ariich's Song Roulette - all done

[sonatafanica]

Woohoo!

Okay, recent, I'll have to think on this...

[Dr. DTVT]

Damn you and that 8 minute limit!  Best song from my album of the year last year clocks in at 8:03.

[ariich]

My personal favorite album is How it Goes. Check that one out for sure.

Cool, I'll be sure to give it a listen at some point.

Ted Leonard is one of my favorite vocalists

Yeah I really liked the vocals a lot, definitely one of the standout qualities of the song! Cheers for the advice, J9/D10 is definitely on Spotify so I'll make that a starting point and carry on from there.

[ariich]

Bump!

I'm returning home tomorrow, so it'd be good to have as many as possible in. Only got 3 so far.

[SoundscapeMN]

Enchant's "Break" record is great, but the prog fans don't care for it as much. I put it above Tug of War, Blink of an Eye and Wounded.

[TheVoxyn]

Already know which artist I am going to send but need to pick out a song. Not sure if I can earn points with this artist but its a personal favourite that unfortunately not many people have heard of.

[Portrucci]

Already know which artist I am going to send but need to pick out a song. Not sure if I can earn points with this artist but its a personal favourite that unfortunately not many people have heard of.

well I'm sending an artist with 900 listeners on last.fm  I think it's great to find new music at it's very source with quite unknown bands.

[TheVoxyn]

Already know which artist I am going to send but need to pick out a song. Not sure if I can earn points with this artist but its a personal favourite that unfortunately not many people have heard of.

well I'm sending an artist with 900 listeners on last.fm  I think it's great to find new music at it's very source with quite unknown bands.

Dammit, mine has over a 1000. But the top track doesn't even get to the 70 plays, so it's still underground enough to be cool  .

[TheVoxyn]

Bumpin'.

[ariich]

Yup, listening to the songs now. Still waiting on sonata though.

[ariich]

Just a quick update to say 2 things:

- Write ups should be done by this evening, or tomorrow at the very latest.

- Just listened through Thrice's Beggars. What a fantastic album from start to finish! Definitely one of my favourite discoveries so far in this Roulette. In fact, most of the full albums I've checked out I've really liked a lot, I think once the Roulette itself is over, I'm going to keep updating the thread with my thoughts on each band/artist's full albums, especially as I'm more of an album person anyway.

[orcus116]

Work backwords with Thrice if you wanna get more of them. I think you'll dig the variety of styles of The Alchemy Index.

[ariich]

Round 5: Recent – anything from 2009 or 2010
This was another really excellent round, and once again there was a good mixture of bands and artists I've heard about but not properly checked out, and ones I'd never heard of before but who were still really good.  

5 points - TheVoxyn
Petter Carlsen - Spirits in Need (no link)
Another one of those songs that I really can't say enough good things about! Never heard of Petter Carlsen before, but he has a really great, very tasteful voice, and his music in this song is wonderful. It's actually very hard to pinpoint anything in particular, because everything about it is so good – the music, the instrumentation, the vocal melodies (and indeed the vocals), and so on. The two things I will mention specifically though are: 1) the drumming – every other instrument has quite slow, restrained parts, but the drums have a real pace and energy that give the song such an exciting feel; and 2) the bridge type section that ends the song, which has a fantastic feel to it and which really sees his vocals shining. I know this is a single from his upcoming album (which I'm now very interested in) but I'll certainly check out his previous album as well.

4 points - orcus116
The Antlers - Kettering (https://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Kettering/2vENjD)
This is such a gorgeous song. I looked the band up on wikipedia as I was curious as to how they are generally defined, and as I kind of expected, they are hard to categorise, which is usually a great quality to have. The atmosphere in this song is fantastic, it has a very mellow mood throughout even though the instrumentation keeps building up for the most part of the song, something that reminds me quite a lot of post-rock. My favourite thing, though, is probably the vocals. He is very emotive, and just sings with such a lovely quality and tone. Great stuff all round!

4 points - DTVT
Redemption - Black and White World (https://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Black+And+White+World/2EO6bU)
On one of my listens of this song, after the first few seconds I thought I was listening to Forsaken. Very similar opening piano motif. Anyway, this was a really good song, I'm sure I've heard some Redemption before, but clearly not enough (or in enough depth) to rate them, and I certainly didn't recognise this song. It builds up nicely and generally has a very coherent feel over the 8 minutes. What I really like most about the song is the instrumentation, which is pretty unique and distinguishes the song from a lot of other, somewhat similar prog metal. The mix of some quite simple electronic synth sounds with big orchestral sounds (particularly throughout the verses) works surprisingly well and makes the song exciting and dynamic. I definitely need to give Redemption a dedicated listen at some point.

3 points - zxlkho
Alcest - Percées De Lumière (https://listen.grooveshark.com/#/s/Perc+es+De+Lumi+re/2UksBS)
Some very interesting things going on in this song. The overall style I'd probably describe as black metal or maybe post-metal, but it is unusually melodic and upbeat sounding, and there are obvious post-rock influences in there. On my first listen a lot of it seemed like melodic but fairly run of the mill black metal but the more I listen the more I get from the song, and the section in the middle in particular is really excellent. I know you wanted to send the song that was over 8 minutes, but don't worry, I'll be giving the full album a listen at some point.

3 points - Portrucci
NàTTSòL - Ved Baal I Kveldstime (Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/track/7JWQJ10l0jYhhn6fTehV9D)
I absolutely adore the acoustic opening to this song; really gorgeous stuff, both harmonically and also in terms of tone and atmosphere. The way the full band comes in is rather sudden, and if I'm honest slightly abrasive, but after the initial shock this is some good black metal. Both clean and harsh vocals are used well throughout the song, and the vocal harmonies around the 2:30 mark in particular I really like! The acoustic break in the middle is, again, just fantastic, but it does seem to come rather out of nowhere and then disappears just as suddenly. Still, they are obviously a new band and so are showing some really good potential, so hopefully they'll learn to streamline their ideas a little more!

2 points - Ultimetalhead
Floater - Matadors (https://listen.grooveshark.com/#/search/song?q=Floater%20Matadors)
This is a really good hard rock song; the verses have a fantastic groove to them, and I really enjoy the poppy chorus as well. In fact, every section individually is great; it's a fun rocker with good riffs and melodies that is enjoyable throughout. The one small downer is that the sections don't seem to fit together that well. By that, I don't mean that it's disjointed at all, just that the moods and styles of each section don't really complement each other that much. It's only a minor point though, other than that it's a very good song!

2 points - antigoon
Ives the Band - The Joker (https://listen.grooveshark.com/s/The+Joker/2JB0dq)
I like the intro to this song, particularly the bouncy piano part, but it does take a little time to really get going. Once it does though, it's a pretty top-notch pop-rock song. There's a good groove throughout, some really nice melodies, and I particularly like the guitar parts when they come in, which give the song a much bigger and more energetic feel. Only very slight downer is that the singer's voice (while it has a very nice quality to it) just seems a little too soft for the bigger sounding parts of the song. Still, it's their first album, and from this song they sound really promising, so I'm sure his voice will strengthen over time! I'm definitely going to give the album a listen at some point, as I often find that lead singles don't represent albums all that well.

1 point - sonatafanica
Disasterpeace - Ensis (https://disasterpeace.bandcamp.com/track/ensis)
OH GOD CHIPTUNE! Actually I have to say, there is something very endearing about this music, and it reminds me immensely of old video games (obviously) and so instils a very pleasant feeling of nostalgia. The tune does drag on a bit, but the main problem here is that I really can't imagine listening to this very often. Giving it a handful of listens for this Roulette was enough of an effort to be honest. I do actually listen to music that is maybe not quite as basic sounding, but that uses, say, 90s video game midi sounds, but the difference there is that it is music that came from video games that I used to play (or even still do) and so I enjoy it largely because it reminds me of the context within the games. Music in the same style but without that context sadly doesn't seem to do much for me.


Rankings:
antigoon – 18
orcus116 - 18
TheVoxyn - 16
Ultimetalhead - 14
zxlkho - 14
DTVT - 14
sonatafanica - 13
Portrucci - 13

It's still pretty close! Going in to the final regular round, everyone is able to qualify for the semi-finals, and technically everyone can fail to qualify although for 'goon and orcus it's pretty unlikely, so there's everything to play for. In terms of a final ranking to determine semi-finalists, if there is a tie then I will take my favourite two songs sent in by the tied people and make a decision on ranking based on those.


Next:

Round 6 (final regular round): Emotional - I realise there is an extent of cross-over with the lyrics round (as some people went for very emotional lyrics) but music that really makes me feel something speaks to me a lot, so send me something amazing that you consider very emotional. And remember, it doesn't have to be sad emotions, and it's not even necessary for the emotion to come primarily from the lyrics, I've heard many instrumental songs or classical pieces that are incredibly emotional!

[TheVoxyn]

Hell yea! Glad you enjoyed it. I had some trouble hunting his first album down but I ended up buying it digitally. I saw he made a facebook post today about a site where you can get physical copies though.

And I think I know what to send for my next round. I had two songs for the lyrical round and I think I might send the song now that I didn't send then.

[ariich]

Hell yea! Glad you enjoyed it. I had some trouble hunting his first album down but I ended up buying it digitally. I saw he made a facebook post today about a site where you can get physical copies though.

It's on Spotify. GODDAMN I LOVE SPOTIFY!

[Sigz]

Hospice is a fantastic album, I've been listening to it quite a bit lately.

[orcus116]

I think I blew my load with that last song for the emotional round  Glad you liked it though!

Alcest are actually described as Post Black Metal so you were right on all accounts.

[sonatafanica]

HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO SEND CHIPTUNE THAT YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF BUT WILL STILL FEEL NOSTALGIC ABOUT, AS THAT'S THE ONLY WAY YOU'LL LIKE IT


YOU'RE GOING TO MISS OUT ON A COOL GENRE AND DIE DRUNK AND AFRAID AND NO ONE WILL EVER REMEMBER YOU

[TheVoxyn]

Hospice is a fantastic album, I've been listening to it quite a bit lately.

Same, great album.

[ariich]

Work backwords with Thrice if you wanna get more of them. I think you'll dig the variety of styles of The Alchemy Index.

Just noticed that you posted this before I put my results up. And yeah I'll work backwards, they seem to have the whole lot on Spotify!

Alcest are actually described as Post Black Metal so you were right on all accounts.

Awesome.

HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO SEND CHIPTUNE THAT YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF BUT WILL STILL FEEL NOSTALGIC ABOUT, AS THAT'S THE ONLY WAY YOU'LL LIKE IT


YOU'RE GOING TO MISS OUT ON A COOL GENRE AND DIE DRUNK AND AFRAID AND NO ONE WILL EVER REMEMBER YOU

no u

[orcus116]

Work backwords with Thrice if you wanna get more of them. I think you'll dig the variety of styles of The Alchemy Index.

Just noticed that you posted this before I put my results up. And yeah I'll work backwards, they seem to have the whole lot on Spotify!

Odd. I think my forum clock was messed up because I couldn't post in this thread for like 30 minutes. I'd like to wish I was psychic though.

[ariich]

By the way, I've added the following sentence into the Round 6 criteria: "And remember, it doesn't have to be sad emotions, and it's not even necessary for the emotion to come primarily from the lyrics, I've heard many instrumental songs or classical pieces that are incredibly emotional!"

[sonatafanica]

Thanks for telling me what emotion is, jerk.

[ariich]

Thanks for telling me what emotion is, jerk.

Well, I only decided to add that because G said in his Roulette that almost all the entries for his Emotional round were fairly similar in those regards.

You're just upset about your fall from grace.

[Ultimetalhead]

Alright, I'm praying you've never heard the song I'm about to send. Probably one of the most powerful songs I know.

[TheVoxyn]

I think I'm going to deviate from my original plan. Have 2 songs in mind now, going to be hard to choose.

[Ultimetalhead]

Can't believe I didn't respond to the results. Fair enough. I personally think there's nothing wrong with the flow, but hey. That's opinions.

Listen to the albums Alter, Wake, and Glyph. They are the best.

[orcus116]

Seeing your Thrice ratings make me so happy. Glad you're digging them!

Sent btw.

[SoundscapeMN]

good to see some appreciation for The Antlers. They have a new album expected in 2011.

[orcus116]

Can't wait. Hospice was far and away my favorite album of 2009.

[ariich]

Yeah, Thrice might well be my favourite band I've discovered through this. So far anyway. I've only properly checked probably less than half the bands so far, so I've got a long way to go!

[TheVoxyn]

I had some trouble picking a track because I couldn't choose between three different tracks (which were from different artists). Managed to pick one though, just sent it.

In before Ruben claims I am him. I'm sure he would have thought of this artist as well.

[Dr. DTVT]

I wish I wouldn't have blown my loads on Enchant and Redemption already...I'm struggling to find something emotional from the list of artists I made for you at the beginning Mexirich. 

[ariich]

Mexirich. 

Anyway I have all the songs now so hoepfully write ups will be done by tomorrow night. I've heard all the songs at least once already, and I don't know how I'm going to rank them yet. You're all too good at this!

[Ultimetalhead]

...gah...must........have............results