Advance warning, this is going to be another one of those rounds where everybody has almost the same score. I found that this round, maybe even more than most of the others, had a lot of songs that I would rate really similarly, songs that I liked, often quite a bit, but didn't love. There are a couple of exceptions, the main one being a song that was a clear favorite for me from the very first time I heard it. But most of the songs are really bunched up in here, and are really testing my ability to determine between two scores in particular.
So maybe not a big shakeup in the standings here, with one exception. Everybody maybe gained or lost a half point or so on everyone else. That's what happens when everyone sends me songs of a similar caliber.
Round Eight ResultsParama: Oceansize - Only TwinThis was kind of an interesting listening process for me. I’ve heard of Oceansize on this forum and I knew that they are a band that I really should like. That said, the first couple of listens to this song were tough for me. I really didn’t find a lot to like the first few times, though there were a few good aspects.
Fortunately, this song settled in a bit better for me on the third and fourth listens. A big aspect of what makes this song so challenging, I think, is the fact that it really is an aural onslaught, in which the instruments do a lot of different things in an effort to build the song’s crescendos. It’s a really complex song hiding under a veneer of simplicity, and I think there’s a good chance that I will come to like it better on listens after the fourth one. There are some good melodies here, like the vocal melody at 5:00 that is repeated again at 5:42. The song is just such an onslaught that parts of it still haven’t really fallen into place for me. The parts of this song that I do like, I really like, and I feel like the musical direction is really interesting. But these four listens just haven’t been enough time for everything to really fall into place for me.
One last weird aspect for me was how much the singer reminded me of Steven Wilson at the beginning. This really didn’t affect my liking of the song, it’s just an interesting note.
Score: 7.5lonestar: The Deadstation - Subsistence DefinedI really didn’t know what to expect going into my first listen to this song. The band’s name and artwork are… kind of strange. I wasn’t surprised to hear a ton of metal riffing, but I was somewhat surprised at how heavy the Dream Theater influence is here. There are noticeable differences, obviously, but the influence is definitely there.
Overall, I think this is a very interesting song. It’s a heavy song with some strong melodic qualities, many of which are found in distorted vocals, which I wouldn’t have expected to like, but really did.
There a lot of aspects of this song that I find really interesting and likable. My best explanation for the relatively low score here is that this isn’t really my usual style of music. The onslaught of staccato heavy riffing and distorted vocals really work here, but it’s still not something I’m often looking for in music. I do like the song, though.
Score: 8.0TAC: Glass Mind - Your Name in SilenceSo here’s a really solid progressive metal song, one with perhaps an even more noticeable Dream Theater influence than lonestar’s submission (even bordering on an homage with the "woah, oh oh”s at the end?).
The instrumentation here is really spot on. The keyboard intro is quite nice, and the guitar work, both in terms of riffs and melodies, is quite strong. The quiet part in the second half leading into the climax of the song is really good. TAC, you might have been right in guessing that this singer is one that I would not be inclined to like, and you’re right in that he’s not my favorite because of that particular style, but for whatever reason, he feels to me like one of the less egregious examples of this style. I’m still not crazy about the vocal style, but it doesn’t bother me. Perhaps because the chorus is really, really strong melodically.
This is definitely a textbook progressive metal song, but it’s a pretty good one. I’ve never really heard of the band, but they seem to have a knack for putting together a pretty solid prog metal song.
Score: 8.0ShadowNinja 2.0: Steam Powered Giraffe - Brass GogglesI see that you decided to stick with the policy of sending me really weird stuff.
You know, I don’t really know how these guys wound up making this type of music or how people got into this type of music, really. This was so strange to me, just from a stylistic standpoint, that I really didn’t know if I liked it or not. In fact, I’m still not 100% certain!
But this song was definitely in my head all day. It’s infectiously catchy and a lot of fun, so I think I do like it. The chorus about “a very big steam-powered giraffe that smokes” is very catchy, and I have taken a liking to some of the unusual lyrical aspects about, apparently, whether a robot is capable of having feelings. I’m still not completely certain how interested I am in hearing more songs of this style, but this was a fun song and an interesting submission.
Score: 8.0 + 0.5 bonus = 8.5kingshmegland: Dada - Star You AreThis is a really pretty little love song. It’s really nice lyrically and musically, with a memorable and emotional chorus and some touching lyrics, particularly the line from which the title comes. I think it would be hard not to like this song, really.
Perhaps my favorite thing about this song is the vocal approach. The two singers work well together to create a cohesive and emotional vocal sound, and both of them have really good voices. I think it’s really interesting that two people with pretty similar styles sang on this song, but I think it really works here. Kind of a distinguishing factor for this pretty little song.
Score: 8.0 + 0.5 bonus = 8.5Scorpion: Steve Rothery - MorpheusWell, here’s a really nice, pleasant instrumental song. I didn’t really expect to get a song like this in the roulette or for it to perform all too well, but this one just really works.
The highlight of this track is obviously the guitar work. I don’t know Steve Rothery’s own work all too well, but to me, the influence from David Gilmour is clear, though he certainly doesn’t sound like a copycat. The playing and the tone are definitely Gilmour-esque, though.
What I really like here is that, though this is a prog guitarist’s solo album, the emphasis here is on composition. There aren’t a ton of long, shreddy solos that show off Rothery’s technical skill; in fact, there isn’t much soloing at all. Instead, there’s just a really strong composition built around one or two really good themes. The guitar work is, of course, very strong, but so is the presence of the piano. On the whole, this is just a really nice, calm instrumental track. A pleasant experience.
Score: 8.5Open Your Eyes311: Styx - One With EverythingHere’s a really nice, fun, groovy prog rock song. This is nice retro prog song complete with Hammond organ and everything. The instrumentation is nice and tight. I really like the big melodies played on the keyboard, especially during the instrumental sections. The singing is pretty as well; the choral effect on the choruses is really quite a lovely touch.
There’s just something about this song that makes it feel big and wide open and joyous. I really love the first chorus “… something in the atmosphere…”, it’s really pretty and happy. The second chorus doesn’t do it for me quite as much, but it still carries with it this general sense of openness and joy. Really quite a nice song and one that will inspire me to check out more of Styx’s work.
Score: 8.5Sacul: No-Man - Back When You Were BeautifulNo-Man is a name I’ve long been familiar with as “one of those other Steven Wilson projects.” I’d never really given them much of a look, to be honest. I thought maybe they were one of the more esoteric SW projects, and so I never really bothered. That was clearly a mistake, because if this song is any indication, this might be my favorite of the sounds that SW has had. His co-collaborator’s singing brings a bit of a different feel here than is on those projects where Steven sings, but Wilson’s presence is here as well.
I really do think that, given the frame of reference I had coming in, this song can be described as a Steven Wilson ballad with a very clear, distinct other songwriting presence involved. And it’s really quite appealing to me, actually, because, though I admire Wilson’s obvious songwriting talent, I find that he is often very cold and not very relatable, at least to me. I won’t say that I find No-Man to be the warmest band I’ve ever heard, but I think the presence of the other songwriter/singer provides a bit of a counterweight to some of the coldness I’ve experienced with SW’s music in the past. His voice is SW-esque, but warmer and more personable, which I like.
I realize that this entire writeup has been about how this song compares to other songs by Steven Wilson, which is probably caused by the fact that I’m already kind of familiar with this artist, but kind of not. In any case, I really do like the song. It’s not astonishing, but it’s a very good sad little ballad. If this is any indication of No-Man, I will definitely have to give them a serious look.
Score: 8.5 + 0.5 bonus = 9.0Big Hath: Snarky Puppy - Amour, t’es làWhy didn’t you send this on the happy round? True, I don’t really know if the lyrics are happy or not, since I don’t speak French. But even if they’re really sad you’d have gotten away with it, since, as you can tell, I didn’t look them up. Oh well, that’s in the past with the Alcest happy round submission, and this is now.
This fun, romantic (I feel like it’s romantic, though that might be because that’s how anything French sounds to me) little song is one of my favorite songs of the round. I like the instrumentation provided here. The horns and other instruments sound really good, and the drums really provide the song with a sense of motion. The singer is really good, her voice fits very well with the song, and the group vocals just add to the overall feel of the song, particularly on the very pretty chorus.
When I listen to this song, I feel like it could easily be used in a movie of some kind, in some kind of romantic montage or something. It just feels like the music to a movie scene where there’s a lot of really joyful activity going on, like the whole world is dancing. I don’t know, that’s just really what I see in my head when I hear this song. In any case, this is a really pretty, fun little song with some nice, tight instrumentation and a great vocal performance by the lead singer and the background vocalists.
Score: 9.0 + 0.5 bonus = 9.5Evermind: Susanne Sundfør - The BrothelThis is exactly what I want to hear. This is pretty much spot on one of the types of music that I hoped find more of with this roulette.
This is an absolutely beautiful song that I fell in love with on first listen and have only liked better every time I heard it. The sparse electronic instrumentation is really beautiful and sets the scene with its beautiful sad notes. The centerpiece is Sundfør’s absolutely stunning voice. Her singing is just so excellent, beautiful and emotional. Her amazing voice works perfectly in rise and fall with the instrumentals. I love when the symphonic elements come in to back her growing intensity on the later choruses. The lyrics are also amazing, fitting perfectly with the sadness of the song as a whole.
Just… everything about this song is really fantastic. The music, the lyrics her voice. Spectacular.
Score: 9.5 + 0.5 bonus = 10.0Natural Standings:ShadowNinja 2.0 - 70.5
Evermind - 70.0
Scorpion - 70.0
Parama - 69.0
OpenYourEyes311 - 68.5
Sacul - 67.5
kingshmegland - 67.0
Big Hath - 66.5
lonestar - 65.5
TAC - 63.0
Adjusted Standings:Scorpion - 64.0
Evermind - 62.0
ShadowNinja 2.0 - 62.0
Parama - 61.5
OpenYourEyes311 - 60.5
Sacul - 60.5
kingshmegland - 59.5
Big Hath - 59.0
lonestar - 58.0
TAC - 55.5
I re-added the scores from scratch to get the new scores in hopes of avoiding a situation where I committed an error several weeks ago that I've carried over until now. I'll do the same on the final score as well as just adding it on to make sure I get everything right. However, I encourage everybody to add up their own scores and let me know if there are any errors. I don't want to get anything wrong.
Round Nine: EPI think we've mostly gone over what I expect in the EP round. There's a maximum length of 30 minutes, no more than 15 minutes of music can be from any one artist, etc. Your submission will graded both on the quality of the songs and the quality of the playlist itself, so the songs should work together as an EP, as well as a collection of songs from different artists can.
If you send me YouTube links, which is perfectly fine, just be sure it's clear in your PM what the running order of the songs is. If you want to make my life easier and/or if it's important that the playback be as gapless as possible, and you still want to use YouTube, you might make a playlist and send me the playlist. Alternately, if some of your songs aren't on YouTube, you could send me the files themselves. If you do that, it might be best to put track numbers in the file names—that is, the song you want me to listen to first could be called "1 Dark Chest of Wonders.mp3", followed by "2 Another Day.mp3" and so on. If you send me a Spotify playlist, keep in mind that I don't have premium Spotify. As I found out this past round, that means that there are some songs I can listen to and some that I can't. For that reason, it's probably best to do YouTube and if that's not viable to send me the files.
EPs will be scored out of 20. I'm not sure if I will include half point increments yet. The way bonuses will work is the following: if 50% of the EP by length is neither prog nor metal, it's a 0.5 bonus. If the entire EP is neither prog nor metal, it's a 1.0 bonus (it may seem like a lot, but it's the same as the regular bonus since the round is out of 20, not 10).
At this point, I'm going to make a declaration on banned artists in the EP. If the artist was banned in this round or in the previous (epic) round, you can include one song from that artist so long as that song is less than 30% of your EP by length. I don't see any reason to open the thing up to artists that were banned in earlier rounds, since I'm trying to not force people to change their EPs last minute, not allow a field day on artists I've already heard. Obviously this doesn't help you if someone sent the particular song you were going to include on the EP this round, but it's an attempt to try to preserve the running order of EPs that have already been made, since running order is important here. The 30% limit is to prevent people from loading up an EP of 50+% something I already liked here.
Since this is the final round, I'll say for the first of what I assume will be several times how much I've enjoyed having you all involved here. Every single person in this roulette has sent me multiple songs that I have really liked and have made me interested in checking out bands or albums. I really appreciate you all being a part of this.
At some point during the EP listening, I'll make a post listing what I've learned from running this roulette. This will include personal items about my own tastes as well as my thoughts about running a roulette—things that I would do again and things that I would change if I ever run another roulette. If you're coming up on your own first roulette pretty soon, you might be interested in seeing what I have to say about my experience running my own and what I think works and doesn't work. Some of you, of course, are far more experienced than I in the world of roulettes, and to you I'm afraid this post will not be very useful, but I still think it's worth sharing for anyone who might find it interesting.If there are any remaining EP-related questions, please ask them. If not, go ahead and send for the final round of my roulette!