Before I get to the results, let me just say that we will be saying goodbye to three forum members that have sent some AWESOME music in this roulette. And this in no way reflects on how I feel about them as individuals (the people that were eliminated prior to this round, well, that's a different story
).
Round 8 Results (higher seeded song is listed first)
Matchup #1
#1 bl5150 vs #6 senecadawg2 - The top seed vs one of the most successful roulette participants
Testament - Signs of Chaos/Electric Crown - Mysterious intro: check. Heavy, crunchy riffing: check. Virtuoso leads and pyrothechnic licks on top of the heavy rhythm: check. My one small knock is the relative weakness in the vocals which seem a bit limited in range.
Gordian Knot - Muttersprache - This song has a lot going for it. Very cool instrumental that takes you on quite a journey. I think my favorite part was the more jazzy slowed down section near the end before the short guitar solo.
This was veeeeeeery close, but bl5150 just barely eeks into the championship rounds.
Matchup #2
#2 Bolsters vs #5 Scorpion - The newcomer vs the returning contestant
Arcane - Keeping Stone: Sound on Fire - Oh yes, I loved that moment when the guitar rips in. Digging that section which moved right into another really cool riff under the second verse. Powerful delivery in the vocals as well here. Really cool stuff happening instrumentally and the vocalist is keeping up. Definitely one of the better songs this roulette. The last couple of minutes, especially the repeating riff during the outro, reminded me of Opeth. The rest of the album is like this??
Cat Empire - Fishies - Fun little song. Unfortunately it ran up against a juggernaut this round.
Bolsters wins by a fair margin.
Matchup #3
#3(3a) kingshmegland vs #4(3b) Elite - The king vs the reigning champ
Rocket Scientists - Earthbound - Awesome synth sounds! Love that build up but then the song kind of takes a right turn, would have liked a bit more exploration of that first theme maybe a bit heavier. Overall this really reminds me of Ice Age, maybe some Shadow Gallery with the vocal harmonies. Very cool prog rock. Great entry!
Pyramaze - The Bone Carver - This song was definitely enjoyable, and is probably a band I wouldn't mind checking out sometime, but there was really nothing about it that stood out from being kind of standard progressive/power metal.
Elite made a game of it, but kingshmegland is the winner.
So there it is. bl5150, Bolsters, and kingshmegland will battle it out for the next two rounds to determine the champion! Remember, scores are reset to 0.