Song: Corrode
Artist: Devilskin
Songwriters: Jennie Skulander, Paul Martin, Nick Martin, Nail Vincent
Album: RED
Release date: 2020
Genre: Hard Rock/Nu Metal
Key: B♭ minor
Chords in Key:
|
i |
ii |
III |
iv |
v |
VI |
VII |
|
Bbm |
C° |
Db |
Ebm |
Fm |
Gb |
Ab |
Corrode is written for drums, bass, electric guitar and vocals. The guitars and bass are tuned down by a augmented fourth, so the lowest string is at B♭ instead of E. This is closer to the tuning of a seven-string guitar or baritone guitar than standard guitar tuning.
Intro
The intro begins with the guitar on its own, playing the main riff. When this repeats, the drums and bass enter. The drums play on the toms and floor toms, which is common in metal songs for making a “tribal” sounding beat. This is then moved to quavers being played on a crash cymbal. This would usually be played in a 4/4 time signature on the hi hats, but the crash makes it sound much more aggressive.
Verse
The guitars and bass simplify in the verse to mostly sitting around the low tonic chord, with the guitars palm muted to create a percussive, chugging sound. This creates a space for Jennie Skulander’s vocals to cut through the mix. As the verse progresses, the guitars began a crescendo towards the chorus by semi-releasing the palm muting. The second verse adds vocal harmonies.
Chorus
The chorus plays a loud B♭m power chord (also called a B♭5), and continues to play power chords for the rest of the four-bar chord progression.
The timing of the chorus uses beat displacement; it sounds like it starts with a bar of 7/8 followed by a by a bar of 9/8, However, listening carefully to the drums, it’s in 4/4 meter the whole time. It achieves this by making the second chord come in one quaver early, making it feel like a short bar, but then adds this quaver to the next bar so that it feels like 7 + 9 quavers, which equals 16 quavers, the same number as a bar of 4/4. This is called Beat Displacement and is famously used in Schism by Tool, where the main riff sounds like a bar of 5/8 and 7/8 repeated, when it can be interpreted as 12/8 with beat displacement.
Bridge
The bridge begins with a chromatic guitar and bass riff on F5. It uses the mixture chord E5 – this is the interval of a diminished 5th higher than the tonic. Using tonic to diminished 5th is common in a lot of metal songs as it is an interval known as tritone, which is often associated with an evil sound, going back to classical music where it was sometimes known as the devil’s interval. The timing of the chords mirrors the beat displacement of the chorus.
For a glossary of terms visit dictionary.onmusic.org
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