The Bolsters™ v3 Mini Roulette ★ [2017 Edition] ★ THE CONCLUSION

[soupytwist]

Trivium - the Wretchedness inside.

[Sacul]

Sent by Trainy.

[Bolsters]

home: Sleep Party People - ____res
Elite: Lesoir - Gone and Forgotten
jingle.boi: Eagleheart - __t__ _ear _s Gone
Parama: Enslaved - Hiindsiight
: _a_ _____a_ _t First Aid Kit - Re____t___
TAC: Loch Vostok - Babylonian Groove
Puppies: Der Weg einer Freiheit - Ein letzter Tanz
Trainy: Trivium - The Wretchedness Inside
: ___at__ S___ - Blood __ t_e T___tr__e


Guessed: A B D E R S T

Waits 3: Train
Waits 2: Parama
Waits 1: Elite

[home]

Lunatic Soul - Blood on the Tightrope

[Sacul]

Gimme the U

[Evermind]

Eagleheart track is Until Fear is Gone. Listened to this album today, pretty good stuff, need to revisit it. Not sure if I liked this particular song (it's the first one on the album, right?), but overall good stuff.

[jingle.boy]

It's track #2, but the opener is just an intro/seque.

[Evermind]

It's track #2, but the opener is just an intro/seque.

Yeah, I think the one that caught my attention the most was the next track with "blood! death! sorrow!" and then high-pitched "something something aaaah!" in the chorus (which was awesome), but I was pretty distracted at work so I'll have to spin this album again.

[Crow]

I sympathize
With a something
And a something
AAAAHHH

[Evermind]

I sympathize
With a something
And a something
AAAAHHH

Just checked it and I even failed to get the first line right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uClc2Udl5r4&feature=youtu.be&t=1m44s

[jingle.boy]

I sympathize
With a something
And a something
AAAAHHH

Just checked it and I even failed to get the first line right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uClc2Udl5r4&feature=youtu.be&t=1m44s

Kade!  No peeking.  I'm savin this bad-boy for your roulette.

[Bolsters]

home: Sleep Party People - ___ures
Elite: Lesoir - Gone and Forgotten
jingle.boi: Eagleheart - Until Fear is Gone
Parama: Enslaved - Hiindsiight
: _a_ _____a_ _t First Aid Kit - Re___ut___
TAC: Loch Vostok - Babylonian Groove
Puppies: Der Weg einer Freiheit - Ein letzter Tanz
Trainy: Trivium - The Wretchedness Inside
: Lunatic Soul - Blood on the Tightrope


Guessed: A B D E R S T U

Waits 3: Sacul
Waits 2: Train
Waits 1: Parama

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

How about an L

[Crow]

i'm gonna guess soupy sent first aid kit and sacul sent lunatic soul
sleep party people song is figures
first aid kit song is revolution

[Bolsters]

home: Sleep Party People - Figuresures
Elite: Lesoir - Gone and Forgotten
jingle.boi: Eagleheart - Until Fear is Gone
Parama: Enslaved - Hiindsiight
soupy: _a_ __ll_a_ _t First Aid Kit - Revolution
TAC: Loch Vostok - Babylonian Groove
Puppies: Der Weg einer Freiheit - Ein letzter Tanz
Trainy: Trivium - The Wretchedness Inside
Sacul: Lunatic Soul - Blood on the Tightrope


Guessed: A B D E L R S T U

Waits 3: Puppies
Waits 2: Sacul
Waits 1: Train

[Crow]

F?
pretty sure the word before First is ft.

Figuresures

same

[Bolsters]

home: Sleep Party People - Figures
Elite: Lesoir - Gone and Forgotten
jingle.boi: Eagleheart - Until Fear is Gone
Parama: Enslaved - Hiindsiight
soupy: _a_ __ll_a_ ft First Aid Kit - Revolution
TAC: Loch Vostok - Babylonian Groove
Puppies: Der Weg einer Freiheit - Ein letzter Tanz
Trainy: Trivium - The Wretchedness Inside
Sacul: Lunatic Soul - Blood on the Tightrope


Guessed: A B D E F L R S T U

Waits 3: Parama
Waits 2: Puppies
Waits 1: Sacul

[Train of Naught]

Van William ft. First Aid Kid - Revolution

Results wann?

[Bolsters]

Whenever.

[Crow]

train results when

[Bolsters]

I might post results tomorrow, but it's more likely going to be Monday.

This round was a bit mixed compared to the last one. The best here definitely isn't on par with the best songs of last round, so a couple of you are getting away with easy diamond/gold stars, and the silver stars this round aren't really comparable to the silver of last either. Conversely, at the other end I think the pink star songs this round are definitely stronger than those from the last round, so some of you are getting the short stick.

Ranking this has been difficult and is not finalised, but I am not going to waste time ranking songs within the same score tier. So just because your song is last in the upcoming results might not necessarily mean it was a song I liked less than the other two pink star songs, it's just that I don't find it necessary to mull over ranking things that are getting the same score anyway. Same goes for the two silver star songs and bronze star songs.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

 

[Bolsters]

Elite: Lesoir - Gone and Forgotten (Latitude)

• I'm not sure if you remembered, but you actually sent Lesoir to me during my first roulette. That song didn't score though (Chad won that matchup) and it looks like I only ever listened to that album once long ago, so I saw no reason not to allow this song.
  
  So to start with, I like how this song builds up. It has a pretty ambient intro that leads into a verse of clean but slightly overdriven guitars, some pretty active drum beats, and soft dreamy vocals. We don't even really get a chorus of sorts until after the halfway point, and it's driven more by the bass than anything else which is in contrast to everything before. Then the distorted guitars and violins come out for a really epic section that leads into the final vocal section and outro - all of which happens to be my favourite thing about this song.
  
  So, nice build-up and good dynamics, a nice vocal performance, excellent use of strings for a strong climax. Gripes? Well the intro is probably a bit overlong and takes too long to get to the point, given the total length of the song. But I can't really think of anything else to criticise and that's not a big issue anyway, so while this probably would have only been a silver-star song last round, you've managed to do far better in this one.

soupytwist: Van William ft First Aid Kit - Revolution (The Revolution EP)

• My first impressions of this song were good, but definitely not as favourable as my current thoughts. This song is a bit saccharine for the mostpart, but it's very well done and quite catchy. I especially like the female vocalist, the "wooing" scat vocals accompanied by the busier mix, and there's some tasty brass mixed in for good measure as well.
  
  Really, I think maybe the previously mentioned saccharine sound is perhaps my only real gripe with the song, and I'm probably being a bit pedantic at this point anyway. The song definitely grew on me the more I listened to it and made its way up the ranks slowly but surely, at first I'd have scoffed at the idea of it getting this good of a star but in this round? I can easily justify it. Good stuff.

Puppies_On_Acid: Der Weg einer Freiheit - Ein letzter Tanz (Finisterre)

• I had a bit of a hard time getting into this one, but the more I listened to it the more I liked the good things and the less I was bothered by the bad. So while not as strong an effort as your first round's song, this didn't end up doing too badly.
  
  This song has some good chord progressions and the perfect, fuzzy guitar tone to highlight the dissonance in them, a perfect example being the extended, slower-paced intro to the song, but remains relevant when the pace picks up. At first the incessant double-kicking grated on me a bit, as it can do when I find it overused, but those parts of the song grew on me the more I heard it. Blastbeats are another thing used quite a bit here that grate on me, and to be honest I'd have preferred a lot less of them, but as I delved deeper I found an appreciation for the way the band changes up things in the blastbeat sections; the cymbal work changes and isn't as repetitive as the kick/snare and brings some variance, and there are little drum fills now and then that alleviate the monotony of them. Still, parts where the drumming has more groove are definitely what I prefer from this song - when the drums stop at around 5:48 and the song slowly builds back up is what gets me going the most.
  
  Having said all that, this was probably more of a risk than you might realise. While I do listen to some extreme metal it is very often hit or miss with me, and while there's a couple of elements that scream "miss" in this track, on the whole you managed to send something that "hit" and did so despite the song still containing some elements of the genre that don't gel well with me all that much. I mean I even found something to like in my biggest complaint about the song (blast beats) which is definitely something.
  
  If anyone recalls, Parama sent all five submissions at the beginning of the roulette and this band was one of them, although a different song. I gave it a listen yesterday and didn't really like it at all, so you definitely made a better choice from this album compared to him, and it looks like you might have saved him from a poor score - if the replacement song I get ends up being good.

Parama: Enslaved - Hiindsiight (E)

• It seems you didn't fuck up your decent start to this roulette just yet.
  
  So this song has some pretty stark contrast between what I suppose could be called the verses (despite being completely instrumental for the first half of the song) which I quite like the sound of, and have an almost major key sound (I think it's just the chord choices though?) and these short, intermittent bursts of doom metal with harsh vocals. It is perhaps a bit abrupt but I like the change in style, although these parts I don't think are as good and they are a bit generic-sounding though not terrible at least.
  
  Then there's some saxaphone almost out of nowhere which I think really elevates the song, it's not what I would have expected and it adds an interesting flavour or timbre to the song. This outro is decent aswell and I'm glad the last few minutes of the song don't just repeat what we've had up until that point and there's something new. It has a weird tonal contrast, with the sax playing a melody and clean, dreamy and layered vocals; but there's still a dissonance to it somewhat, like there are notes in these layers here and there that conflict with other elements. But I kind of like that.
  
  Perhaps surprisingly, you're still going pretty good so far.

jingle.boy: Eagleheart - Until Fear is Gone (Reverse)

• Well first off, this is much better than the previous song you sent, so maybe your new strategy of just sending your favourite things is going to do better? I guess we'll find out in the remaining three rounds.
  
  So this one has a lot more melody to it, stronger riffs, and so it's much more memorable and catchy. They aren't breaking the mold here but the execution is spot on. I think my favourite thing here is the whole solo/instrumental section though; it starts off with some and then there's a guitar unison solo that's pretty epic before letting rip again.
  
  Yeah, this is definitely better.

TAC: Loch Vostok - Babylonian Groove (Strife)

• Vocalist is strong in the chorus and the intermittent screaming vox are done well. My favourite part is the lead-in to the guitar solo, the ascending chord progression, agression of the guitars and increasingly harsh vocals build the song up very well.
  
  On the other hand, I'm not the biggest fan of this vocalist in the verses, though strangely he also uses clean vocals in the chorus which I don't mind. I think maybe the melodies or the range in the verses simply isn't as flattering to him. Infact, the verses in general are probably just the weakest part of the track, though that doesn't mean to say I find them bad.
  
  Not that there was much wrong with your first submission, but I definitely dig this much more. Good stuff.

Train of Naught: Trivium - The Wretchedness Inside (The Sin and The Sentence)

• In a lot of ways, this was a bit different to what I was expecting from Trivium. Previous Trivium songs I have heard were fairly straight-up thrash with core-like vocals and neither of those things traditionally appealed to me (though I've warmed up to this vocal style for the mostpart, I'm still no thrash fan). So, I was pleasantly surprised when this turned out to be much more modern than I was expecting, even slightly djenty-sounding. This style of metal is definitely more appealing to me than what I remember from Crusade/Shogun-era Trivium.
  
  On the good side of things, this is pretty catchy and I like the heaviness. It's a pretty strong chorus and I like the alternating vocal styles. The verses are a nice change of pace as well, being driven by the bass more. Production is also really good, a very clean and modern metal sound.
  
  My biggest gripe here is probably that it is a bit on the generic side in a lot of places, I mean that prechorus with the the kick on the odd beats then guitar and cymbal on the offbeat is very recognisable from many other things, the structure is also extremely predictable, and other than the aformentioned prechorus I don't think there is a single guitar chord in this song that is not accompanied by the kick. But despite that and despite ranking this where I did, it's still a decent track. I really didn't think you would end up getting pink for this but the consistency this round in the mid/low rankings was pretty good and a lot better than last round, and I think this song might deserve better than a pink star...but I'm just unable to give you anything better here.

Sacul: Lunatic Soul - Blood on the Tightrope (Fractured)

• So, as you may have guessed already this song was a bit of a mixed bag and definitely not as strong as your Brand New entry from last round.
  
  Let's start with the good: Production and style-wise I quite dig what is going on. I like the strange sound of the bass synth in particular, I think the wide range on the notes in the bassline make it really stand out. I really like the change in atmosphere brought on by the piano in the back half of the song too, and there's a nice solo piano break later on that is a welcome change. Mariusz is on point but I'd expect no less.
  
  On to the bad...despite some legitimate evolution to the dynamics and introduction of new sounds across the song's length, it is still very reptitive at its core. The drum beat remains constant (or close enough to it), and even the bassline I mentioned liking earlier is greatly overused. I think this problem is exacerbated by the length of the track as well, clocking in at over seven minutes.
  
  Overall I enjoy the song, and to the best of my knowledge I surprisingly haven't checked Lunatic Soul before this and look forward to listening to the album. However, the lack of variance hurt this song a fair bit and I can't really rank it any higher than this.

home: Sleep Party People - Figures (Lingering)

• First off, I really like the style, sound and the mix of this song. The bass is probably the star for me, I also like the alternating lo-fi and full fidelity drum loops. The parts where the song almost comes to a complete stop (is this the shoegaze?) are interesting if abrupt, but welcome changes in the song at a couple of points and contrast against the more cheerful sound of the song with dissonance.
  
  Depite that, I have one pretty big gripe with this song, and it's one that those who played in my previous roulettes are likely familiar with: this song is very repetitive. That cool two chord bass line I mentioned liking before is the only bass line in the entire song, and it gets repeated a lot - even when the bass isn't there, this same ostinato is played by another organ-like synth. The guitar line is similarly overplayed and repetitive. There is a build-up of elements towards the later parts of the song that provide some variance, the drum beat in particular evolves a bit despite still being built on the exact same beat, but there just isn't enough variety in this song for me.
  
  So, on one hand I really like the sound and style of this track, but the overly-repetitive structure was a detriment here and I was bugged by that the more I listened to the song. I did like this more than the pink star songs from last round though (including your own) and am definitely checking out the album...but I am hoping that the rest of the songs have more to them than this one does.

Get those Round 3 submissions to me when you can.

[Crow]

can say with relative confidence puppies is in the lead atm, thanks for saving me from a bad score puppies 

[soupytwist]

soupytwist: Van William ft First Aid Kit - Revolution (The Revolution EP)

• My first impressions of this song were good, but definitely not as favourable as my current thoughts. This song is a bit saccharine for the mostpart, but it's very well done and quite catchy. I especially like the female vocalist, the "wooing" scat vocals accompanied by the busier mix, and there's some tasty brass mixed in for good measure as well.
  
  Really, I think maybe the previously mentioned saccharine sound is perhaps my only real gripe with the song, and I'm probably being a bit pedantic at this point anyway. The song definitely grew on me the more I listened to it and made its way up the ranks slowly but surely, at first I'd have scoffed at the idea of it getting this good of a star but in this round? I can easily justify it. Good stuff.

Oh wow.  Wasn't expecting this - I only really sent it to showcase the vocals of First Aid Kit, the female voices.  Unfortunately their own most recent album came out this year and I couldn't use anything from it.

[Train of Naught]

That's probably the only song on the album that sounds djenty to be honest, most of the other songs are a fair bit more alternative metal-leaning so check at own risk. I think it's a fine album though.

This does make me hesitate my round 3 submission though, cause while not metal, that could also easily be categorized as generic. I'll give it a couple more hours.

I only listened to that Loch Vostok album once after I got Yurei in my roulette from TAC, I think Babylonian Groove was one of my favourites next to Yurei, I don't remember well though

[Elite]

I won a round? :O

That probably puts me in second place at this point. Good!
I sent my next entry already, so much for slacking, right?

[jingle.boy]

We're movin up Tim.  Next stop, Silver.

Sent.

[Sacul]

Yeah I definitely struggled to choose a song from that album, and I totally get what you mean. I still love the record because Mariusz' style is wonderful and the more electronic direction he took with it is nice change from the very ambient past works.

[Train of Naught]

Sent Semistereo

For real though I need a reply regarding the song I sent, because based on your reply I might send a different song from the album

[Elite]

Sent Semistereo

Good to hear I’m winning your roulette:)

[wolfking]

That Trivium song is the last one I would send from that album.

[TAC]

We're movin up Tim. 

Hah, right!

I only listened to that Loch Vostok album once after I got Yurei in my roulette from TAC, I think Babylonian Groove was one of my favourites next to Yurei, I don't remember well though

It's a cool album.




Sent something I actually sent to Train.

[Crow]

i think i checked out loch vostok's 2017 album at some point but wasn't super into it

gonna try and resend my round 4 entry tonight but it might be awful (as usual)

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I'm not sure what to send now... Power Metal?