Final Round ResultsFinal Round PlaylistStadler: Rainbow – Fire DanceFirst Impressions:This song is better than Stadler's song.
Final Thoughts:I totally get where you’re coming from with this one given how relatively well Alcatrazz did last round, this is pretty much a continuation in the similar vein, or at least in the guitar work and general hard rock/heavy metal style I hear the similarities. Though this one is a lot more uptempo.
I think a consistent issue I have listening to this is that the bass is both really loud and yet hard to actually hear. The entire song seems swamped in a layer of reverberating bass that drowns out the guitars and vocals a lot of the time yet I could hardly tell you what the bass is actually playing, so it’s almost like there’s just a constant loud, low hum throughout the song. I don’t like how it sounds, essentially.
In all other aspects this song is… fine. I’m not as hot on these vocals as the last song, the dude sounds like he’s really struggling to emote and only barely hitting his mark, but it’s better than missing it entirely I suppose. The guitar lines are noodly and pretty catchy but it feels like there’s really just one line that keeps repeating with minor variations. All the solos throughout are pretty standard though pretty fun too.
I dunno, my biggest issue with this is that the things I like about it were done better in your previous submission, and unfortunately the submission this reminds me of the most out of all of yours is the G/Z/R track I wasn’t too keen on, though this is a step above that one for sure. I don’t really mind this but I’d have a hard time saying it’s a song I’m going to remember much of either.
Elite: Eldamar – Spirit of the NorthFirst Impressions:This song is better than Elite’s song.
Final Thoughts:This is a black metal act that seems to have a bit of a confused identity. The first thing in the song is spacey synths that make me expect some kind of similarly spacey black metal sound… which, they do deliver to an extent, my first impression on listening to this was “oh, they sound kinda Midnight Odyssey-ish” but then that gives way to more obvious folk metal sounds using that same spacey texture and I’m left wondering if they really knew what they wanted to do at all?
Like, okay, comparing it to Midnight Odyssey suggests that I would like how this sounds. And I do! I just don’t think this does a ton with it? The vast majority of this song seems like it’s driven by one of the two different synth leads that repeat throughout, with the occasional riff-driven moment to break things up, but it never feels like it’s going anywhere, just cycling through different moods without building or transitioning well. It’s enjoyable music but not especially strong as a song and there’s definitely not enough substance to sustain 15 minutes here.
I also wish it got more intense more often? Part of the appeal of the best of black metal is the roaring, blast-beat and tremolo driven peaks and this pretty consistently stays mellow and slow-paced – there’s the occasional shift to a triplet feel but even then it’s not a very uptempo triplet feel. And it doesn’t really “end” so much as just… unceremoniously fade out. It kind of reminds me of the basic, repetitive post-rock I wrote in guitar pro a long while back. It’s almost black metal by numbers in a way.
For as much song as there is here I really don’t feel like I have a ton to say about it. It’s the kind of black metal where I’d listen to it once and enjoy it well enough but not really feel inclined to revisit it ever again. And yeah, I don’t really plan to follow up on the full album of this, I’ve got plenty of better black metal to choose from already, but this is like… fine enough for what it is.
Final Results & WinnerSo it’s pretty obvious that I’m pretty lukewarm on both of these – one of them doesn’t quite come together on sound and the other goes on way too long for how little substance it has – keeping in the tradition of underwhelming final rounds for my roulettes, I suppose!
But at the end of the day it’s pretty easy for me to pick between these two all the same, even without scoring. The song that at least works on sound for me is preferable to the one that doesn’t, which means the winner is…
(dramatic pause)
(keep scrolling)
(this is the last stopgap, I promise)
Elite!Congrats! Stadler is now dead, also. You shot him with your own hands. Good work. I hope your bloody victory was worth all this carnage.
Anyways I’ll probably start going through the albums I want to check out from this roulette in the next weeks and post first impressions on those. Not a huge number of them this time but this was a fairly lax and short roulette from my end so I’m cool with that.