So as I noted yesterday, these are going to be abbreviated writeups this time with less detail than normal, which I guess is its own challenge in a way.
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Stadler - Butthole Surfers - "Pepper"
Early Impression - "It seems like you probably read my writeup from last round and tried to fix what didn't work from the last song, but I'm not sure the different balance of elements worked on this one either. It probably feels like trying to play Wac-A-Mole."
I don't remember consciously listening to them before (the name always kind of put me off, and I'm not usually big on humor in music, although I imagine Beavis & Butt-Head had a field day with them back then on MTV), but this song sounded vaguely familiar. I'll bet it was played at some point or another in the late 90s/early 00s when I listened to more mainstream rock radio.
As noted in the impression, it has a bit of the feel of the Replicants' tune you sent in the past round, with the tremolo guitar and swirling leads, but a bit more controlled, and now with a beat. Those leads and some of the synth ornamentation is kind of cool, on the bright side. But I'm not sure what to make of the vocals, mostly in the verses. They have this odd quality of being halfway-inbetween a conventional hip-hop flow and a spoken word monologue. In the monotone delivery there's a snarky apathy to them that I think is just kind of lost on me.
Score: 6.75/10
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twosuitluke - Omar Rodriguez-López - "Sophia As Well"
Early Impression - "I'm impressed at this artist's stylistic range, but years later, the vocals still aren't doing much for me."
I've never been able to quite get into The Mars Volta, though admittedly I haven't tried very hard in awhile now. Inexplicably I love "Eriatarka" and listen to that song occasionally, but nothing else of the limited amount I've sampled has stuck with me. I mistakenly assumed that Omar was TMV's lead vocalist, and this was just a more subdued performance. I now see that Cedric is actually TMV's vocalist. Regardless though, I just find the vocals more on the bland side for my tastes, and the falsetto range bits sound a little off. Some of the synth work is pleasant (the icy piano-ish doubling in the bridge is particularly notable), and there are some striking sudden stop transitions in spots, but in the end nothing about it quite grabs my attention enough. He seems extraordinarily prolific, so I imagine somewhere in his discography there is surely music I would love more though.
Score: 7/10
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Elite - Boards of Canada - "Dayvan Cowboy"
Early Impression - "There some interesting textural parts here, but I'm not sure there's enough memorable melodic content for me."
There are a handful of songs from them I've really enjoyed over the years, and I've heard a few albums, but I've never really fully gotten into them like a lot of people have. Individually, there is some interesting sonic manipulation going on with the loops, tremolo guitar, soundscapey effects and such which is nice, but it just doesn't quite all come together. There ultimately isn't enough melody that sticks with me to make it more than background music, and it's a touch repetitive.
Score: 7/10
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Tomislav95 - Archive - "Bullets"
Early Impression - "It became surprisingly more energetic in the last couple minutes, but the vocals there might be a bit repetitive, and despite the theme of this round, live drums might have suited it better."
It was fascinating to discover this was the song for a trailer for the game Cyberpunk 2077. I'm not really a gamer anymore, but I've watched a bit of some playthroughs of the game since I like the cyberpunk theme for films and such, loving Blade Runner and the like. It doesn't seem to fit the world as much as I'd have expected though. The filtered piano and synthetic percussion in the first half are intriguing, but the vocals are a bit overly repetitive and without enough flavor, and it feels like a live drum performance in the second half would have suited it better, the synthetic ones just seem to dissipate the energy that it's trying to build.
Score: 7/10
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Lethean - Riverside - "Night Session Part Two"
Early Impression - "This feels like an extended intro to another song, and though [redacted] certainly helps out, this might be too minimalistic for me."
Between this and Lunatic Soul I suppose this is expanding my view of what Mariusz and co. are capable of. I've moderately enjoyed the Riverside I've heard so far, but they haven't really clicked yet. Some of the ideas here are quite enjoyable, particularly the saxophone playing (though there's not nearly enough of it given the lengthy runtime), and the bits of mandolin in spots. But in the final analysis it really just has the feel of an overly extended ambient intro track that drags too much to rise above being musical wallpaper for me on its own, and without the saxophone bits would probably be half a point lower.
Score: 7.25/10
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HOF - Anthonie Tonnon - "When I'm Wrong"
Early Impression - "This might be too happy for me, and I'm not sure I'm sold on the melody, but the last minute unexpectedly picks up steam, and the last half-minute definitely helps."
You'd sent a few songs from him in other roulettes which I'd given a cursory listen to, although I don't recall too much about them. This has an interesting feel, almost like 80s Genesis/Phil Collins, with Kiwi flair. There's just not quite enough payoff for me at the end though. There are a lot of layers going on there, but it seems lacking in rhythmic propulsion to generate an effective enough climax. The chamber strings at the very end were a pleasant surprise though. Major key-oriented songs are probably always going to be a challenge for me. Sometimes they work, like the second half of Sweet Billy Pilgrim last round, but they just don't always resonate with me as much. I also often hate that this is sometimes a factor, but I can't control it, that certain song keys require the song to work more to make me love it.
Score: 7.25/10
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senecadawg2 - Lunatic Soul - "Cold"
Early Impression - "I'm not sure the last minute or two are enough payoff. It's on the subtle side for me, and it seemed to drag before the drums entered."
This is certainly a useful round for adding to my knowledge of the variety and capabilities of a number of artists, now with a Riverside extracurricular project. That early guitar riff reminds me of Depeche Mode's "Dream On". Mariusz has a pretty cool voice, and I want to like this song more than I do. I guess it just feels overly long for the level it builds to by the end. There's some tasty drumming there for sure, and some delightful synth textures and ambiance, especially including the first verse bass line and the effect over the vocals, but just not quite enough to really hook me into the song.
Score: 7.25/10
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Puppies_On_Acid - Slushii - "Sapient Dreams"
Early Impression - "I'm not sure whether this is a chopped up vocal sample or a synth patch, but it's a pretty intriguing sound."
In ways this is a more intriguing version of "No One Is Looking At U" from Nicolas Jaar from an earlier round, in using what I'm supposing are vocal samples (possibly vocaloid or something like that) and experimenting with them rhythmically and texturally. There's not quite enough to latch onto to compete with the stronger songs this round, but it's certainly listenable and engaging enough and has a pretty nice drum loop that is sort of trap-like, but more dynamic.
Score: 7.5/10
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ariich - Feed Me - "Lonely Mountain"
Early Impression - "I've always been surprised how rare true synth solos are in electronic music, so I'm glad to find one here."
I'm quite familiar with his track "One Click Headshot", which has a really cool groove, but is spoiled with a quite annoying and repetitive dialogue sample. Never checked out anything else though. There is quite a piquant mixture of things here. Some time ago I used to post on the Jordan Rudess forum, and other members were always releasing songs with these dazzling synth leads, and this is a bit reminiscent of those. A bit more dubstepy and mainstream-ish of course, but pretty fun regardless. As many synth melodies as you can find in electronic music, I don't understand why it's exceptionally rare to find them with the creativity and virtuosity of prog rock-style synth leads, but it's here and certainly a treat. This almost might be the first time I've heard an alarm clock incorporated as an offbeat accent.
Score: 7.75
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Buddyhunter1 - IAMTHEKIDYOUKNOWWHATIMEAN - "We Love You Celestial"
Early Impression - "Yep, I see what you mean about the similarity. It actually does a few things better than my song, though a few others not as well."
This is a pretty solid tune. It doesn't have quite the pizzazz or richness of "Into Dark" (and I have a decade and a half of fondness for Havnevik's music also giving an unfair advantage), but there some rather splendid synth tones and arrangements here. The grittiness of the opening tone and the layers of lead lines and vocals near the ending are especially nice. One of disadvantages sometimes though of a song having some more obvious similarities to my sample ones is that it makes their flaws a bit more apparent. The melodic choices are more conventional, the song transitions don't pop as much, it's not as lush, and the drum programming is excessively blocky. This is the sort of song where I wonder if it would have kicked up a notch if the tempo had gone into double-time at a point or two.
Score: 7.75/10
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soupytwist - Bring Me the Horizon - "nihilist blues"
Early Impression - "I wasn't sure what to expect based on this artist's early work, so I was pleasantly surprised that something useful came out of the acquisition last week."
I don't know if you quite got what I was hinting at with the impression, but Elon Musk's relationship with Grimes is one of the more bizarre happenings in the music world for me, and possibly proof we're living in some kind of simulation. Regardless, I was pretty hooked on a lot of her music in the past decade, more for the songwriting and synthesizer work than her vocals, but still, this was serendipitous as a guest appearance. And my limited exposure to BMTH's early work was hard to parse, because while they had some fantastic production work (particularly on the guitar tones) courtesy of going to Frederik Nordström, who has produced many of my favorite metal albums, I didn't really like their early vocal style at all, and metalcore/deathcore in general for me is rather spotty in terms of its appeal to me.
Anyway, I'd heard they'd radically changed their style, so I had no idea what I'd be getting into here. It's certainly more compelling than I expected. I'm not so much into the falsetto range vocals later on and would have preferred Grimes just take all those lines as well, but this has pretty catchy refrain, a nice build, and some driving and interesting rhythmic propulsion and fills particularly by the end for a four-on-the-floor number, and that bass timbre leading into the first verse is quite tasty.
Score: 7.75