Round 8 Resultstwosuitsluke: King Prawn – Someone to HateFirst Impressions:I’ve been given the impression that the “someone to hate” here is going to be Luke for sending this, so let’s see. And yeah I am positive I’d said this many times before but hip-hop is not my thing, at all. In general it puts emphasis on the lyrics over the music, which is just the polar opposite of my musical taste. Though there’s at least okay music here. Also wow the quality of the vid you sent me is so bad, I’m gonna find a better one if I can.
There’s at least, moments here where this kind of hits on something enjoyable and it’s not unpleasant in general at the very least. But in general this is just not for me, and I know you know that, but whatever.
Final Thoughts:Dude, I have no clue what you were thinking with this one. There was no way this was ever going to get any decent points from me, solely on style alone. I specifically warned against this too in my tastes post that I’m pretty sure nobody has read anyways. And it does primarily come down to the vocals. I just don’t like the tone on the verses. It’s slightly melodic but it feels like he’s just loudly yelling words most of the time.
Other than the vocals though I mean, musically this is pretty okay? Every time the intro tricked me into thinking I was going to be listening to a decent song. The guitar melodies are kind of sinister, the bass groove is decent, the strings that come in provide a bit of texture. But it’s not really enough to hold my interest in general, especially with the vocals on top of it. And it does get kind of repetitive too.
Obviously I think the chorus of this is pretty fine. It’s heavier and more intense. Maybe a bit lacking in qualities besides that, the drums are kind of cool I guess but it’s basically just, heavy guitars. It’s really only notable for being the only metal aspect of the song, and it’s so brief every time that it hardly matters.
But yeah overall this is too basic and too far removed from anything I’d really want to listen to. Do I hate it? Nah. I think this will end up scoring higher than I originally expected to give this, but not by a lot. But it’s still easily my least favorite of the round and one of my least favorite tracks of the roulette for sure.
4.75/10Nekov: Faunts – Feel.Love.Thinking.Of.First Impressions:You’re right, this is totally out of my comfort zone and I hate it, 0/10. But no in all seriousness I don’t like that synth tone, it’s super 80’s sounding in that it sounds really cheap and cheesy. I do like the vocals though.
The vocals are nice and smooth, the singer has a tone I just really enjoy in general and has pretty solid melodies to work with. So it’s kind of a bit of a shame that musically the rest is just not doing anything at all for me. Like it’s vaguely pleasant but eehhh. I don’t have much else to say, I am not feeling this in general on first listen.
Final Thoughts:I will give this song this much, it’s at least kind of catchy? The chorus sticks with me at least a little bit. And that main synth line is memorable as well. Though I honestly wish it weren’t, because I really don’t care for that synth tone at all. I don’t know why bands go through the effort of recreating the worst aspects of the 80’s sometimes.
Musically this is also really repetitive – that synth line is only so memorable because it gets repeated a heck of a lot throughout the song, and the drums are pretty rigid and unchanging too, they do shift up for the chorus but that’s about it. Maybe there’s subtle differences but not enough for me to bother trying to point them all out. The chorus does have some nice swell going on behind in, it’s just in general the part of the song I can kind of get into, the first time at least.
The song does kind of… die at the end, stripping back in a way that doesn’t really flatter the better elements of the song and leaves only the blocky percussion and a quiet synth to close the track out. And the second chorus doesn’t have any power behind it either, the song peaks early and just kind of dies from there instead of reaching a satisfying climax.
Again, I do like the vocals the whole way through, they feel decisively like an anachronism in the song but to my modern-favoring ears they sound great and I’m thankful they sound the way they do instead of like some 80’s new wave act. The song is also brief enough that I don’t really have time to get annoyed by anything or feel bored, but I do kind of lose interest entirely after the two minute mark.
So yeah as a whole… this is another weird entry to be sent at all, considering my tastes in general. I’ll again say it’s not awful but it’s a very meh track that has a few moments that catch my interest but little else beside that I can really care about.
5.5/10Bolsters: London Grammar – Hey NowFirst Impressions:Hey, this song that Shadow Ninja put on his EP once & that’s like the only thing I know about it.
Right off the bat I am digging the somber atmosphere, and the vocals here definitely have a tone to them I can appreciate. I’m not sure whether or not I like the quiet guitar picking going on throughout this though. On one hand it’s kind of nice sounding, on the other hand it feels like it breaks the atmosphere a little. It also kind of fails to come to any satisfying climax, making it feel like it would’ve actually been better off if it had stayed more minimal and atmospheric.
Final Thoughts:I think this is one of those cases where I wish I liked this more than I do. I can absolutely see why you’d send this considering more atmospheric, downtempo pop tends to be my preference in the genre. I guess what this lacks though is anything notably memorable. The only part of this I remember much at all is the opening synth melody that repeats throughout the song.
I think what lets this down is how inconsistent the vocal melodies are. During the verses half the time there’s just blank space. And come the chorus, well, she’s certainly belting well but there’s nothing approaching a memorable melody. And again it’s kind of sparse. Performance-wise I do think she is a pretty good singer, maybe a bit too husky of a tone for me at points but in general she sounds good. I just feel like, she isn’t given great melodies or lyrics to work with.
And most of the instrumentation stays in the background throughout, doesn’t really develop in any meaningful way aside from the drums coming in to give the end of the song a bit of swell. There’s too much going on to hit really good minimalist vibes but not enough going on for the song to ever feel lush enough, compelling enough in any real way. The end result is something that sounds nice but I am just not into at all, unfortunately.
I think the biggest problem for me personally is that I just don’t emotionally connect to this, at all. Obviously I am supposed to, but… no, it feels like a very cold and emotionless song to me. One that sounds nice, but one that does nothing for me otherwise and thus one that I can’t get very into. Maybe it’s personal failing but more likely it’s just that the song is a bit shapeless and meandering in general and fails to do what it intends to do. But I mean, you tried.
6/10Tomislav95: Todtgelichter – NeonFirst Impressions:I was promised black metal. So this better deliver. Okay right off the bat I am really digging the use of the female vocals here. It’s just a fit that works. Musically though it’s a bit bare so far. Solid atmosphere but nothing else is really happening. I guess, the drumming is pretty impressive? Not really very black metal-y though, which I mean is fine just a comment. It does change up eventually at least.
The ending is pretty grand and intense, there’s a lot more going on there between the driving rhythm, the vocals, and the guitar leads. Just a shame it took a while for the song to really get going somewhere.
Final Thoughts:The female vocals are pretty much the selling point of this song and, yeah, I think they do a good job of selling the song for me. Her voice has some solid presence, and when it gets going with the harmonies it’s pretty intense stuff. And the harsh vocals sound pretty fine too. Not huge on them but not bothered by them either.
The bigger issue here is that musically a lot of this is very shapeless. The first half of the song or so feels like just one guitar line repeated over and over, with the drums not doing much to help vary things up, and the bass is barely there at all. Sure, it sounds nice and dense, but being overwhelmingly dense for so long without having much to show for it gets boring, even with the vocals being enjoyable as they are.
I do kind of dig that two-note chord progression that anchors the first half though, especially when it comes to the forefront. But that’s just the thing, even that gets old quick because it’s literally just two notes. There’s other stuff going on besides but that’s the anchoring element of the song and it just lacks substance outright.
Things do change up eventually, the atmosphere strips back some to give way to some more melodic guitar work before the intense, heavier climax kicks in. And for the song it’s certainly a satisfying climax, I think the drums do the most work to really sell it though, switching up to keep the mood feeling propulsive and frantic. It still has a tendency to feel a bit repetitive and they try to fill the gap with some more melodic guitar work, but it too does wear thin by the end of the song.
I dunno, I think my biggest problem here is that while it has elements that work, it stretches them far too thin and doesn’t do enough in the meantime to keep itself interesting. This isn’t my least favorite song of the round by any means but it’s one of the more boring songs, if I’m being honest. I don’t feel like I will get anything out of relistening to this one. The black metal almost feels like a gimmick with how uninterestingly written it is here.
Man, I’m coming down harder on this that I originally expected to. I think it’s because this makes better background noise than anything. Didn’t really mind it when I was doing casual listens but doing a critical analysis of it and whew I am underwhelmed. There’s basically only one element here that stands out and it’s not enough to save the song as a whole for me, I feel.
6.5/10Stadler: Rainbow – Gates of BabylonFirst Impressions:So I know like, two Rainbow songs and one of them only because of a dream theater cover I haven’t actually listened to in years but whatever I got the special edition of black clouds on release & I listened to it so yeah. Anyways this is the second song in a row with kind of cheap-sounding bleepy 80’s synths I don’t care much for. Except this predates the 80’s so whatever. 70’s synths aren’t any better. The bass in the song is also… really basic in the verses with only the occasional flourish but the THUMP THUMP THUMP makes the song feel a bit overly simplistic.
It gets better in the rest of the song though, there’s some cool bass work going on I dig a fair bit. The guitar seems to be sticking to a middle eastern-esque scale, or at least that’s what I hear in it… not my favorite kind of scale to be fair but it doesn’t sound awful either. It sets a tone, for sure. Oh and, Dio is a good singer sure yeah not hugely my style but he’s technically very sound and emotive so whatever. Not feeling this one much first listen either but we’ll see.
Final Thoughts:Rounding out the trinity of stuff that’s just “not for me” this round is some heavy metal thingy. I thought when listening to this the first time that it’d probably be right up Evermind’s alley and apparently he’s sent it in a roulette before so, yeah, nailed that one.
The intro they try and pull in this song is just something that I think was legitimately beyond the ability of the technology at the time. If the synths had more depth and presence, and more ability to create an ominous atmosphere, I think that could really work well. I mean, of course, I’d also like a better tone, regardless of judging things for their time I still think it doesn’t sound great.
I will say that I totally respect Dio as a singer. He has a lot of power in his voice and a tone that sounds pretty great too. I feel like he is enjoying what he is doing and putting his all into it. Yeah sure the style isn’t exactly my favorite but he sells it here, not really going to complain about anything on that front.
I will totally complain about the one guitar line that feels a fair bit overused throughout the song, being the primary instrumental focus throughout the verses as well as backing the first guitar solo. And the bass is actually a bit loud in the mix, for once. I think the thumping it’s doing would be fine if it wasn’t overtaking the rest of the mix ever so slightly, but in general it sounds okay, and there are some bass moments I’m glad to be able to hear clearly.
I think my favorite part of this is the bit in the middle of the instrumental break where things slow down and get dramatic, all the instruments are working together to create a powerful moment in the midst of the showmanship surrounding it. That may point to the root of why this doesn’t quite work for me in general – the guitar lines drive a frantic pace throughout the song that generally just isn’t my thing. I can dig fast-paced music but I tend to find that my preferences in rock music lean towards the slower and more bombastic a lot of the time.
There’s a lot of this song where I feel I can certainly appreciate what it’s doing, but there isn’t a lot to this that really sticks out or does a ton for me. And it does have a bit of a dated feel to it that I can’t really get past either. At the very least though I prefer this over the Dio song I was sent in my last roulette, it has a fair amount of substance to it and definitely has its moments, unlike that one where I kind of got bored of it by the time I did my writeup. So yeah. It’s pretty fine.
6.75/10home: Caspian – Arcs of CommandFirst Impressions:To be honest whenever someone says they’re sending me post-rock I always assume the worst because post-rock is such a dead and drearily uninspired genre these days. The way this starts out though is definitely a lot different from what I expected. Like the actual start itself is not that good but the song builds off it very nicely and steadily to reach a pretty solid and still somewhat energetic peak. This reaches borderline metal levels of heaviness as it goes on too while still having a generally pleasant sound to it. And the ending is just completely unhinged haha, the drums are just freaking out and it’s just a huge wall of sound.
Yeah congrats on sending me a song I quite enjoyed in a genre I’d basically written off a while back, I guess.Final Thoughts:If there’s one thing I would nitpick here, it’s that the synth intro actually doesn’t do much for me. The synth has this really stiff and percussive sound to it that makes it lack any sense of atmosphere and it’s repeating the same five notes over and over and gets tiresome pretty quickly. I understand they want to use it to launch this 5/8 groove but they could’ve done that with a better synth sound or a less repetitive melody or something, anything.
That’s like, the most major complaint I have towards this entire song though and the synth line kind of gets blurred into the background once the rest of the instruments start coming in so it’s not a huge deal really. And the build this song has to it is pretty cool in general, building up slowly but surely, adding more distortion to its guitars, drums cranking up the intensity.
The song kicks into the heavier stuff about halfway through, kicking off with a fairly memorable riff that’s one of the few individual moments here I can remember aside from that synth line. That is one thing, that with how this song is structured there aren’t really any standout moments, it just goes on with the intent of focusing on atmosphere over memorability, but for what the song is trying to do that’s fine, really.
I also think the song could’ve held onto its peak a bit longer instead of going completely unhinged as fast as it does, but to be fair the heaviest moments are just repeating a riff from earlier in the song anyways.
The song does have a nice build to it but it’s not something I find myself emotionally feeling very strongly – it’s just pleasant at best, while certainly having enough to keep me interested, but due to lack of memorability and lack of connection I don’t know how strongly I’ll remember this one. Basically once the surprise of how intense it gets wears off I’m just left with a fairly solid post-rock/post-metal track that knows how to handle a build well. It’s nice, it’s got some unique qualities, but ultimately I can’t really say I love it.
7.5/10