Another pretty solid round , but there was a fair gap between the top 6 and bottom 6 this time around.. Not a great deal has changed ,aside from TAC making a move when those around him scored lower- now within striking distance of 6th . There’s only four of you left with one possible bonus point now – don’t forget to use them if you wish to. I will allow use of the bonus point in the final , but (aside from being out of 20) the final has no higher weighting than any of the earlier rounds and so I would tend to concentrate on making the final.
Let's see if we can do a bit better this time with submissions.......I would like to have everything in by Wed morning our time (Tuesday night US) if at all possible. That'll give me a good headstart before things begin to get crazy again around this joint from Thursday thru Saturday.
1) Cans: Beyond The Gates – wolfking Rating: 10I have never been big into the super cheesy power metal bands – the likes of Hammerfall , Rhapsody, etc.....- and as I often say with bands like Stratovarius (who made my DTF Top 50) , to me the real power in “power metal” is when they slow down and riff away instead of the “happy” double kick marathons. This song is a good mix of power metal and some classic metal elements and the vocals have touches of Halford and King Diamond , so I can see why you like it Kade. In fact
I hear plenty of Judas Priest in this ( esp the pre-chorus and chorus) and I like it for the same reasons. Nothing here is re-inventing the wheel at all and the chorus in particular is fairly standard – sometimes K.I.S.S. works – but in concert with a great intro ,pre-chorus etc...... it’s just very well written heavy metal and I daresay probably more appealing to me than all of Cans’ work in Hammerfall. I think the only thing that was a tiny letdown here is how restrained Mark Zonder is in this – must’ve been nodding off
This is only my 2nd “perfect score” for the roulette and , although this may not be quite as perfect as the earlier one from JJ I also bear in mind the correct spacing of ratings when I am doing this. I thought this song was clearly one point better than anything else , but I decided that I wanted to give the next few a 9/10......so that arithmetic says 10/10. You’re doing very well for someone who is supposedly out of material Kade and doing a great job now of balancing heaviness and melody – my metal sweet spot..
2)Binary Creed: How Many Tears – Lowdz Rating: 9The first thing I noticed with this song (aside from it being a bit “Nightwishy” early on) was the distinctive and familiar vocal tone.........so this is the guy from Hollow . I have a couple of their albums and they have some very good stuff on them but unfortunately suffer from some pretty poor production. No such issues here though. I don’t have a great deal to say about this aside from it being very solid power metal with a vocal full of character. The music doesn’t stand out to me in any one area – just a very solid effort all round.
3) Disturbed: The Vengeful One - Bolsters Rating: 9Disturbed have been a band that I pigeon holed into the “modern metal” grouping that , on the whole ,don’t tend to do much for me. I did however buy The Sickness as a sampler at some point , but (like many albums I have) never really got around to a proper listen. So this is a good thing for me to check out. They do seem to have a reputation for being a bit “samey” across their discog but I can only review the one song and I quite liked it. The riff is nice and crunchy and the vocal , while nothing brilliant technically, is strong and thankfully he just sings naturally and doesn’t go out of his way to add that modern “twang” . Good track.
4) Harlequin: Superstitious Feeling – jjrock88 Rating: 9The only reason that I know the name Harlequin is that I was a big Icon fan back in the day and their singer Jerry Harrison (the 2nd singer ) was ex-Harlequin. It turns out that when I looked into it that there are/were two Harlequin bands – a harder rock band from USA and the AOR band from Canada. And believe it or not JJ has sent the softer version
This is quite a nice track – somewhere along the lines of Night Ranger meets Foreigner , only the vocalist (while good) isn’t Lou Gramm.......but then who is? I didn’t feel that the chorus quite got to the same level as the verses but all the same........nice song .
5) Voodoo Circle: Devil’s Daughter – Big Hath 9It’s actually nice to hear Readman singing something out of his usual zone ,as after many years of being a PC69 fan I find his melodic metal stuff can be a bit samey these days. This song is from an album of theirs I am missing and I enjoyed it. I don’t think that the song reaches any huge heights in any one department , but everything about it is very good. Strong vocals , clear production etc....... The sound is very much along the lines of bluesy Purple/Whitesnake and the guitar solo has a shot at aping Ritchie Blackmore at the start with the staccato muting stuff. The change of tempo into the outro was a nice touch too and snagged you an extra half point.
6) Heavenly: Hands of Darkness – TAC Rating: 8.5 + 1 = 9.5This is quite nice Tim – you haven’t had much luck with me as far as vocalists go , so send an instrumental and voila
. As you know I have the prior album by Heavenly (half killer, half filler) and never really followed through on their next release ,which is what we have here. After the initial 45 seconds I was dreading the potential for a 5min + shredathon with little in the way of melody/riffs but thankfully there’s a bit of variety going on with the shred interspersed with some nice rhythmic ideas which is enough to maintain my interest. Nothing that I haven’t heard before a few times but it’s quality and rated as such. You get a bonus point and you might just be back in the game with two rounds to run before the final.
7) Dada: Rise – kingshmegland Rating: 7.5This is quite a relaxing listen – bluesy modern rock I suppose . I thought that the song itself, the harmonies and guitar playing were solid ,but on the whole I found the track a bit like Chad’s. Very competent and listenable but not a lot reached out and grabbed me to demand repeat listens
8) Angels of Babylon: White Star Line – erwinrafael Rating: 7.5Quite a nice classical guitar intro here had me very interested , then some nice symphonic elements to finish off a nice epic intro. This is followed by a pretty simple riff and a singer that I struggled with a bit............so some of the magic of the intro was lost. The lead guitar playing in this is nice , as was the symphonic interlude in the middle.
In the end I found that the simple chugging riffs and the average vocals (to me he sounds like what he is – a drummer who sings) didn’t quite live up to the symphonic and lead guitar elements. A hard one to rate in the end but I settled on 7.5
9) The Moody Blues: Ride My See Saw – jingle.boy Rating: 7.5So Evil Knievel decided that sending 70’s wasn’t risky enough and sends The Moody Blues.
I have an extremely vague memory of hearing stuff like this in the car when I was a very,very young boy (late 70’s) and so it’s not totally unfamiliar to me. Now having said that I think my Dad used it to get me to sleep for a long trip
I really had to consult my ratings explanations in the OP to make sure I got the rating right here. I found it listenable so we’re talking 6+ but I’m really not keen enough to listen to it regularly /didn’t get “involved” (8+) , so I split the difference and rounded up a bit for a 7.5 due to the quality sound/harmonies. When it comes to the 60’s stuff in this style I do remember enjoying some songs from The Beach Boys but on the whole I think success is more likely with something rocking like the Hendrix . I am open to being convinced on The Beatles too..................I have hardly have anything from them ,but again anything from this period is playing with fire where I am concerned. In the end this is very inoffensive music that I find listenable enough , just not something I would ever bother to line up for play through my own initiative.
10) Theodore Ziras: Hyperpyrexia – Evermind Rating:7.5+1 bonus =8.5I have no issue with shred – my collection is full of shred instrumental stuff. And my ratings tend to vary a lot on those albums , depending on whether the shred is part of a clever, melodic song or the shred is all that there is. Most of the artists I am referring to have plenty in both categories. It’s rare that I find an album in this genre that is great from start to finish – Satriani had a few , Macalpine almost got there and Vinnie Moore has a few (Meltdown being my favourite). In this case it sits somewhere in the middle I suppose , leaning more towards “shred only” – to some extent it was saved by the short guitar synth sections.
But in the end this sounds a bit more like a technical exercise to me than a “song” . I suppose I can also compare this to some stuff I recorded myself way back in the day. Ziras is undoubtedly faster than I ever was but I was always conscious of making the shred a weapon to be used at the right time rather than it being the main reason for the song . Technically I give the playing a 9 but the song I give a 7.5
11) Bent Knee : Being Human - Sacul Rating: 7This is another one of those arty “modern” songs that has elements that I really like and some that I really don’t. Up until you “modern” rockers started sending me stuff I have usually found the idea of liking/disliking a song very simple - I like it or I don’t. But many of these songs have great elements that I can relate to and others I just can’t , which makes rating difficult. We’ll start with the bad...........from just before 2 mins to 4 mins I found that it was a mix of prog for progs sake and a lot of noise. The other 3 mins of the song (especially the first two) showcased a very capable band and a female singer with an angelic jazzy voice. I’ll run with a 7 (hard to go much higher when I seriously struggle with half the song), but having said that
I hear a band that (if they toned down the arty elements) are capable of producing music that I would love and would be well outside my comfort zone. Just not sure that they ever will..........I will check them out at the end of the roulette though.
12) Max Webster w/Rush : Battle Scar – splent Rating 7
So you thought your song was a bit like Judas Priest , eh? A point off for that. And another point deducted for that frightful yellow body suit on the album cover
It was a brave submission ,knowing (presumably) my thoughts on Rush and Geddy Lee’s voice. I knew Rush were involved here but didn’t realise that Geddy shared vocals. I suppose he put in one of his less grating vocal performances , but that’s not saying much
I though the start of this track was promising but it turned into a bit of a “plodder” with little in the way of time changes to refresh things and I found it a bit of a struggle to get through . That said there’s nothing else particularly wrong with it and like a few above.............listenable but not inspiring me at all.
Before the standings I will do a little summary of bonus points available from here and we’ll just cross them off as used:
DTF Fave Bonus Point Available:
jjrock88
Lowdz
Instrumental Bonus Point Available
wolfking
kingshmegland
No Bonus Points Available
Bolsters
jingle.boy
erwinrafael
splent
Big Hath
Sacul
TAC
Evermind
STANDINGS
wolfking 9.5+9.5+9+8.5+9 +10= 55.5
jjrock88 10+10+8.5+9+8.5+9= 55
Bolsters 9+9+8.5+9.5+9.5+9=54.5
Evermind 10.5+9.5+9+8.5+8.5+8.5 = 54.5
Big Hath 9+9+9+8.5+9.5+9 = 54
Lowdz 8.5+9.5+9+7.5+8.5 +9= 52
TAC 9+8.5+8+8.5+7.5+9.5 =51
Sacul 9+9+7.5+8.5 +9.5+7= 50.5
erwinrafael 9.5+7.5+10 +7+9+7.5=50.5
jingle.boy 8.5+8.5+8.5+8 +8.5+7.5=49.5
splent 9+8+8.5+8+8+7= 48.5
kingshmegland 8+8.5+9 +7.5+7+7.5= 47.5
Banned bands
Al Di Meola
Almah
Amorphis
Anathema
Angelica
Angels of Babylon
Apple Pie
Ayreon
A.C.T
Animals As leaders
Bent Knee
Big Wreck
Binary Creed
Black Majesty
Blondie
Blind Guardian
Buckethead
Cans
Chaos Frame
Coheed and Cambria
Cryonic Temple
Dada
Damnation Angels
Dead End
Death
Disturbed
Down
Evil Masquerade
Haken
Harlequin
Haven
Heavenly
Holst
Holy Shite
Ice Age
Iron Maiden
Jimi Hendrix
Jon Lord
Karnya
Last Crack
Mandroid Echostar
Mark Knopfler
Marketa Irglova
Max Webster
Mr Mister
My Soliloquy
Myland
Mystery
Nazareth
Need
Odd Dimension
Opeth
Orphaned Land
Pablo Cruise
Pain of Salvation
Pandora's Box
Portishead
Primal Fear
Queen
Queensryche
Riverside
Sebastien
Seven tears
Shineback
Sieges Even
Spock’s Beard
Skid Row
Steven Wilson
Stream of Passion
Steely Dan
Steve Vai
The Black Mages
The Blitz
The Mob
The Moody Blues
The Neal Morse Band
The Pineapple Thief
The Sacrificed
The Hsu Nami
Theodore Ziras
Throne of Chaos (TOC)
UFO
U.K.
Vicious Rumors
Voodoo Circle
Warmachine
X Japan
Yanni
Yes
Topic: BL5150 Roulette - Ghost Protocol......GRAND FINAL RESULTS (Read 69058 times)
