Well here we finally go:
Final Round Results:TAC: Dark the Suns - Life EternalThis album has left a very strong first impression on me, and after five listens, it's still pretty strong, but the novelty has kind of worn off by now. It feels like a lesser Amorphis at parts with maybe a little touch of Insomnium too, especially when they do whispering vocals. A lot of songs have the same structure and the same monotone growls—which are indeed easy on the ears though. The instrumental melodies are strong throughout the album. I like how the keys are prominent in almost every song, and I love several guitar solos on this album—the one in Sleepless Angels is probably the highlight of the record for me. Another positive thing for an album which, in my opinion, is a bit repetitive, is that it's fairly short and doesn't overstay its welcome at all: the longest song is under 6 minutes and there are only 10 songs overall.
I really enjoyed some of the vocal variations—the whispers I mentioned before and also the female vocals in Walking with an Angel and Don't Fear the Sleep; but then they kind of sucked in The Dead End. Overall, this record is fairly good and easy to listen to, with the bonus of good keyboard/guitar melodies, it almost feels like this is going to be a symphonic metal at times and the strings will kick in when the growls kick in instead. I didn't mind this at all, in fact I quite liked it, I think this is a fine album, but in the end it lacked something to make it a bit more special, and unfortunately for you, in the end this was the decisive factor for me in this round.
7.5/10 (closer to 7.25 but whatever)
Puppies: Comedy of Errors - Fanfare and FantasyAbsolutely didn't know what to expect from the band called Comedy of Errors, turns out it's a fairly enjoyable neo progressive rock in the vein of Marillion and Galahad. This album is a big longer than Life Eternal, but thankfully there's more variety to spice the listen up. While I was saying growls don't matter much to me now, I can't help but think this record benefitted a lot from having clean vocals—probably because I'm just a bit too jaded with all the growls I received in this roulette. This roulette overall had a disappointing lack of progressive rock, especially in the later rounds.
Best thing about the clean vocals here is that I could sing along with them, mostly because a lot of the melodies are predictable and at least somewhat catchy ("there's got to be a reason... FOR THE CAUSE!" takes the cake). There also were a lot of great melodic moments like the main guitar melody/piano run in Fanfare for the Broken Hearted which made that song a bit more special. That one, The Cause, Something She Said and The Answer are my favourite pieces on the record, and all these four songs are still fresh to my ears, and as they alone amount to 36 minutes of music, this album hasn't bored me yet after all the extensive listening. Of course, there are duds: I don't really care about Time's Motet and Galliard with its traditional music melodies, and I'm not sure I'm fully on board with Going for a Song yet, although this may change with some further listens.
While I think Tim's album is way more straightforward and punchy, this one ended up to be more enjoyable in the long term. And hey, I guess I missed some prog rock in my life. I don't think this will end up being as good as The Reticent, but I think it's close. Closer than Life Eternal, at least.
8/10 (closer to 7.75 but whatever)
Congrats Pup!!
Winner: Puppies_On_AcidTim: I swear this is in no way connected to your roulette.
Thank you everyone for sticking with this thread for this long (definitely took me longer than I thought it would to finish this). I will be checking out a lot of bands you guys sent me after a few weeks, and I may create a separate thread for that so I don't end up constantly bumping this thread. Now I'm just glad I'm finally finished this so I can listen to some other music too (Winter Ethereal here I come). This roulette took far more time to do than I expected for some reason.
Thank you everyone for playing!
Topic: Evermind's Third Roulette v. Final Round Results (Read 69548 times)
