This sums up The Hunting Party to me, the songs are so focused on being loud. I just can't picture half of these songs being composed on piano before they were turned into the final result.
Not all songs have to have been composed on piano in order to be legitimate in some way. Musicality goes beyond what one instrument can do in terms of songwriting. There's nothing inherently wrong with writing core song progressions on guitar or bass or keyboards I hear a melodic song in "Rebellion", for example, and that isn't a song that would work on piano at all, as far as I can tell.
Key To The Kingdom - I'll admit there isn't much melody in this song(except first verse) All For Nothing - Has a clean chorus and solo. Guilty All The Same - Has a lot of melody in the verses, chorus and guitar lead. War - ... Again is pretty melody driven. WaaaaaauuuoooRRR, Deeeestrrooooooyeeeer Wastelands - Yeah the chorus sucks but the bridge is melody driven. Until It's Gone - 100% Melody driven. Rebellion - This song is a perfect example that heaviness doesn't necessarily undermine melody. Mark The Graves - Pretty much melody driven... I mean it has clean vocals throughout most of the song. Final Masquerade - Literally a classic poprock song --> AKA melody driven. A Line In The Sand - Only Mike verses are melodic. I personally think there is a bit too much melody(in order to make the heaviness seem consistent) but to each their own.
I don't think you understand what melody is. Because there are many, many, many melodies throughout the album.
As Chester put it, a lot of the singing is just "yelling on key". But by definition, there's still melodies. Even in the chorus of KTTK, Chester is purposefully changing pitch to make a melody.
Yeah and I personally find the pitch shifting in KTTK far more interesting than some of the choruses Chester did on past records.
There's an album on Spotify by "Piano Dreamers" where they cover all of THP (and more LP) on piano. It's worth a listen, and it clearly shows that pretty much everything has some kind of melody to it.
There's more to melody than vocals. On KTTK, for example, I'd actually say the strongest melodies by far are in the guitar riff and solo (with the obvious exception of mike's first verse). However, at all points during the song, there's only one "interesting" (I shouldn't even need to say it, but this is of course subjective) melody playing on one instrument (there're no obvious melodies playing behind Mike's singing), making the song pretty uninteresting when looking purely at texture. I think this is more what Queef meant, he just didn't word it particularly amazingly. There are plenty of songs where this isn't the case, but overall, compared to some of LP's other albums, there is a lot less room for interesting melodies. Whenever Chester screams or Mike raps, the melody MUST be carried in the guitars, and whenever the guitars slip away from riffs and gravitate towards chords, the melody MUST be carried in the vocals, making a lot less room for polyphonic texture. These happen a lot over the course of the album. Of course, none of this is really relevant considering the type of album it is, so I can't say I really agree with you, Queef, but I see where you're coming from definitely, THP is far from my favourite LP album.
I will say that there is a little bit of truth in this thread. That truth being (in my opinion) that while the band has been about being "heavy", for the most part, the melodies (vocal or otherwise) feel very uninspired. Even the heaviest bands I listen to still have an ear for good melodies and harmonies.