Round 3 results425: The Flower Kings – Train To NowhereAt first I was expecting one of those boring classic-prog bands that I somehow can’t get in to. They do have this neo-classical vibe to their music but it’s actually a really good song. Simple melodies that pay off really well like the “And then we fade into the night“ with some smooth guitarwork in the background, almost remeniscent of some of the slow songs on Scenes From A Memory.
Amongst the many instruments I hear in the background when giving this my full attention there’s some really pretty piano and acoustic guitar stuff going on. It’s funny, because this does sound like a song that could be covered with just a vocalist and his guitar and it would still sound pretty good. Though what really does it for me is all those layers to the music, great “simple“ song.
8.0/10Sacul: Ulver – Nowhere (Sweet Sixteen)Okay, I knew Ulver are known for having changed their sound quite a bit, but this is a pretty substantial change compared to the song you sent in my first roulette, EOS.
And I definitely like this more than EOS, no doubt. This band creates great atmospheres but I simply couldn’t get into the whole ambient thing because of the minimal instrumentation of it all. Here it’s still fairly minimal but the vocals make up for it. Similar to home’s song but to a slightly lesser extent, I like the hypnotizing feel to the instruments especially near the climax.
Based on this, I will probably give Ulver another chance with this 2016 album unless you recommend otherwise. I’m looking for more along these lines though, opposed to the straight-up ambient stuff.
8.0 + (1.0) = 9.0Evermind/Elite: Anciients – Raise The Sun/The Longest RiverAlright I don’t know if I’m going to do duplicate band results like this every time but I think with this kind of thing it’s interesting to compare the two. Can already tell that they won’t receive the same score though.
Both songs: Both of these have very strong harsh vocals, I’ll admit right away that I like them more than the cleans. Seems like these guys like to have somewhat long instrumental sections too which is not a bad thing, but I feel they do drag a bit for a moment or two. Not because I’m not into instrumental sections, but because most of those sections are centered around one guitar riff that gets repeated a lot. Still, pretty good songs from both of you overall.
The Longest River: Being the longer track of the two by quite a margin it took some more getting used to but I think I ended up liking these songs roughly the same. The intro has a very cool dark vibe going on that doesn’t sound repetitive even though it’s basically the same formula as the RTS intro. The growls are a bit more present here and that’s the way I like it, they let loose of the breaks on this song a bit more and it makes it more interesting structurally and creatively. In the end they kinda even eachother out though because this one wasn’t quite as amazing with the grooves.
Raise The Sun: For this song it’s definitely the extremely groovy instrumentals that mostly grab my attention. The finale is pretty sick and I like the instrumental that leads into that part a lot, but at times it got a bit hard to stay interested the entire time up until that final section kicked in. It took a while to get going and I think that’s the main issue I have with the band though I still like both these songs. Once again, the growls are top notch and I feel like they shouldn’t be afraid to use them a bit more loosely. Accordingly, the clean vocals don’t live up to expectations quite as much and so I came up with the same score for both Anciients songs.
7.75/10They‘re both very close in quality and I like both enough to check out this album for sure, but neither one of them is blowing me away.
Tomislav95: Paradise Lost – Faith Divides Us – Death Unites UsEither you just send all the right bands, or there’s simply such a clear formula to doom that I could like pretty much all of it, but either way here’s another great submission!
The vocal melodies in the chorus are astounding, like the (not-overly) dramatic mood that always does well in the right context. I don’t really see the connection with Iced Earth but I guess you could make an argument for Metallica influences, but mostly this just sounds like their own thing.
This song has a level of epic-ness that some 10-15 minute songs don’t even have, the euphoric buildup to the last chorus is fantastic, and it’s only just over 4 minutes, WTF! It’s not my absolute favorite of the round (it is pretty close though) but then again, this was such a quality-packed round that there’s no shame in that.
8.5/10Parama: The Hirsch Effekt - CotardBloodmeat?
I was kinda expecting mathcore or something, don’t know why, but that’s the impression that their name left on me.
I’m not sure how I feel about german lyrics in this context. Obviously I know some Rammstein songs but that’s about it, and there’s it’s like this super masculin german dude with a very powerful and overtaking voice but this is on the softer side vocal-wise.
My favorite parts of this song are the more agressive ones and the vocals really were a pretty tough digest. At first the melodies, in the chorus especially, sounded a bit awkward, but it seems like you’re only sending growers in this roulette. I’m not blown away by this song, it’s pretty good alright but apart from the intro which is a-ma-zing and the outro the song doesn’t stick out that much. The finale is really quite great though, with some simple chord progressions a-la post-rock and great trumpets. Here the vocals are quite good too (both the clean and harsh ones) so there are some standout factors to it but overall it’s a 9 minute song where I can only
really enjoy half of it while the rest is ‘okay‘.
7.5 (+1.0) = 8.5Shadow Ninja 2.0: Fair To Midland – The Wife, The Kids, and The White Picket FenceYes!! This is more like it! First two rounds I liked your submissions alright, the Frightened Rabbit one slightly edging out the Nightingale, but this blows both of them out of the water.
The vocals are perfect, just perfect. And overall this song is just extremely smooth. There’s soaring choruses, heavy instrumentation, more mellow stuff, but it all transitions so damn smoothly. The singer has this very light vibrato to his voice in some of the lines of the verses and I love it. Goes to show that a pretty straightforward chorus in a not-so-straightforward setting can actually be really cool, adds that catchiness factor to it. I actually kind of expected to like this band from what I’ve heard from others but now it’s confirmed.
Can’t say much about this because it’s fairly short and pretty concise but this is without a doubt one of my favorite submissions (top 3) in what’s easily my favourite round of the roulette so far. Time to get some bonus points in there to maybe get closer to those leaderboards?
9.0/10Scorpion: Dir En Grey - VinushkaOkay, I’ve listened to a lot of weird shit the past half year but I still don’t know whether I’m ready for this band..
You can tell from the very first second that this is going to be epic as fuck. The intro is pretty damn beautiful and the clean vocals here remind me a lot of Justin Carter which is a bit awkward since he’s an avant-garde/jazz artist
but it works great here. There’s a lot of suspense going on in it and you can really feel the descent into insanity as the song progresses, slowly sounding darker and darker until at last all hell breaks loose.
..And it’s not even half bad! The screaky harsh vox are a bit overwhelming at first but being used to Destrage - whose high harsh vocals actually share a lot of similarities with these – I think I can manage.
I can see why this is one of your favorite metal tunes. Structurally I would go as far as saying it’s perfect, a lot of cool riffs being thrown in here too, especially near the end. I also just noticed that they have the trademark Korn bass sound going on in the very end of the song, I don’t know what it is they do to make it sound like that but I
love it. Yeah, favorite song of the roulette, I did say that there would probably be no middle ground score here and well, you can be the judge of that, but this is quite the standout score innit?
9.25 (+1.0) = 10.25/10Splent: OSI - OSISomething a bit heavier from splent this time around.
I like the heavy riffage and everything is ‘solid‘ but the vocals (as I feel about Kevin Moore doing vocals in general) sound a bit monotonous. It’s hard to make a song of this length not sound too repetitive and I guess that’s not really a problem I have here, but the things that do repeat don’t really hold much value to me. Frankly, the “hate it when the truth unravels“ kinda bores me.
Sorry, I wish I liked this more but it hasn’t got a lot of replay value to me, like I could dig some of the heavy instrumentation on this, I really like that upbeat stuff here, but Kevin is such a downer and I always get that same vibe from his vocals, it makes me want him to just stick to keys here. Still kinda curious which bands you based this on.
6.25/10Bolsters: BT - SuddenlySacul would love this intro.
Was excited to get some more electronic stuff from you after the Celldweller tune from last roulette. I’ll never be all over those glitches in music but they don’t bother me either, but here they’re actually quite good. Though it’s once the song really gets going that I’m sold on this, cheesy lyrics are a given with electronic music but those are never really the center of attention for this kind of music anyway. The chorus is just awesome, and I like how it’s kinda being foreshadowed after the first verse in a glitchy manner. Almost sounds like those vocals are Dan Tompkins from TesseracT which is never a bad thing.
Yeah. Don’t have a lot to say about this but it’s a great tune; catchy melodies in a very upbeat way, a fun instrumental section that reminds me a bit of Frost* and overall good replay value. I would say the chorus becomes a bit too much of the same near the end but it's not grating in any way so I still like it a lot.
8.0/10Home: Slowdive – Golden HairWell, it took you one risky choice that didn’t quite turn out how you hoped and one middle-of-the-road song that was still pretty good but man you sure delivered this round!
If I really wanted I could just give you a writeup of one word and I would be happy with it: Mesmerizing
I’m really glad you went for the live version, it really is miles better than the original and well, there’s simply way more music to enjoy (twice as much to be precise).
I love when bands like this prove that you can make up a lack of technical skill (not technically bad players but obviously no mastermind shredders either) with genius compositions and song structures. Less is more. The song is so dreamy and the music keeps coming in waves, makes me really want to just relax and drift away..
I don’t know if it’d be awkward to attend a band like this live but this crowd seems pretty legit. I would probably just want to listen to music like this when I’m alone in the perfect setting, but whatever floats their boat. Interesting submission, also the first one for the cover bonus point, something I would probably have never found out about if it wasn’t for you.
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8.5 (+1.0) = 9.5Twosuitsluke: Oceans Of Slumber – WinterI kind of expected to get Oceans of Slumber in this roulette..... from Parama
But either way, I’ve listened to one or two of their songs before and I quite liked it but failed to check out this album as of yet. The vocals are so, so good. These are not the regular female vocals as they sound very powerful, easily equally or even more powerful than most male vocals. And the growls, well, they’re exactly as I want them to be in a song like this. Very present when it’s needed, not overdone at all and when they do appear they’re concise and emotive. During my first listen I didn’t really focus on anything at all during this song but now that I do I’m loving it, this could be a contender for round winner to be honest, it’s
that good.
Structurally it’s great too, like, it gets substantially heavier as the song progresses and after the final climax there’s like a relaxing epilogue kinda thing. I would imagine these guys would be great at writing 10+ minute epics but I don’t think they’ve done so.
So we watch the sun for one more day! Probably the most epic line of the roulette so far, hot damn.
9.0 (+ 1.0) = 10/10StandingsScorpion: 17 + 10.25 = 27.25 (XX)
Parama: 17.5 + 8.5 = 26.0 (XX)
Tomislav95: 17.25 + 8.5 = 25.75 (X)
Twosuitsluke: 15.25 + 10.0 = 25.25 (XX)
Bolsters: 17 + 8.0 = 25.0 (X)
Evermind: 16.75 + 7.75 = 24.5 (X)
Sacul: 15.25 + 9.0 = 24.25 (XX)
Home: 14.75 + 9.5 = 24.25 (XX)
425: 15.25 + 8.0 = 23.25 ()
Splent: 16.75 + 6.25 = 23.0 (X)
Elite: 15.25 + 7.75 = 23.0 (X)
Shadow Ninja 2.0: 13.5 + 9.0 = 22.5 ()
The border represents the cut-off point after round 7
Schedule for next roundOkay, so we're 3 rounds in now and almost at the halfway point of the first 7 rounds before people get cut and we go into the final stages of the roulette. I'd like all the submissions for round 4 within the next 48 hours, I hope everyone is aware of how many themes they can still use and it would be best to use all three of them up within the first 7 rounds to assure the max. amount of points, I don't mind if people want to dismiss them in order to send me better songs that don't fit certain themes, I appreciate that approach but it might be your downfall. Special mention to 425 and Shadow Ninja however, who both have all their bonuses available.
Bonus round #3BUT, like mentioned in the OP, the final bonus round is happening during round 4, this is a fairly short and simple one, I can't drag this one out sadly since all there is to it is you will have to guess how many CD's are in my collection (counting physical, digital and albums I saved on Spotify to make it more challenging). The banned list is not really a giveaway at all because some of those artists are ones I listen to from time to time but don't actually have any albums of, similarly, there's artists that are not on the banned list but I do have saved an album of on Spotify. I want this to be a somewhat random lucky guess challenge anyway. Not a very inspirational at that, but it was at this point that I really had run out of ideas and probably shouldn't have even done another bonus round but eh.
To rule out completely useless guesses I won't allow any guesses under 100 but I won't point out a maximum amount. Guess in PM along with your submission please so it remains anonymous, that way we don't get cheaty guesses 1 number above or below someone else's.
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Topic: Train of Naught Roulette II v. MURAMASA... MASAMUNE (Read 122086 times)