Overall, this was a much tighter round than the first. I had to spend a good amount of time deciding which tracks I liked more to sort out the points awarded. Even the 7th placed song I liked to a certain degree.
DTVT - Enslaved - Waruun
https://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Waruun/3u7wjG?src=5I didn't think I'd like this song when it started. I've never really listened to much Black metal and I was worried it would be a bit too 'evil' for me, especially with a band name like 'Enslaved'. Luckily, my preconceptions were way off.
I really liked the staccato disharmonic chord as you put it. The growling didn't put me off either, as it doesn't in most bands of a similar genre. I think this my be due to the fact that there was clean vocals mixed in as well. I thought it worked really well. I also really enjoyed the simple but effective outro. I can definitely see myself listening to more of these in the future.
6 pointsdtismajesty - Demians - Hesitation Waltz
https://listen.grooveshark.com/#/s/Hesitation+Waltz/2Uc84G?src=5Two submissions of the same band in the same round? Interesting. I much preferred this to letters' choice. I felt this had a lot more atmosphere going for it. I really liked the way that it built up all the way through the song. In a way (a very strange way that maybe no one else will see) it reminded of the build up in Wing for Marie by Tool (please tell me someone else sees this?). Also, the vocal pop rock issues I had with the song letter sent me were not even remotely an issue. I'm a bit unsure as to what to make of the band after hearing two entirely different sides to them. I hope the rest of their discography is more sided with this track though.
5 pointsjsem - Antonio Vivaldi - Four Seasons, Winter, 1st mvt
https://open.spotify.com/track/3mZ3LhX72yZO4Q1vOk6bKyOut of all the tracks sent this round, this is the only one I'd heard before. I accepted it as a submission though because I'm not particularly familiar with it, having only heard it a very small number of times.
Classical music can take dynamics to a new level, and I think this was an excellent example of that. I really liked the violin, which may be because I used to play myself (although not anywhere near this level).
The melodies were outstanding in this piece, and obviously the dynamics worked in its favour as well. But even considering all this, I still couldn't find it in myself to place it at the top.
4 pointsJamesman - Superior - Not With Me
https://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Not+With+Me/ggRjT?src=5Probably the most interesting guitars of this rounds submissions. As a guitarist, that immediately pushed it up in my rankings. I also liked the main up-tempo riff. You mentioned that it was initially labelled as a DT track? I didn't see that resemblance at all. So whoever decided to label it as such obviously hadn't heard either band.
Really enjoyed that cool little bass part about halfway through the song. Gave it an interesting extra dimension.
3 pointsAcidRainLTE - Devin Townsend - Life is all Dynamics
https://open.spotify.com/track/4s2AjjkSTDwBi6OCnQUxgfI've heard a few songs by Devin before. Numbers tried to get me to listen to his stuff, I wasn't too impressed with what I heard. Then one of my friends showed me a different album, and I really enjoyed it. His music is a bit hit and miss with me, much like the sections of this song. I'm not really a fan of the verse with the light and airy background vocals, but I do like the wall of sound chorus type section. He creates some really great atmosphere, and an epic sound that I haven't heard anyone else replicate. This was originally tied in its position, but I pushed this up for for including 'dynamics' in the song title. Nice touch.
2 pointszxlkho - Demians - Naive
https://listen.grooveshark.com/#/s/Naive/2v1YOD?src=5I'd never even heard of this band when you sent me the link. I was honestly crossing my fingers that it wasn't similar to your last track
The song starts well with a nice acoustic intro, and then slams you in the face with the distorted guitar, then back to the acoustic guitar for the verse. The riffs over the verses were pretty cool as well. The only real problem I had with this song was the pop rock vocals. I apologize if that's offensive, but it was a bit too 'Creed' for me. Not a bad song by any stretch of the imagination, but not the best of the round. Also, there wasn't much substance to the song; Verse Chorus repeat. I would have liked to have heard at least a bridge section to fill it out a bit. Maybe that's the prog fan coming out in me?
1 pointGorille85 - dredg - Bug Eyes
https://listen.grooveshark.com/#/search?q=dredg%20bug%20eyesA band I've heard a lot about but never had the time nor inclination to listen to. This song didn't cement a need to listen to them any more than putting me off listening to them. I quite enjoyed it but unlike some of the others, it didn't quite click. I think that with time, and possibly some of their other tracks, I'd enjoy this style of music a lot more though. Plus points were the atmospheric guitars throughout.
0 pointsI'd just like to emphasise that even 7th place I liked to a certain degree. There weren't any complete disasters like the first round (not mentioning any names, letters
).
Results after round 2:
dtismajesty - 9
DTVT - 9
Jamesman - 9
jsem - 5
Gorille85 - 5
AcidRainLTE - 4
zxlkho - 1
As you may have noticed, and as stated above, I'm sucking at these deadlines. I'll try and be as quick as possible putting up the results but I've been having some issues getting to a PC that I can listen to the submissions on. This round I downloaded the grooveshark Android app so I could listen while away from my PC to get things sped up a bit. If all submissions are in tomorrow, I should be fine getting the results up on the weekend, but if not (and I honestly don't expect everyone to send me their submission in one day), there may be a few days delay getting the results to you. Just to warn you in advance.
So on to round 3!
Instrumental. Pretty obvious here that I'm asking for an instrumental track. It's not genre specific so don't feel it needs to be a Dream Theater type instrumental.
Topic: cthrubuoy's song roulette - [On Hold] (Read 43046 times)
