Time to finallize things.
This was the song I spoke of that had left a really strong first impression on me but slowly was buried under the growing quality of the other songs this round. The problem I have with this song for starters, is there's essentially this cool symphonic intro which doesn't feel like it has any connection whatsoever to the meat of the song. The 'meat' being some really cool Converge-like riffing with vocals that sound quite similar to Converge and even Hypno5e a bit, but don't strike me as the same level of emotion or intensity. Then the last 100 seconds or something don't just sound like a weird connection, it sounds like a new song entirely. I don't get it. The longer Converge songs like Eve, Jane Doe and The Dusk in Us all have really subtle transitions and buildups but I did not feel that here. All the same, this song did leave a really strong impression on me at first and there's still enough redeeming qualities to it to make it pass on to the next round.
You dodged a bullet here Sacul, but you're through. Tannhauser / Derive is safe, send me music
This next one is pretty much the opposite of Sacul's song. After the first round I was completely ready to kick you out. I didn't really get why you would send this to me, it struck me as some mid-tier funk with rock elements and didn't really look into it much. That "We are the cycle that begins" line really grew on me and slowly but surely I started making connections between this and some of the more mellow Baroness stuff and suddenly started liking it more. I guess most of the reason I don't really find myself listening to funk is because a lot of it is just happy go lucky music with not much emotional dept (my interpretation) but this has some more sad and even kind of haunting tones to it. The second half can get pretty intense.
Not one of your strongest songs in my roulettes but still solid, you're in Parama. The Cycle / The Spiral: Time to go Down Slowly is.. good.
This song felt so extremely busy, not a single breathing moment. It is crazy for sure, but to me it’s not crazy in an intriguing way. It got a
little better over time but overall I still felt the same unfortunately, so this was a miss. I love some of the Brann-vocal-fronted songs of Mastodon, such as The Motherload and Steambreather, but I feel like those have way more ‘space’ between vocals and instrumentals. Truth be told, I never thought any of the Mastodon guys had great vocals, but with the music of Mastodon it just works so damn well, and I guess for me that is not the case with Brann’s voice in Arcadea. So you can already guess my favourite moment of this song was when he sings "Ocean alive" or something along those lines and the music gets a little quieter and more focused on that one synth. I quite liked that.
Not top 12 material unfortunately, sorry to be kicking you out in the preliminaries the first time you've ever participated in one of my roulettes Nekov, Arcadea does not do nearly as much for me as Mastodon it seems, even though Brann Dailor is one of my favourite artists.
I cannot say much about this song, it just never resonated with me at all. I dig when ballads can connect me to the lyrics and make me feel the same way the artist does, but here that just was not the case. I already figured that if there was any overlapping ground between our tastes it would probably be more likely to be heavier stuff.
Jingle.boy, time to pack.
I wish I could keep you in longer but this was just not a match, if it's any consolation (but maybe a bit ironic seeing the results) I think you're probably the most fun when it comes to talking shit about other people.
Now this one I really struggled with. It had good moments, very good even, but most of my enjoyment was ruined by that extremely present on the forefront dub sound. That just does not appeal to me at all. I dug the more atmospheric tones of the synths and piano in the background and the buildup at the end also, which even got pretty intense near the end. So basically, a lot of potential for good instrumental music, but that dub sound hurt your ranking enough to fall in the bottom four.
Sorry Evermind, you're out. This song wasn't quite up to par with the others.
Next up we have a song that by assessing my tastes I should probably like alright, but somehow apart from a few moments I just don't. The pre-chorus has good melodies and is pretty good. But for most of the song they just lose me with both the lyrics and the vocals themselves, it's just too much. I'm not the biggest traditional heavy metal fan as it stands, and there are exceptions to the rule, but this isn't one of them. Tomislav knows this from my Ensiferum write-up of the last roulette, but I really can't stand those "Hey Hey Hey" chants, that's one of my pet peeves.
Bolsters, you're out.
Shut Up and Rock did not live up to similar songs you've sent in the past like Kingdom of Rock or Feed the Fire.
Final round 0 ranking:
1. The Family Crest - Beneath the Brine
2. Kaddisfly - campfire
3. In Mourning - Ashen Crown
4. Fjokra - Slyrex
5. Crippled Black Phoenix - Scared and Alone
6. Rainbow - Stargazer
7. Arcade Fire - Wake Up
8. Constantine - Collective Harmony
9. Algiers - The Cycle / The Spiral: Time to go Down Slowly
10. This Day & Age - More of a Climb, Less of a Walk
11. Jack the Joker - Volte Face
12. Refused - Tannhauser / Derive
13. Easily Embarassed - Time Holes
14. Arcadea - Rings of Saturn
15. Blessed By a Broken Heart - Shut Up and Rock
16. The Tragically Hip - Scared
Top 12, you're in. Send me a song within the following days (deadline Wednesday) of max. 9 minutes. Got 2 songs in already, 10 to go. From this point on it is 1 elimination per round so I am going to do writeups until we have 2 people left and then have a final showdown with the bottom two song writeups at the same time (it will always be the worst two of the round unless otherwise stated).