Re: jingle.boy's Roulette v5 - th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-that's all folks!

[jingle.boy]

You'll get there one day lads, don't stress.

[Evermind]

No time to fire up the R3 playlist this week. Work has been extremely hectic and I won't be home for the weekend. I'll try to catch up during the next week maybe.

Chad, do you need me to send my song in advance or would Monday work for you?

Edit: also still need to listen to Orbit Culture. Gonna try and hit that next week too.

[jingle.boy]

Monday will be fine. I’m not getting a lot of listening in this week, so I’ll run this right up to Sunday.

[jingle.boy]

Here you go, punks.  Again, writeups are sorted in order of quality. 

TAC: Todd Michael Hall / Not With A Sword
AS per my impression, this was truly middle-of-the-road - neither hard, nor soft.  I was trying to find some grit in it, but it eluded me.  I was hoping this might grow on me, but spoiler alert… it didn't.  With that title, I was expecting something totally different.  I'm honestly very surprised this is A) something you enjoy, and B) something you think I'd enjoy. I mean, this guy sings in the relaunched version of Riot V as well??  Da fuq?  The vocal harmonies in the chorus were enjoyable, and the guitar licks were pleasant, but otherwise this was the musical equivalent of a butter sandwich - and had all the edge of a softened block of butter.  This song suffered (like your last submission) from a bit too much repetition in the rhythm.

Scores
Quality: 6.5
Unpredictability: 4.0
Anonymity: 5.0

---------------------------
Dr. DTVT: Byzantine / Jeremiad
Great opening passage, and then the growls.  Sure, they're short, but my first impression stands.  The hard growls are tolerable (they're not overly offensive to my ears), while the harsh-ish vocals are too much screaming *at* me.  The rest of the cleans are decent enough, but just 'decent'.  I loved virtually all aspects of the music.  But the real winning part of this song is the guitar solo (teaser at 1:15) and the full deal at 3:15 *chef's kiss*.  I hear a tribute to A Nightmare to Remember at the 2:45 spot.  The outro went on a bit longer than necessary, and was pretty pedestrian.  Musically B+; Vocally C

Scores
Quality: 7.0
Unpredictability: 0.5
Anonymity: 1.0

---------------------------
Stadler: The Naomi Star / Glad That You Came
Hard not to know whose submission this was right from the first 30 seconds.  You've got a 'tell' when it comes to the sound/style, and I appreciate your convictions.  Sometimes the songs hit, often times they're just … there.  This has the sound as though it could've been used as a theme song for a sitcom in the late 80s or 90s (ala Friends/Rembrandts)  For a 4 minute song, it seemed quite a bit longer.  Simple, straight-forward.  Good little diddy.  Had me tappin my foot.  Rather simple and uneventful, yet enjoyable.  It's a solid B-, and it's the kind that deserves a rounding up

Scores
Quality: 7.5
Unpredictability: 3.5
Anonymity: 2.0

---------------------------
Evermind: Jono / Downside
I hear the Dio resemblance in the chorus', but certainly not in the verses.  The vocal cadence in the verses was kinda meh - wasn't much of a fan of rising scale (not sure how else to describe it) melody for the lyrics .  Beautiful choruses though… Channelling some Queen there with the vocal harmonies.  Nice piano work mid way through - it creates a nice haunting atmosphere, building up a nice crescendo for the ultimate climax, then a nice soft percussive landing.  Second 1/2 of the song was definitely an A.  First half was merely decent.

Scores
Quality: 7.5
Unpredictability: 5.0
Anonymity: 3.5

---------------------------
Litho: Luna Fawn Ripley / Diapason
After a few listens, I figured out what my issue was with the vocals - they just don't match/align with the style of the song.  She's got a very nice voice - pleasant, graceful, charming … but the style of the song is aggressive (especially with that machine gun snare - not much of a fan of that here), which just doesn't seem to match the vocal delivery I'm getting.  I guess there's a certain kind of power I want/need/expect in this instance.  The vocals are definitely the weak part of the song - which has strong composition and performance overall, but shit ... is her vocal hero Issa ?  It's impressive that she does all the instrumentation sans the drumming, and I loved the closing acoustic - but that part felt like a totally different track… the quick switch to it, and a full 90 second epilogue.  It was completely unexpected, and didn't jive with the style of rest of the song.  There's was lots to like here, but I just couldn't score this any higher.

Scores
Quality: 7.5
Unpredictability: 4.5
Anonymity: 4.5

---------------------------
Wolfking: Sentire / End of the World
Killer intro, which quickly becomes standard power metal fare with the double bass driving most of the song.  Unfortunately, I'm not digging the galloping drum double kicks (again).  I dunno, maybe I'm just in a bit of a funk over that rhythmic sound.  Every other section of the song was far more appealing.  The symphony patches were kinda weak though.  Some powerful fucking drumming overall - notwithstanding my lack of appeal for the 'galloping' style. Ripping guitar solo, and the outro was great (although, abrupt).  I want to round up, but the galloping drums are grating on me.



Scores
Quality: 7.5
Unpredictability: 2.5
Anonymity: 3.0

---------------------------
Lonestar: Plush / Athena
Nice vocal harmonies overall.  Very good stuff, though I'm not sure if this is hard rock, or light metal.  Either way, better of the two female vox this round for sure.  This is where it dawned on me why I wasn't digging the other one as much.  There's a bit of grit in her voice, and it's entirely consistent with the style and sound of the song.  Pretty straight forward rock/metal song, with the typical rock structure- intro, verse, chorus, bridge, solo, outro.  Very likeable.

Scores
Quality: 7.5
Unpredictability: 1.5
Anonymity: 0.5

---------------------------
Puppies: Soundscape / Resurrection
Beautiful vocal start!  This one is proggy af.  Sounds like they're trying to be Transatlantic or some kind of mashup of Moon Safari and Yes, and I'm diggin it.  Drums sound pretty thin though, and the 'squeaky' pitch/sound of the guitar could've been better - but that mini-solo at 4:15 was just fantastic, as was the outro.  Vocals end up being one of the weaker parts of this, so it's a good thing there were a lot of instrumental passages - kinda sounded like he was trying to be Jon Anderson, and falling far short.  The vocal harmonies towards the end were on the verge of being cringey - again, like they're trying to be 'Topographic Oceans' Yes, but failed (almost spectacularly). If they'd cleaned up a few things in here, this could've been an A+ song.

Spotify: 9 Monthly listens - and we're two of them!  Talk about obscure.  You (along with RJ) got hosed with Kade opening up Hangman with a "U".

Scores
Quality: 8.0
Unpredictability: 1.0
Anonymity: 1.5

---------------------------
Indiscipline: Gotthard / Firedance
I've got one of their albums saved in my Spotify library (#13 - literally, that's the title of the album), so I was looking forward to hearing more.  The intro is basically Damn Yankees / Piledriver (which is one of my fave DY songs), and quickly turns into what I expect to be a meandering plodder.  But it's just a mid-temp bass driven melody - which, all things being equal, is usually pretty 'meh' for me.  Luckily, all things are not equal - tasty guitar fills and Steve Lee's vocals more than compensate for the pace (I knew I recognized his voice - he was on 01011001).  I'm intrigued with these guys.  Wikipedia references that they are influenced by Whitesnake - no shit!  Lee is channelling quite a bit of Coverdale.  There's some strong Maiden and Sabbath influence here as well.  When all is said and done, I came to really like that bass line that is the engine of this song.

Scores
Quality: 8.0
Unpredictability: 3.0
Anonymity: 4.0

---------------------------
King: Molybaron / Reality Show
This is some bitchin, high quality rock music - straight up old school rock.  Nothing special to the primary vocals, call and return structure of the chorus was suh-weeet!  Pounding rhythm and drums really get the head banging.  The guitar solo is a nice pause mid-song, and is filled with a lot of sould …  I was just disappointed with it's length - not the first time you've heard that I'm sure .  And it's a 2023 release that I'm now going to need to check out.  No muss; no fuss - just a great rockin track.  Simple can be good.  The chorus was the biggest earworm this round.

Scores
Quality: 8.5
Unpredictability: 2.0
Anonymity: 2.5


Total Round 3:
Litho - Luna Fawn Ripley / Diapason: 4.5 + 4.5 + 7.5 = 16.5
Evermind - Jono / Downside: 5 + 3.5 + 7.5 = 16
TAC - Todd Michael Hall / Not With A Sword: 4 + 5 + 6.5 = 15.5
Indiscipline - Gotthard / Firedance: 3 + 4 + 8 = 15
Kingshmegland - Molybaron / Reality Show: 2 + 2.5 + 8.5 = 13
Stadler - The Naomi Star / Glad That You Came: 3.5 + 2 + 7.5 = 13
wolfking - Sentire / End of the World: 2.5 + 3 + 7.5 = 13
Puppies - Soundscape / Resurrection: 1 + 1.5 + 8 = 10.5
lonestar - Plush / Athena: 1.5 + 0.5 + 7.5 = 9.5
Dr. DTVT - Byzantine / Jeremiad: 0.5 + 1 + 7 = 8.5

Overall Standings:
Litho - 44.5
lonestar - 43
Evermind - 42.5
Wolfking - 41.5
TAC - 41
Dr. DTVT - 39
Puppies - 38
Indiscipline - 36
King - 36
Stadler - 32

And just so ya'll know the ranking of best quality through 3 rounds:
lonestar - 25.5
Indiscipline - 24
Wolfking - 23.5
Puppies - 23.5
King - 23.5
Litho - 23
Evermind - 22.5
Dr. DTVT - 22.5
Stadler - 21
TAC - 19.5

[King Postwhore]

Noice!  Yeah that album is killer. And about the length....

[Evermind]

I thought you'll like the first half and find the second half meandering. 7,5 seems a default score for me at this point.

I've been listening to this album for the past few weeks and it really is excellent IMO, 7,5 is way too low, but I'll take it.

You'll get my R4 song in ~27 hours.

[jingle.boy]

I thought you'll like the first half and find the second half meandering. 7,5 seems a default score for me at this point.

7 and 7.5 is the default score for pretty much all music I sample.  It really takes a lot for me to knock a rating down below that, and I have to be REALLY impressed to get something into the 8 / A range.

50% of the songs so far are 7 or 7.5; 40% are higher; 10% are lower.

Seems to make sense - I'd expect in a Roulette like this, there would be a higher than normal amount of 8s or higher.  If I were to look at all the music I've sampled this year (170+ albums), I've only got about 40 (tops) I'd call 8+

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Tied for 3rd in overall quality, I'll take it!

[lonestar]

I knew you'd dig Moriah's voice, she has that Maggy edge to it, and the band is just well executed hard rock all around.


You got my next round already.

[TAC]

A 6.5???

[lonestar]

Have you tried sending better music?

[King Postwhore]

A 6.5???

Average size.

[jingle.boy]

A 6.5???

For the 3rd round in a row no less.  I dunno man, I'm beginning to wonder how I did so well in your Roulette's!

[TAC]

A 6.5???

For the 3rd round in a row no less.  I dunno man, I'm beginning to wonder how I did so well in your Roulette's!

I'd be leading if Evermind didn't blow me up in Round 2. 

[King Postwhore]

He does that to all of us. Lol

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Sent for Round 4

[TAC]

Sent for Round 4

[Indiscipline]

Very nice! I'm sending as soon as I reach a keyboard.

[wolfking]

Will send in a couple of hours.  I thought mine would do slightly better to be honest but meh.

[King Postwhore]

Sent!

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Not sure how to feel about this.  I'm in the lead, but with a middle of the road quality score.      I might send something I had been holding back on because it could be too easy to guess.  Lemme think about this a bit.  I kind of don't like what it's doing to my thought process for sending, but I'm not the one who came up with these rules. 

As for the song, I guess my enjoyment of the contrast of a harder/more forward instrumentation juxtaposed with softer vocals is a niche that not a great deal of people share, oh well.  The guitar playing is definitely my favorite part though, and actually one of the guitar solos is played by Gabriel Borza, who contributes work on other tracks as well, along with Phil Tougas on another tune. 

[TAC]

Not sure how to feel about this.  I'm in the lead, but with a middle of the road quality score.      

I'm in the dead middle of the pack with the worst quality score. 

[jingle.boy]

Not sure how to feel about this.  I'm in the lead, but with a middle of the road quality score.      I might send something I had been holding back on because it could be too easy to guess.  Lemme think about this a bit.  I kind of don't like what it's doing to my thought process for sending, but I'm not the one who came up with these rules. 

Don't overthink.  Oh, wait ...  nevermind.

Also, there's still 5 rounds to go.  Nobody should feel terribly comfortable or uncomfortable with their position.

[Stadler]

Not sure how to feel about this.  I'm in the lead, but with a middle of the road quality score.      

I'm in the dead middle of the pack with the worst quality score. 

Both of you STFU.  I'm in almost dead last with a lousy quality score and apparently a neon sign on each of my submittals.   

[jingle.boy]

Still ahead of Tim in quality.

[Evermind]

And sent!

[jingle.boy]

Just waitin on Sleepy Joe.

[lonestar]

Oh fuck, c'mon Joe!!

[King Postwhore]

I had to resend and I did an hour ago.

[King Postwhore]

Oh fuck, c'mon Joe!!

Oh, and shut it, Tim.

[jingle.boy]

??: _____t_ - T________
??: __t____ - __u___t__
??: ________ - __ ______t_____
??: ________ - T___ __u____ t_ ____
??: ______ __ _____ - T__ ___t_____ __ _____ __u ____
??: __________ - _______
??: ______ ____t_ - True _____t
??: T___u_ ___u___ - ___u______ ____
??: ____ - _____
??: _____ ____ - _______ T___t_

Letters guessed: TU

Dr. DTVT
Evermind
Indiscipline
King
Litho
lonestar
Puppies
Stadler
TAC
Wolfking

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

T

[wolfking]

U

[jingle.boy]

U

Again??

[wolfking]

U

Again??

Yes hello, it's me again. 

I picked U last time.....huh, well fuck me.

Yes again!