I guess "restraint" sums WA kind of up. For all their West Coast groove that part of them was/is quintessentially English. It's also the reason why no one ever mistook them for a heavy rock or even just a hard rock band.
I drive the bands I play in nuts by often harmonizing riffs and little melodies (even of the vocalist) where a "proper bassist" would just double it an octave lower or so. ("That sounds sooooo incredibly Classic Rock, Uwe ..." and I revert proudly "Yup, I learned my Wishbone Ash!") I'm a sucker for harmony lead guitars (a dying art among younger generation guitarists, they are not very good at it anymore unless they play in a Southern Rock tribute or something) and I admit it. Excess only really starts with me after a whole album of Boston tracks. Tom Scholz can give me toothache after a while, he's the XXXL cup of harmony lead guitar.
Wow, I always wanted to write a post that uses "quintessentially" - it's one of those rock critic terms (along with "eponymous" and "ebullient") I always had to look up when I first started to read NME, Sounds and Melody Maker in the 70ies. Magical descriptions like
"Eponymous debut of a quintessentially English band which performs its eclectic mix with radiant ebullience." had me scurrying for my Webster's Dictionary.
Sometimes a more simplistic message would do. I bought my first Judas Priest album ("Sin after Sin") after a scathing review in NME ("aimless interplay of the guitars", "their cover of Diamonds and Rust is ample revenge for all the terrible things Joan Baez has done to Bob Dylan songs") and a Sounds quote "music heavy enough to stop a Chieftain tank dead in its tracks".
