavy music, I generally use the term “metal.”

But really, I can’t say my music is metal. There are bits and pieces influenced by the metal music, but not really.

Is it hard rock? Hmmm, I would say yes. Songs like Shark and Diamond Sleeps Tonight can be called hard rock.

But still, when I think of hard rock, it’s still pretty riff-based music. Diamond is has a cool riff, for sure, but it goes to more chordal thing during verses and choruses.

That’s the thing. I think my music is quite heavy in spots, but it’s really not heavy on riffs. I’m more of a chorder — find interesting-sounding chords, put a few together and strum them in an engaging way, and you get a start of an Aries9 song.

When I coined the label “progressive modern rock” I thought that it was an accurate description of Aries9. It’s not really prog enough to be “progressive rock.” But it’s more sophisticated than simple “modern rock.” “Grunge” just doesn’t do it at all — I associate that with more raspy, thicker vocalists. There is a genre called “Neo Prog” on allmusic.com — and bands like Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree are in there. I may get in there in the future, but for right now, my songs are too concise to be lumped into the prog camp primarily.

So it’s “progressive modern rock. ” It’s a modern rock, progressive kind.

I think I can live with that.

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