Results?
No.
So, since I had a very busy week, these results are a little later than in the previous rounds. I'll be very busy next week as well, so the following round will probably take a week again (I'll barely be home, starting Tuesday morning through Sunday evening), so I can't really listen as much as I'd want before scoring the songs. After this week though, I have all the time in the world, so I should be able to get this back on track. For now, Round 3 results!
Straight on through to the next round: Participant: senecadawg2
Band: Journey
Song: Of a Lifetime
Holy shit, what did I just hear? No, sir, indeed I did not know that this side of Journey exists too. And of course I know their more well-known songs, but they were never enough to get me to listen to more stuff. This is indeed more raw and ambitious and it was bloody fantastic, thanks!!
Participant: kingshmegland
Band: Presto Ballet
Song: The Mind Machine
A second long song I received this round. 'The Mind Machine' is a nice progressive track. It sounds like classic prog, but a bit heavier. It's pretty kick-ass all the way through and if the rest of their material is a bit alike, I'll have discovered a new band here once more!
Participant: Nekov
Band: Pure Reason Revolution
Song: Bullitts Dominae
I have no idea what 'Bullitts Dominae' are and neither does Google, but they make for a very punchy, yet catchy song. This song is all about the vocals in the verses and chorus but does it work or what? That explosion into the chorus is fantastic and overall this song has the great build-up a catchy radio friendly track should have, but it manages to sound nothing like anything you'll hear on the radio. Very interesting and I enjoyed it a lot.
Participant: jingle.boy
Band: Frameshift
Song: The Gene Machine
Hey, that's a familiar voice! I've never heard him on anything like this and he sounds absolutely awesome in the chorus, which then is instantly awesome as well, but the vocal lines in the verses are a bit lacking. But then there's that chorus again and everything is alright again. Although pretty straight-forward in essence, in the backgrounds it's pretty proggy and there's some really cool stuff going on in the various parts of the song. I've seen this bands name, usually combined with some others, more often on these forums, I'll have a look into them.
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Where it became a little more difficult: Participant: Lolzeez
Band: Penguin Cafe Orchestra
Song: The Sound of Someone You Love Who's Going Away And It Doesn't Matter
That was weird, but very enjoyable in a sense. Starting out really nice and smooth, the song gradually evolves into an atonal violin wankfest with computer noises in the background, before returning to that nice soothing intro melody again. Overall, I though this was a pretty cool track, but it could do with some trimming I guess. The idea is good and the execution of it is pretty flawless, but I don't think it has to be 10 minutes long. That said, listening to this track it didn't feel like it was 10 minutes long.
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Unfortunately eliminated: Participant: Onno
Band: Stick Men
Song: Nude Ascending Staircase
Sorry bud, but this was definitely and by far the weakest track of the bunch in this round. Being in instrumental track, it has to do quite a lot of cool, new, 'progressive' or interesting things to keep me interested throughout and this song failed to do that. Of course I don't mean to say that this track *doesn't* do the aforementioned things; in fact, I can imagine this band being awesome to see live if only for all the cool stuff they throw in this song, but it didn't really come across - to me - on record. I'm sorry, but you're out.
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Drawing further on that:
be careful with instrumentals. This round I received two and they ended in the last two places. I sometimes really like instrumentals, but it's hard to pinpoint what makes me like some and not others.
Deadline for your Round 3 Submissions is TUESDAY 23:00 GMT (17:00 EST)This gives you two days to select stuff and if I have them by then I can probably get some listening done on Wednesday or burn some tracks to a CD for in the car. As said at the beginning of this post, I'm going to have a busy week and I won't be home a lot, so I'm not sure when I can give you the results. Friday at the earliest, but Sunday is more likely.