Results of the fourth round in the roulette.
Shadow Ninja 2.0 vs ParamaShadow Ninja 2.0- The Dillinger Escape Plan - Widower
This song was a pleasant surprise. When I see things on Last.fm tagged "metalcore" I usually expect not to like it. This song was not like that at all though, because it was actually quite good.
The intro is great. There's some good softly delivered vocals and a harmony I liked, and the piano is nice and does a good job building up to where the song takes off and starts proper. The next section was also good, the vocalist being the standout, although I think the strings are a bit heavy on the low end at times and they stand out in a bad way in a couple of places. The drumming is good here, too.
The heavier part in the second half of the song is strong aswell, although I don't like the overly-screamy vocals here at all. Fortunately this style isn't utilised outside of this section and only for a few stanzas - had this been a more prominent style throughout the song I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much. There is screaming right at the end, but it's not as extreme and I actually like the way it is used there.
ParamaThis wasn't a bad song. I like the vocals at the start, but otherwise the first half of the song wasn't really doing it for me - vocally things remained decent, but the music was a bit repetitive and uninteresting to me, the guitars especially, and I wasn't fond of the piano, the organ playing, or the drums.
However at the half way point things get significantly better, at the point where the "Holy Ghosts" bit returns for the chorus. The song slows down a little after that and remains pretty good - probably because the song is slower paced, the drums/guitar aren't playing as rapidly, the vocals are far more interesting, and the song grooves a whole lot more. Unfortunately the song goes back to the faster paced bit for its conclusion.
Had the whole song been built around that bit in the middle, I'd have rated it a lot higher. But unfortunately this is the second track you've sent me where I'm impressed by one part of it and put off by the rest. What is even more unfortunate: Your losing streak continues.
jingle.boy vs Scorpionjingle.boy- Roswell Six - I Am The Point
You said "Let's take a chance here" when sending this song, but I'm not entirely sure why.
There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary here, although maybe you thought it would be too ordinary? Also this song has James LaBrie singing on it, and yet somehow this project slipped right under my radar. So hearing his voice upon playing the track was a bit of a surprise.
So, the song. It ain't that bad, I guess. The keyboard sounds are cheesy as absolute fuck for the mostpart though, they sound really cheap and the song could have been better had they been of higher quality, but some managed to work well enough. The percussion during the verses sounds like it's keyboard aswell (?), but even if it isn't it still didn't sound very good and felt a little out of place. Everything else about the song is sufficient. Not one of JLB's best performances but he doesn't ham it up all that much at least.
Like I said, ain't that bad. But nothing really stood out, except for the negative.
Scorpion- Diablo Swing Orchestra - Justice For Saint Mary
You got off to a great start in this roulette, but struggled to succeed in subsequent rounds. Is this the round things are turned back around?
The first three quarters of this song: It's orchestral bliss. I like orchestral stuff, violins and cellos being particular favourites, and there is plenty of great stuff from these instruments here. I also like the inclusion of acoustic guitar with orchestral instrumentation, and there is some nice acoustic guitar playing accompanying the orchestra. Anyway, as I said I like violins and cellos and both are utilised well here - the cello is dark and ominous, and the violins/violas are busy and do their own thing creating some almost-counterpoint-like mments, but then also come together to create some harmonies or to create some slight dissonance. I'm liking the vocals a lot here aswell.
That's the first three quarters. The last couple of minutes things rock a lot harder. Slowly the song builds up and the distorted electric guitar in particular builds really nicely. The glitchy section was great too - I generally don't like songs that are built entirely around glitching, but when it's in moderation or is contained to one section like it is here, I like it a lot. It was perhaps a little out of place in this song and definitely unexpected, but it was well executed.
The brass was a bit hit or miss though - the first time I listened to the song, I wasn't even sure if the horns that appear around the halfway mark were real or sampled, and there were a few other places that one of the brass instruments really stood out in a bad way. But I realised rather quickly that they weren't samples, so I guess it was the way they were recorded or mixed that I didn't like. The horns at the half way mark and the brass during buildup just after the 6:00 mark stood out the most in this negative way. But, that's really my only gripe with this song. Still, it's only a small gripe.
You might not want to know this, but your song was without a doubt going to be the gold star winner...that is, before Evermind's late submission came in.
Big Hath vs EliteBig Hath- Kevin Gilbert - Goodness Gracious
I'd heard of Kevin Gilbert, but I couldn't remember if I had ever listened to any of his music. If I hadn't, I probably should have though, because this was a rather good pop rock track with, as you said, a slight progressive edge.
This song made a good first impression. The production is interesting (in a good way); there's a slightly raw sound to everything (the vocals especially) and it works quite well in this song well. The acoustic guitar riff underlying most of the song is a good one, the drumming is solid, the vocal melodies are catchy.
Elite- Karnivool - Umbra
Continuing on the Progressive Metal path, Elite chose to send me another song from the genre, most likely in the hopes of scoring another star.
This progressive metal track was a different beast from the last, and not in a bad way. There's a lot more mood here and a bit of melancholy. The intro sets the tone with some not-that-bright clean electric guitar and busy drumming before being joined by a smooth distorted electric, accompanied by the bass which does a really good job fattening the sound. This is brief however before the song strips back for the verse. I like the electric guitar here, where the guitarist starts off palm muting but slowly raises his hand from the strings, allowing the riff to come to life free of muting. The chorus sees the return of the heavier sound from before, with the guitars providing texture by playing some huge, distorted chords. A little after the halfway mark the song remains heavy but is more riff-centric than previously, which is a welcome change at that point. Vocally the song is pretty good. The song maintains a nice groove throughout. Not a fan of the fadeout closing the track, however, but everything else works.
All in all, there are no big surprises to be had here, but this is a more than decent prog metal track that I enjoyed listening to.
Sacul vs EvermindSacul- Jenny Hval / Susanna - I Have Walked This Body
I'm not sure artpop is something I've listened to much of. I am pretty certain that nothing I listen to is considered artpop, so I was very curious about this song. Would this song be a big winner, or would it fall flat?
I'm going to say...flat. This is rather avant-garde (to me, anyway) and to be honest I'm not exactly sure where the pop part comes in. Music doesn't have to be pop or pop influenced for me to like it, but I still didn't really like this song, anyway. The drone you mentioned is here and I'm not a fan of it at all. The track meanders around rather pointlessly for its entire duration, and there are a lot of random noises, distortion/feedback, and abnormal vocalisations which while well executed, missed the mark with me. I find it quite pretentious for the mostpart aswell, like it's being weird and random just because it has to be in order to be considered "artistic" or "experimental".
While all the things in this track are not things I dislike on principle, I generally enjoy them more when used sparsleythroughout a song and in moderation. Stuff like the distortion/feedback especially can be quite good depending on how it is utilised. This song was nothing but that stuff from beginning to end though, and they appear to be the focus of the song, as opposed to just using those techniques to accentuate something or provide variety.
Overall, this song sounds more like someone trying really, really hard to make something experimental more than it actually sounds experimental. There's nothing really out of the box as far as the recording or production, and all of the techniques that went into making it are uncomplicated and not exactly original, so it's just a mix of things messily thrown together. Though I suppose if I were pressed to name a song that I thought truly was "experimental" I'd struggle to come up with anything, so what the hell do I know.
Evermind- Jon Lord - Pictured Within
I liked this song a lot, and it's worth a whole lot more than a pink star, well done.
Also the song does start abruptly as you mentioned, but I'm glad you also linked me to the live version with the extended introduction because it was a rather good introduction to the song.
Anyway, I liked this ballad a lot. The intro is especially nice due to the combination of Jon's singing, his piano paying (and the piano sound is quite good to boot), and the choir singers fleshing the sound out. It becomes fittingly uplifting through the chorus. The piano leading between this and the violin solo section was good. I'm a big fan of violins, so I liked the violin solo, but perhaps not as much as the section after where the other orchestral instrumentation comes in. There's some nice pizzicato scattered about aswell. The recording/mixing on this track is top notch stuff - I think I mentioned somewhere that I can be a bit of a production-whore at times, and I can't fault this recording at all. Everything sounds great, and the wide dynamics really brings the song to life. The fact that it isn't compressed much also helps to preserve the nuance and dynamics in the players' performances.
Your submission may have been a little late compared to everyone else, but you sent a song that made a fantastic first impression and it only got better from there, so it didn't really matter that I had a couple of days extra to listen to everyone elses' songs.
We're officially more than halfway through the roulette. Elite seems to have dialed in to something and it's paying off for him. Scorpion's struggle to impress again has ended. Parama
still hasn't gotten a damn thing to show for his efforts.
Evermind becomes the first person to win a second gold star - but is it enough for him to take the lead, or not? What do the final three rounds hold in store for everyone? What do they hold in store for me? Answers to these questions...
Songs ranked this round:
Evermind
Scorpion
Elite
Shadow Ninja 2.0 / Big Hath
jingle.boy / Parama
Sacul
Round 5: Evade!Shadow Ninja 2.0 vs
Big Hathjingle.boy vs
SaculParama vs
ScorpionEvermind vs
Elite