Results for the third round of the roulette. FINALLY.
Shadow Ninja 2.0 vs EvermindShadow Ninja 2.0- Santigold - The Riot's Gone
This song was a bit of a grower. At first I really only liked the percussion and wasn't too fond of the production, but it got better. The percussion starts off more low key and revolves around the bass drum and other lower-tuned drums (was there a talking drum in there too?) for the verses, and the higher tuned percussion comes to the forefront for the choruses and breakdown. This effectively makes the verses less busy and creates a change in dynamics. The ever-increasing volume of the guitarist furiously picking a note during the choruses, I liked. Vocally things weren't bad either, especially the chorus.
Anyway, this was a fine song and I liked it, but I don't feel it is as strong as the other silver star recipients thus far. Therefore I have decided to give you the first bronze star of the roulette. Congrats?
Evermind- Mostly Autumn - Evergreen
These guys must have really, really liked the 70's.
I don't think there was a single thing here that didn't throwback to the era. The clean guitar during the intro sounds like something Jimmy Page might have used. There's plenty of organ going on aswell which further exemplifies the 70's rock sound. This song takes its time to build up, which isn't a bad thing as the first half of the song doesn't drag at all. However, after the halfway mark the song dragged a bit I thought, as it stayed where it was at that point, and the guitar solos seem like they were never going to end.
Vocally I didn't mind the female vox, but the male backing vox in the latter half of the song weren't too great. Luckily, they are short-lived.
jingle.boy vs Big Hathjingle.boy- Styx - Pieces of Eight
Styx is one of those classic rock bands that slipped under my radar a bit. I'm aware of the big hits like Renegade and Come Sail Away, but I was never inclined to explore the band further. So, did you correct that mistake, or confirm that I was right in the first place? Well, I definitely think I should be checking these guys out, now.
What we have here is a solid power ballad. It's mostly dominated by piano, but the guitar comes in as necessary. I like the chorus especially, the vocals are almost Queen-like and the song reminds me a bit of Night Ranger at this point. Things get more interesting after the halfway mark though with a fantastic instrumental section leading up to the guitar solo. The first time I listened to the song I wasn't feeling it so much, until this part of the song, when I was completely sold.
I'm still not sold on DeYoung though. The intro and verses are probably the weaker points of the song and I think it has a lot to do with his vocals. I'm just not that big a fan of him in these parts, and he is the same in Come Sail Away, which is likely a reason I never bothered checking this band out more at any point over the years. I wouldn't call him bad, but I'm probably never going to be a big fan, either.
Anyway, this was a great 70's power ballad and I am definitely going to check these guys out more after the roulette.
Big Hath- Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories - Stay
During the first few seconds of listening, I almost considered rejecting this song. At the very beginning the first line is "You Say..." and in the space before the next line I immediately thought "I only hear what I want to".
But as the song progressed, I realised that I didnt actually recognise anything other than that. I tried searching online to find out if this was used in a movie or TV show that I might have watched, but my best guess is that the first part of the song was used in a TV ad or something here on Australian TV back in the 90's. Maybe an ad trying to sell the CD?
It was a bit bizzare actually, having one instantly recognisable part repeated throughout the song and then not knowing anything else. Or perhaps it's like Chad's Duran Duran entry where I have probably heard the song as a whole but it was so long ago that I don't remember it (or in this case, I barely remember it). Either way, it was certainly not familiar enough to me to warrant asking for something else.
The 90's was a pretty good time for female pop singer/songwriters apparently, and I am aware of a lot of them and own some compilations by some of them. Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories appear to have slipped under my radar though. No doubt because of the above, this song sounded incredibly familiar at some points but then completely foreign at others. As a whole the song is pretty serviceable. It's not actually bad at anything, but I'm not on the edge of my seat at any point of it. I think the verses are my favourite part, and Lisa Loeb has that 90's singing style going on - which is no surprise since this song is from 1994.
Scorpion vs SaculScorpion- Infected Mushroom - Suliman
I'm quite familiar with Becoming Insane, and although I'm not normally into that sort of straightforward trance, that particular song has enough going on besides the incessant four-to-the-floor to hold my interest, although it's not something I can listen to very often. I've never felt compelled to explore IM further though, so I was curious to find out what this song was like.
This track is unsurprisingly similar in many ways to the aforementioned song. It has the same four-to-the-floor kick, it sounds like it might be at roughly the same tempo, and a lot of the ways it builds up to something is basically the same. It is perhaps too similar and too much the same (the same use of EQ sweeps, bass drops, lo-fi, and hi-hats), though. This song has some great production moments which is something that I expected since it's also a highlight of Becoming Insane. The gated vocals in the intro are really cool, the breakdown in the middle of the song is a breath of fresh air right where it's needed in an otherwise straightforward and repetitive song, and the extended guitar solo following on after helps.
Unfortunately the song is a little too much like I expected it to be, and doesn't match Becoming Insane, so it hasn't really changed my mind about looking into Infected Mushroom's music more.
Sacul- Janelle Monae - Cold War
I'm sure I listened to Janelle Monae at some point either last year or the year before, because of someone on DTF. I'm not sure which songs I listened to, but whatever they were, it wasn't doing it for me at the time. That was at the cusp of my interest in modern pop music though, and now that I'm listening to Taylor Swift and have Katy Perry's face as an avatar, maybe my tastes have expanded enough for me to change my mind about Janelle.
It must have been quite a while since I heard a Janelle Monae song, because this is a little different that what I was expecting. I guess I thought it would be pop with some R&B influence, but instead it's more R&B with a pop infuence. Which isn't a bad thing, but I think it might have appealed to me more had it been the other way around. Anyway, as a vocalist Janelle is great, definitely the kind of thing I like. The music she sings over, not so much. I did like it, but it wasn't all that impressive to me. The drums were a particular disappointment, as I don't like the way they're mixed, the beats are quite repetitive, and a little too "busy". The organs were really good though, probably the second best thing about the song behind Janelle's vocals. Third best, the outro.
Although I did like the song and didn't exactly dislike it, like the Ninja's submission I don't feel that it is anywhere near as strong as any of the other silver star recipients. Therefore, I am giving you the second bronze star of the roulette.
Parama vs EliteParama- Thomas Giles - Sleep Shake
This song had a little surprise for me. This song starts out pretty mellow, with some heavily delayed guitar and fairly dry, lo-fi EQed vocals. Things pick up a bit when the vocals are brought up and the drum beat begins. I never really warmed up to this section at all; it works, but it's a bit dull.
However, that somewhat surprising turn starts just after the halfway mark, when a fat synth bass begins the song's transformation into something more electronic for the chorus. I wasn't expecting it, really, and thought the song would just continue on as it had already up to that point with rock instrumentation. The song picks up even more when the "Wake Up" bit starts, which continues until the song strips everything back to the delayed guitar and a kick drum before ending.
Overall this wasn't a bad song, but I'm not getting all that excited about it when I listen to it.
Elite- Leprous - Forced Entry
+1 to the list of things I figured would come my way this roulette. I had heard some Leprous before, but I think only a song or two from Coal and the title track of Bilateral.
At first, this was easily the most difficult song of the bunch to get a read on. A lot of the time it's quite good, however its biggest problem I think is that it sounds like someone with Attention Defecit Disorder wrote it - it jumps wildly from one thing to the next, rarely giving any of its sections time to really establish themselves and with zero fucks given. Pretty much all of these sections sound pretty good, and it's a shame some of the more brief ones weren't given more room to breathe and stand on their own. It's better once you know the song a little better too, the first time it sounded a bit of a mess. I liked what was going on vocally at pretty much any point. Even with a bunch of listens under my belt I still don't feel like I know this song all that well, which is both good and bad I think. It's good because there is a lot of depth and things to discover here, but it's also bad because I'm supposed to form an opinion of this song in a timely manner while also trying to do the same for seven other people; this is not an easy song to "get" within just a couple of days.
However, these few drawbacks aren't huge, and I found that they bothered me less and less the more I listened to the song; this track was a
huge grower. I think maybe that's why I haven't gotten into Leprous before - I listened to a song or two, but only bothered listening to them once each. I'll have to remedy that after the roulette.
I don't want to get caught up describing too much of this song, so I'm just going to throw out a few of my favourite bits.
- Really nice, frantic intro. Interesting synth sound, quite unusual, which I like.
- Verses are good. I like the clicky percussion, I like that the synth is still here but with a rather unforgiving lowpass filter on it.
- Chorus is strong vocally, especially when he goes into the falsetto. Nice chunky guitar sound too.
- Ambient sections are all good, and are a welcome change of pace in an otherwise frantic, full-on prog metal song. The one that starts around the halfway mark is a particular standout, and I like the way it builds back up for the outro.
At first you were going to lose to Parama. Then, you were going to get the star...but a bronze one. A little later, I felt you did deserve the silver. And then more recently I thought, nah...this is probably the best track I got this round, this is a gold star song. So you are very fortunate that I listened to the song as many times as I did.
Ranking for this round:
Elite
jingle.boy
Big Hath
Shadow Ninja 2.0
Sacul / Evermind / Parama
Scorpion
The scoreboard as of Round 3:
Round 4: Spar!Matchups for Round 4 are...
Shadow Ninja 2.0 vs
Paramajingle.boy vs
ScorpionBig Hath vs
EliteSacul vs
Evermind