Bathory - Sacrifice - Guitar Tab

About Sacrifice

Drop D tuning sits at the core of "Sacrifice," and it pays to understand exactly why: that lowered sixth string puts a thick, open power chord under your first finger at the second fret while keeping the rest of the neck in a familiar position. In E minor, the riffs lean hard on root-fifth shapes and chromatic movement, so economy of motion and clean muting between chords are the real challenges. At 120 BPM the tempo is not brutal, but the relentless downpicking that Bathory favored in this era is tiring fast, and sloppy string noise will expose every weak pick stroke. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop the main riff slowed down until your picking hand stays controlled and even throughout. The Black Metal feel here depends less on speed than on a locked, aggressive attack, so getting that consistency before bringing the tempo back up is the right order of work.

• Drop D tuning allows single-finger barre power chords on the bottom two strings, which suits the heavy, riff-driven character of the song.
• Sustained downpicking is the core technique demanded here, and fatigue in the picking hand is the main obstacle at full tempo.
• Focusing on muting unwanted string noise between chord changes will clean up your tone significantly in this register.