The big thing that's missing in these songs is any interesting harmonic development as time passes. It isn't fair to call something with so many notes a "one chord song"; but if you treat those notes as largely outlining chords (the way a figured bass does in the left hand for piano-playing), then the chords are pretty darned monotonous.
The riffage is great, and I admire these guys. But, as I listened through these particular songs, I couldn't help noticing that each riff, if boiled down to the chord it implies, is basically the same chord over and over. It's just sitting there, on the "one," over and over and over and over....
"Banshee" starts with a figure implying Eb. And it just stays there, through the whole verse. We get a brief respite from it when the prechorus moves to F, and then to Ab, and then back to Eb: A sort of II-IV-I cadence. Fine, but then it's back to Eb for another however many bars until the next prechorus happens. The guitar solo gives us another break from the Eb by shifting to Ab for a few bars; then it's back to Eb. Then back to Ab, then back to Eb. Then we get the II-IV-I prechorus structure again to help the guitar solo conclude: F, Ab, Eb. And the Eb rides out. Yawn.
"#Rebel" is even less developed: It's just E, throughout, until you get to the harmony vocals in the bridge, which at least give us Am/E descending stepwise back to E. And then more E.
At least, I think there wasn't anything else. I got bored and fast-wound a bit, so, sorry if I missed anything.
Is this permissible? Sure. Is it rock and roll? No doubt. Do the guys deserve mad props for sounding as good as they do? Absolutely: At their age, or any age.
But it leaves me a little cold, and I think the reason is because it's such a going-nowhere snooze-fest from a harmonic perspective. So far as I can recall, not a single track on Pornograffiti or III Sides suffered from lack-of-interest in the chord changes department. So they can do it; they just chose not to on these particular songs. I wish they'd chosen differently.
This is just how it strikes me; no disrespect intended towards anyone who thoroughly enjoyed the tunes.
As with all things taste-related, Your Mileage May Vary.
P.S. Although we're pretty grown-up in these forums, I'm concerned that because I'm saying something critical, some wag will come in and say, "Oh? How many grammys do you have, doc?" or something similar. The answer is: none. Like I said, I admire these guys. By criticizing these songs, I'm not trying to say I'm better. (So, here's hoping that I don't have to preface these observations with a lot of boilerplate, to avoid getting slammed for being critical?)
