RESULTS – ROUND 5: So energy!
Another strong round, all of the songs had energy but it was interesting to see the range of styles this covered.
6 points: Sigz
Caravan Palace – Clash
This seriously made me want to dance. I’ve never really listened to any electro swing but if this is indicative of the genre then WHERE THE HELL HAVE I BEEN ALL THIS TIME?! Absolutely loved every second of it, and went straight to buy the album on download after hearing it. Funky, groovy, fun, awesome.
5 points: LLTWM
Birds and Buildings – Birds Flying Into Buildings
Another tune I absolutely loved from the first listen! Prog jazz fusion isn’t a common style in my music collection, but this track is amazing so I can see the album joining my collection soon. It’s fast and cool, with lots of great rhythms and fantastic playing from everyone in the band, and I really love the variety in style and sound/instrumentation throughout. Some bits sound like pure 70s prog while others are straight-up jazz, and then the rest is a nice blend of the two. Great stuff!
4 points: Jingle
Flaming Row – Unearth the Truth
Terrific modern prog rock right here, such a big sound these guys have right from the off, and when the song gets going it’s definitely a thumping, head-banging song. Nice playing, some great melodies and lots of good ideas. It does border on overly cheesy in a couple of places, but never goes down that route for long before returning to the juicy good stuff. I really want to give the album a listen now!
4 points: King
The Raconteurs – Hold Up
This was a really good fun jam-rock song. I’m not a huge fan of the White Stripes but I know the potential Jack White has as a songwriter because of the few really good songs they have, and this really floats my boat much more than his White Stripes stuff. Simple enough, but it got me bobbing along to it!
3 points: DTVT
Vanishing Point – Embodiment
The way this song starts is really amazing, and I thought I was going to absolutely love it. And indeed it’s a solid song with some really nice ideas in it, but once it got going it didn’t grab me as much as I thought it was going to from the huge intro. I think maybe it’s the vocals, which are competent enough but lack a bit of character. Nice energetic prog-power metal though, with a pretty catchy chorus!
2 points: Ytse
Asking Alexandria – Closure
This song has so many cool ideas, I do enjoy it rather a lot. Quite a few bits got me head-banging, and the song definitely has a ton of energy, probably more than any other song this round! Only issue for me was the song seemed very incoherent – good ideas but total lack of any flow or sense. Still, the good stuff in it is good enough to still make the song enjoyable!
2 points: Raven
The Crüxshadows – Birthday
I’ve heard a couple of Crüxshadows songs before that I really dug, but this didn’t grab me nearly as much as those did. It has a nice beat to it and some good melodies, but large parts of this song I just didn’t particularly interesting. The chorus is really catchy though, no denying that! I’m still going to check them out properly at some point.
1 point: Gorille
Gojira – Vacuity
You took a risk with this one, as I’ve heard another Gojira album but I didn’t really like it all that much and only rated it 2.5 stars. And unfortunately this hasn’t really changed my mind. It’s not bad by any means, I just don’t really hear much in that I find very exciting.
The Scores
Raven: 6 + 3 + 5 + 8 + 2 = 24
Gorille: 5 + 6 + 4 + 4 + 1 = 20
LLTWM: 3 + 4 + 6 + 2 + 5 = 20
Ytse: 4 + 1 + 3 + 6 + 2 = 16
Sigz: 2 + 5 + 5 – 4 + 6 = 14
DTVT: 4 + 2 + 2 + 0 + 3 = 11
King: 3 + 4 + 2 – 2 + 4 = 11
Jingle: 2 + 3 + 3 – 6 + 4 = 6
ROUND 6: Mini-epic – I did a round for “epics” in my first roulette, where I asked for long songs that took the listener on a journey. This time, I want the song to feel epic because of the sound and the music, but not because of the length. Send me a song you think feels epic, but is no longer than 7 minutes! Completely open in terms of genre.