Rookies take a lot of time wearing condoms.
Round Two Results, 4 of 4: kingshmegland - King Kongshmegland:Frost* - Black Light Machine:Bus Impression: "Where Genesis should have gone to in the 80's"
Timestamp Snippet: 7:19 – 7:46: SUPERFREAK!
I could copy&paste last round's writeup for Evermind's song here, changing names and specific details. A case of extreme Asia horror vacui enhanced by ultra-polished production makes everything shimmer here, almost to the point of saturation. Every component is beautiful (and sounds beautifully), in bricks as well as in particles, and the author knows it too well, to the point of never giving me dynamic time and space to stop and fully realise said beauty. Add a couple minutes, dilute some jelly of sound, and this round would have ended one day earlier.
Among the general excellence, I'd like to point out: 1) I'm a sucker for John Mitchell's work (and for Arena, for what is worth), the true heir to Andrew Latimer's peculiar brand of art. He's capable of stopping the flood here and suspend the tune in magic. 2) The crazy funky synth section left me speechless and, with the last incredibly heavy minute, may very well be my favourite musical moment in this whole roulette so far. Had “mainstream” prog rock reacted this way to the 80's, my daughter would wear a IQ t-shirt right now instead of a Five Fingers Can't Focking Remember What one right now.
Vote: 8.0 – We would have avoided the whole yuppie movement too.
romdrums - Seedy Rom and The Hard Drives:In The Presence of Wolves – Man of the Times:Bus Impression: "Marvel Comics Presents: Billy Sheehan 2099"
Timestamp Snippet: 2:50 – 3:02: Obviously, these guys have acces to Nuno's book of riffs
This and the next song are curious beasts. Apparently messy, but with a raw energy allowing every piece to fall into an original enthusiastic order. I can't (and don't wish to) place them inside any genre, but I can feel their peculiar souls and could have sworn they are debuts without help from a dedicated round. This one is another case of course-correction: same wild anarchic spirit as the Coheed's submission, but extremely more cohesive in its chaos and, above all, featuring an incredibly tighter guitar work. This goes to show you can keep sending the same kind of song you like, tweaking details according to my whims.
The intro is something only my wet dream Nuno-Sheehan collaboration could concoct, then you have approximatively 87 riff ideas worth a whole song with sheer violence being the common denominator, and a chorus I have nothing to compare to. The singer has the perfect Billy Milano meets John Connelly presence/attitude and a bass tone stealing thunders from Joey DiMaio, carrying drums and guitars with him, never allowing them to miss a bit. There's nothing refined in this song and I'm never tired of it.
Vote: 8.3 – What the Foo Fighters would be with Dave not being already a wealthy mofo when they started.
TAC - The aTACkers:Lor – Visions of Awakening:Bus Impression: "There is a Punk tune hidden here"
Timestamp Snippet: 2:42 – 2:52: From the Hansen&Weikath school of harmony
The last time I heard a debut song's first minute brimming with more raging unfiltered hunger for destruction and juvenile spunky need to show muscle, my brother was spinning Hit the Lights. This is punk in its noblest version, in spirit. The folky opening is Shane MacGowan punk. The relentless verse is Motorhead punk, the vocals are focking Warrior Soul punk, and then some. When the tune slows down and makes love to epic, it's Helloween punk, when Helloween were playful punks poking fun at heavy metal while being serious.
What makes this song memorable is the (very organic) contrast between the blitzkrieg section (you could power a medium size town connecting the drummer to a dynamo) and the classic doungeons&dragons ballady segment, featuring moods and harmonies worth keeping seven keys and a great guitar solo mixing aeolian and blues minors like a (young Ross The) Boss. How those two parts cohesist and actually enhance each other is a bona fide miracle for a debuting band. There's nothing refined in this song and I'm never tired of it.
Vote: 8.3 – You could have told me this came straight from 1983 and I wouldn't have beaten an eyelash.
Stadler - The Hartford Walers:The Claypool Lennon Delirium – Cricket and the Genie:Bus Impression: "I just heard a ghost"
Timestamp Snippet: 0:00 – 8:10: After the benefit show, Mr Kite has been promoted to Master of Reality
For the Benefit of Mr Kite meets Lord of this World and I lose my cool, then the ghost of John Winston Lennon lends it his contemptous surreal tone and I totally go bananas. This is playfully evil, like playfully evil is the way Colonel Les provides a parody of Macca with his smart vocal harmonies while, you know, impersonating the missing link between Geezer and Cliff among Iron Butterfly organs and a repertoire of toys making me rage for the glory days of analog tape freedom. Here is where I let love rule my judgement, but love is all you need.
The second movement (not essential to this first place, terrific nonetheless) I can only describe like A Night on Bald Mountain performed by sixties instrumentation after a party at Doctor Robert's, while the ending belongs to classic late Beatles estranged disturbing yet irresistable codas. As I was told in infancy, and as I repeat often, whatever your favourite act is doing, the Liddypool chaps have already done it, at least in seminal form. If John had met Tony Iommi in '67 instead of Yoko, we would have probably had thirty years of this delirium, but Sean could not be too happy about the results.
Vote: 8.5 – What happens when you mix the music that gave me dreams with the one that gave me nightmares.
Standings tomorrow. Have mercy.
In the meantime, gentlemen, start your mullets.