Focus On that Riff

Thirty years ago, one of the greatest bass players ever to walk onto a stage unleashed a record that still vibrates through the metal world like a fault line: Plastic Planet by Geezer Butler. And at the heart of that album opening it, defining it, warning the world of what's about to happen is the unhinged, unfiltered, demential intro known as Catatonic Eclipse.

Close your eyes. Take a breath. Now focus on the riff.

Because this isn't just a riff it's a gravitational force.

The track begins like a machine awakening after centuries of rust, gears grinding, pressure building, and then suddenly collapsing into a monstrous low end assault. Geezer's bass doesn't just support the guitar… it drags it into a darker dimension. It's heavy in that way only he can deliver: thick as molten metal, sharp as a frayed nerve, and unmistakably alive.

And then the guitar drops in massive, towering, a sonic monolith. It doesn't play over the riff; it welds itself to it, fusing bass and guitar into one seismic vibration. Every time that main riff hits, it's like a slow motion punch to the solar plexus. You don't listen to Catatonic Eclipse you endure it, you absorb it, you ride it like a storm surge.

What makes this moment so stunning, three decades later, is how modern it still sounds. The syncopation, the grinding groove, the mechanical menace it could drop today and still flatten half the metal playlists out there. Geezer wasn't just making a solo project; he was replanting the flag of heaviness, reminding the world where this music comes from.

Thirty years on, Catatonic Eclipse remains a masterclass in controlled chaos:

• A bass tone that feels like collapsing architecture.
• A riff that hypnotizes, crushes, and elevates all at once.
• A guitar presence that turns the room into a pressure chamber.

It's the kind of track that forces you into stillness not because you're calm, but because your nervous system is trying to process what just hit it.

So close your eyes again. Focus on that riff. Thirty years later, it still eclipses almost everything around it.