This was probably the best round in the history of rounds. Every song was wonderful. Fuck the score, who cares about it. You were all awesome.
7 points - MG - David Mathews Band - Seek Up
w…w…woah. I didn’t expect this. This was an amazing performance. I would have never believed that it could stay interesting for 20 minutes, but it pretty much did. The violin solo was amazing, and the song itself was wonderful. I’m amazed, I’ll have to actually look into the David Mathews Band now. The one climax buildup at about the 12 minute mark was the best part. Lots of emotion.
6 points - Soundscape - Anathallo - The River
This song had a wonderful feel to it. It was very, very nice to listen to. My favorite part was when the female vocals in. And then the cello part….wow! Lovely song.
6 points - Voxyn - Iron and Wine - Flightless Bird, American Mouth
Lovely folk song. I love how the music sort of slowly wraps you up. It was very atmospheric and full sounding for a folk tune, and the vocal harmonies were freaking beautiful. Thank you for this, it sort of made my day.
5 points - The Giant Indie - Joy Division - The Eternal
It took me 2 listens to really get this one. Once I did… woah. This is ridiculously depressing stuff. It’s a very different experience of music than I’m used to… it’s odd, it doesn’t really go anywhere. It sort of looms in that horribly depressing state. In other words, it’s brilliant.
5 points - Sonata - The Depreciation Guild → Digital Solace
Awesome. It sounds kind of like Sweet Trip picked up a game boy. It’s got that same shoegaze-electronic hybrid feel to it, but with the 8-bit sounds added to it. When the guitars kick in it takes on a fantastic, dreamy sound. Great song.
4 points - Lielow - Big Big Train - Victorian Brickwork
Despite my initial reaction to the length of the song, this was very well put together. The instrumentals didn’t get overly wanky, and the ending had a lot of atmosphere to it, something that many of these bands miss out on. It put on the whole Victorian England kind of vibe, which was awesome. The vocals were cool, very Gabriel-esque. One of the best prog songs I’ve heard recently.
4 points - Letters - Portishead – Mysterons
I regret not hearing them earlier. This is very interesting trip-hop. The actually electronic elements are very minimal, as most of them are comprised of a sequenced snare that actually feels half real. Anyway, the song is very haunting and awesome.
3 points - King -This Day and Age - Always Straight Ahead
This was another very cool song. It was a very pop-oriented song, but in a very nice way nonetheless. The vocals were great, and some of the few subtleties went a long way. This should have a much higher ranking, but this round was just too kickass.
3 points - Sneakyblueberry – B-52s – Topaz
I don’t know what I thought of this at first listen. It sounded like some New Wave 80s music. But then, on second listen… well, it’s still New Wave 80s music but it’s pretty cool. The harmonies and vocals are the best part.
2 points - Jsem -John Coltrane → My Favorite Things
I played piano on this song for my school jazz band last year. It is a nice song. I love the sort of early morning city vibes it gives. At least that’s what I got from it. While some jazz leaves me a bit too cold, this is perfect. Lots of feeling and shit like that. It’s a bit long, though. It seems to run a bit dry after being stretched out over 10 minutes long. It was great though. This is not a 2 points song, but as I said early, this is the best round in the history of rounds. I enjoyed it.
1 pt. - Gorille - The Used - Let It Bleed
Yeah, this wasn’t really my kind of song. It wasn’t bad, but it just didn’t do much for me. I think it was the vocals. They sounded very metalcore. This could have been higher on another round, it was still quite enjoyable.
So I'd run out of ideas for my last round, and someone suggested this so here we go. The next round is:
Open, with one requirement. There must be vocals. Good ones, too. It's an open/great vocalist round.
Sonatafanica - 37
TheVoxyn - 37
Gorille - 34
Soundscape - 30
MG - 30
SneakyBlueberry - 29
Kingshmengland - 27
Letters - 27
Jsem - 26
Lielow - 22
Dethklok/The Giant Indie - 19
Once again, you all did brilliantly. You're all winners in my book.