Round 8 Results:
Here are the EP round results. I really am sorry that it took this long. My life became very busy in a number of ways that I did not anticipate during the time of this round, and it wound up being the case that every few days I would budget time to power through some write-ups, and then some new thing would show up on my radar requiring immediate attention that would swallow that time up.
And then, though I understand why people might feel this way and don't really blame them, logging onto this thread and seeing people saying they don't care anymore really sapped my motivation to finish it. Finally, I decided to stop looking at the thread and just get it done, for myself if for no one else.
And hey, my winner never once said they didn't care about the results.
Here are the writeups and results for the EP round. You may remember that I graded each of these EPs out of 20 holistically. This means I did not do an average score for each song plus a flow ranking or anything. No. I simply graded each one in terms of how well I liked it. I did include a rough score for each song in the writeups, but I don't want to give the impression that those scores are as carefully considered as my normal scores (they are not) or that they are variables in some mathematical formula that determines each EP score somehow (they are not). They're just in case you are interested.
Here are the EP results.
Nekov: The John Mitchell EP
1. Arena - Spectre at the Feast
2. Lonely Robot - God vs. Man
3. Kino - Grey Shapes on Concrete Fields
4. Lonely Robot - Construct/Obstruct
5. Kino - I Won’t Break So Easily Anymore
6. Arena - The Shattered Room
Snippet: Every single song on here is enjoyable, but there really isn't one on here that I've fallen for and could see myself listening to a lot after the roulette is over. The key will be to see if some of the songs actually do click strongly enough to make my impression more positive than something like "a solid set of songs." Maybe the opener and/or the closer?
This EP definitely has a distinct identity, beyond the mere fact of the same guitarist playing on all of the songs (the emphasis is not really on guitar theatrics, anyway, though there are undoubtedly some good guitar passages). All the songs are stylistically in a territory that I would describe as rock on the border between pop rock and neoprog. The music is mostly light and there is a lot of emphasis on hooks and anthemic choruses, particularly on the Lonely Robot and Kino songs. The neoprog tendencies are most strongly felt on Arena tracks, which does make them good bookends for the EP.
I have to say, though I do enjoy a lot of pop and some pop rock, that this style of pop rock isn’t likely to blow me away. I’ll enjoy it pretty well if it is well-written, it’s just not a style I usually find myself loving. It can sometimes even feel a little like watered-down prog to me, which is especially true when some of the musicians are known for prog or when some of the songs are prog pieces. Here, I do get some of that vibe from the middle tracks here, given the comparison the Arena tracks provide. I get a similar vibe from Flying Colors.
This isn’t to say these songs are not good! Quite the contrary. As the snippet says, I really do find every song on here enjoyable. Each one of them has some interesting melodies, particularly in the vocal department, and I definitely enjoy myself when I listen to them. There is some inventiveness even within the fairly conventional song structures, and there is some stuff that is still pleasantly surprising me many listens in. When I’m in the mood of this style of music, which is not too frequent but definitely still happens, I would happily reach for any of them.
As for the proggier Arena bookends, they are indeed my two favorites on the EP. Neither one of them is completely blowing me away, but I’m happy with the structuring of the two songs and some of the nice buildups they employ. The Shattered Room in particular brings something of an epic style to the table, and forms a nice finale for the EP.
The whole EP is definitely something I like listening to and would even come back to in the future. It just doesn’t reach up into the territory of music I like on the highest levels. But I’m happy I got to experience it.
Score: 15.5 out of 20
Song ranking:
1. Arena - The Shattered Room (8)
2. Arena - Spectre at the Feast (8)
3. Lonely Robot - Construct/Obstruct (7.5)
4. Kino - Grey Shapes on Concrete Fields (7.5)
5. Lonely Robot - God vs. Man (7.5)
6. Kino - I Won’t Break So Easily Anymore (7.5)
Lethean: Second Chances and New Beginnings
1. Cynthesis - The Man Without Skin
2. Voyager - To the Riverside
3. Voyager - Ghost Mile
4. Katatonia - My Twin
5. Tesseract - Survival
6. Andromeda - Ghosts on Retinas
7. Vanden Plas - Scarlet Flower Fields
8. Leprous - Forced Entry
Snippet: There is one track that could be make-or-break for this EP, which is overall in the quite-good-but-not-great territory, with a lot songs I enjoy but a few that tend a bit toward feeling generic. My impression of that track right now is cautiously positive, but it is still very much up in the air.
I would describe this EP as really consistent in both style and quality. Everything here is more-or-less straightfoward prog metal, and all the songs range from pretty solid to quite good.
This does not mean there is no sense of variety here. There really is, which is a very good thing. Despite the songs coming from the same basic style, each one has its own identity, which prevents the EP from sounding too same-y. The flow from each song into the next is also strong. This all adds up to a pretty enjoyable listening experience.
However, the obstacle between this and the top scores is that there really are no songs that stand out as great. Sure, there are also none that stand out as weak, which is an important positive and a big part of why this will score well. But, naturally, the highest scores go to EPs that do have songs that I fall in love with. And there is no such track here.
The key track I alluded to in the snippet is, of course, the final track, Forced Entry. It is the longest one on here and it is from a band that has never really been sold on me.
Forced Entry is, without a doubt, the best Leprous song I have ever heard. The band really just feels like they’re doing a lot more on this song than on others I’ve heard from them, particularly in terms of variety and dynamics. They don’t sit in mid-tempo heavy riffing mode for the whole song, instead bringing other sections, particularly quieter ones, to the table, which makes the heavy riffs more effective when they do appear.
This song has convinced me to give Leprous a little more of a chance, though it is a song I think is quite good and short of being one that I am in love with. In fact, it turns out that my four favorite songs on the EP are all the “Second Chances,” so it may well be that you have achieved your goal of getting me to give some of these artists another shot. As for that other goal of winning the roulette, that one is more in doubt.
Score: 16 out of 20
Song ranking:
1. Leprous - Forced Entry (8.5)
2. Vanden Plas - Scarlet Flower Fields (8)
3. Katatonia - My Twin (8)
4. Tesseract - Survival (8)
5. Voyager - To the Riverside (7.5)
6. Cynthesis - The Man Without Skin (7.5)
7. Voyager - Ghost Mile (7.5)
8. Andromeda - Ghosts on Retinas (7)
Evermind: The Eye of the Beholder
1. Daughter - Landfill
2. Daughter - Shallows
3. Katatonia - Decima
4. Lee Abraham - Harbour Lights
5. Frequency Drift - Run
6. Big Big Train - Curator of Butterflies
Snippet: This EP starts off really strong for the first half, then seems to peter off a bit. Those first few songs are incredibly strong, but then I feel myself losing interest somewhat as we advance beyond that midway point. The key is going to be whether it can come to carry its strength along through the entire EP.
As things stand so far, you are one of the top three scorers and only a half point out of first place. And your effort to get across the finish line with this EP starts out very strong. Both songs by Daughter are wonderful pieces. Somber in the best way, filled with melody and great singing, a lush instrumental sound, all sorts of things that I like.
The Katatonia song is a good follow-up, but it is a noticeable step down from the excellent Daughter songs. And that actually sums up how I feel about songs 3-5 on the EP. They’re good songs, just not as good as the opening pair—and each one rates lower than the preceding one. Harbour Lights has a pair of fantastic guitar solos that boost up the rest of the song which is not a home run for me. And the Frequency Drift song has a good vocal performance on the choruses, but the verses and some of the instrumentation fall a bit short for me.
Ultimately, the success of this EP hangs on the success or failure of the Big Big Train song, in more ways than one. Because while I find the concept interesting and the songs good, the mood is rather gloomier than I would like to follow for a long period of time. So the finale needs not only to break the pattern of declines, but also give some brightness to the close of the EP.
So, does it succeed? I kind of don’t know? Sort of? I do like it, and I do think it is a better song than the preceding two—there’s actually a lot of good stuff going on here musically. But I don’t find it to be the hopeful ending I would have wanted (indeed, the concept Evermind wrote does not have a hopeful ending). There’s something about it that actually bothers me, though I find I have a hard time describing it. There’s something I find unsatisfying about this ending. And that kind of ends up being generalized to a feel about the EP as a whole.
What is my final analysis? … hard to say. This one has been the toughest EP to get a handle on. I find it exceedingly well done, but kind of not for me. There’s something that strikes me wrong about much of its emotional tone, especially the end, in a way that I find difficult to describe. So the emotional element is going to wind up ranking what I feel is probably a very, very good EP lower than it probably would score for someone who resonates better with it.
Score: 16.5 out of 20
Song ranking:
1. Daughter - Landfill (9)
2. Daughter - Shallows (9)
3. Katatonia - Decima (8)
4. Big Big Train - Curator of Butterflies (7.5)
5. Lee Abraham - Harbour Lights (7.5)
6. Frequency Drift - Run (7)
Elite: Always the Summers are Slipping Away: Finding Love Through Darkness and Despair
1. Arcade Fire - Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)
2. Radiohead - Go to Sleep
3. Have a Nice Life - Bloodhail
4. Karnivool - Umbra
5. Voyager - Sober
6. Arcade Fire - Wake Up
7. Radiohead - True Love Waits
Snippet: There are a lot of different styles strung together on this EP, which on the whole tends toward an emotional feel that I am not usually crazy about. Some of the songs I find really good, and others not that appealing (it remains to be seen whether I'm mostly apathetic to these songs or whether aspects of them actively annoy me). Fortunately, one of the artists here that I do really like has multiple songs.
One thing is for certain: This EP sure starts off really strong. This Arcade Fire song is fantastic. It’s got a bit of a raucous edge while maintaining a lot of emotion and melody. It’s definitely among my favorite songs of the round.
Stepping back for a second, I really do appreciate the thought that went into this concept. I can follow the story that you described in your PM through the music. The progression of each song to the next one definitely feels like the progression through scenes of a story. And even though, as the snippet alludes to and I’ll get to, a couple of the songs don’t really do it for me, I still appreciate their place in the concept.
Continuing on, the Radiohead song is also pretty enjoyable to me. It keeps the raucousness of the Arcade Fire song and adds a surprisingly folky vibe (I guess I’d never paid this artist much notice until now).
It’s here that we kind of hit a bump in the road. Tracks 3 and 4 form the weaker section of the EP. I ultimately don’t view this as songs that annoy me on the whole, and they both even have appealing aspects. But the Have a Nice Life track does have an annoying element in the repeated “arrowheads” refrain at the end.
The Karnivool song is better and does have a solid chorus. It falls below the level of the rest of the EP, but is still an enjoyable song.
The Voyager track was a pleasant surprise. I really overlooked it the first few times and grouped it with the prior two into a trio of bleak songs that I didn’t much care for, but on further listens I’m really hearing a lot of creative depth here. The dynamics just feel like they work effortlessly, but they’re actually bolstered by nice subtle work from the keyboard player and vocalist. This, along with the Arcade Fire songs, is the other highlight of the EP.
The two concluding songs are the repeated artists, and in each case, I find the song to be nearly as strong as the previous one from the same artist, but not quite. Which is still very very strong in the Arcade Fire case. And True Love Waits is very effective as a closer here, though it’s a bit of a sad ending, it feels like.
Speaking briefly of bleakness: It really was something I worried was going to be a big obstacle my first few times through the EP. But this winds up feeling like something that has dark moments but never as a whole feels hopeless. A few of these individual songs might of faced bleakness as a greater obstacle on their own, but in the context of the whole, it works and does not put me off really much, with the small exception of the EP ending on a sad note (and even then: it’s not a huge deal).
On the whole, I have really come to enjoy this EP a lot. The biggest grower of the round. A concept that does a really fantastic job of tying some decently diverse songs together. Several very good songs. Great cohesion and flow. A couple of songs I’m not huge on are the only pieces that pull this whole down. It is still a very good EP with a number of songs that definitely got my attention.
Score: 17 out of 20
Song ranking:
1. Arcade Fire - Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels) (9)
2. Arcade Fire - Wake Up (9)
3. Voyager - Sober (8.5)
4. Radiohead - Go to Sleep (8.5)
5. Radiohead - True Love Waits (8)
6. Karnivool - Umbra (7)
7. Have a Nice Life - Bloodhail (6.5)
Topic: 425’s Second Roulette v. Keep your hands upon the wheel (Read 95159 times)
