So, as promised here are the write-ups.
Nekov: The Appleseed Cast - Great Lake Derelict
You were unfortunately correct with you guess that this is one of your weakest songs so far. That’s not to say it’s bad at all, but it also utterly failed at impressing me.
Stylistically, this is rather post-rocky with some male vocals thrown in. It has pretty hectic drumming, nice guitar melodies and does sound quite different from conventional post-rock, especially with the weird and hectic drum beats. The drums are also my favorite part of the song. They have a pretty active role, in some parts they feel more like the lead instrument than the guitar melodies (especially when it gets more complex). The guitars are nice and post-rocky, but nothing that blows me away in any way. The weakest part here is his voice. Stylistically, his singing fits well with the song but he’s just not a very good singer.
If you still want to win this, you’ll really need to blow us away in the final round.
Evermind: Blind Guardian - Wheel Of Time
You were right on one account here: The oriental-sounding parts are probably my favorite part of the song. Other than that, you could have been a bit more confident, as this is my second favorite song from you this roulette, just behind Mark Knopfler and barely edging out David Gilmour.
On to the actual song: this is absolutely ridiculously epic in sound and production. I wonder how many tracks they must have used while recording this. This just sets out to be epic, and achieves its goal remarkably well. The orchestra is so integrated into the music that it actually feels like an orchestral track where metal elements and instrumentations were added later on, when the main body of the song was already written. The metal parts fit in nicely, but they are hardly ever the thing that makes me love a moment and make it epic. The main vocalists is probably the weakest link here. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good Power Metal singer and it doesn’t really distract from the song, but I’m just not overly fond of that style of singing in general. The moments in the chorus with a choir backing his vocals are pretty damn epic, though.
Also, does the title have anything to do with the fantasy book series of the same name? If so, they completely failed at capturing the spirit of that series for me (but I’m not gonna hold that against a fantastic song, especially since they might not have anything to do with each other after all.)
Sacul: Florence & The Machine - Seven Devils
So, yours is the slightly above average song. Given that at least half your songs where a 4.5 (on the 5 point scale) or higher for me, that’s really nothing to be ashamed of. I’m having a hard time deciding if I like your song or Evermind’s more. Yours is definitely more catchy, that’s for certain; it’s harder to decide about overall quality.
The song itself is really hard to classify genre-wise for me, which in itself is already a good sign. It starts with some creepy sounds, then the percussion, piano and voice come in and it gets amazing. I love her voice in this context, the music is really made to fit with it perfectly and that main piano melody that gets repeated is a fantastic mix of catchy and really atmospheric. I also really like what they do with multiple vocal tracks and harmonies in the chorus, it sounds almost like a children’s choir in the background. And then there is the highly controversial not-quite-so-dissonant string passage that is a fitting and really epic climax to an epic song, even though “epic” here means something completely different than in Evermind’s song.
You can thank me for not accepting your first song. I’m pretty sure that gained you at least 3 points from me (we’ll see about 425 and Red).
Topic: 2016 Roulette Championship v. THE CONCLUSION (Read 106348 times)
