We're running a day ahead of time but results are ready , so rather then pop off to bed
here they are
A really nice spread of stuff in here for Rd 4 . Some bonus points to be had (JJ pops up for his first with an instrumental, as does jingle.fella) and we also have some more DTF faves off the list. Erwin gets a bonus point for Haken and Evermind takes out Anathema just for kicks. Chad and Erwin are now out of bonus points.
After the strong ratings in this round everyone has at least two strong-ish scores, so all it’ll take for those trailing is one more strong round and things will be closer than many are fearing at the end of Round 5. I have provided round by round scores in the Standings so you can all see how everyone is tracking for the culling of the 2 weakest rounds. Everyone is still very much in it at this point -make Round 5 count boys!
1) Black Majesty: Firestorm – wolfking Rating =9.5I have certainly sampled a few Black Majesty tracks over time but never really felt that they were a cut above the hundreds of other generic power metal bands around the place. Seeing as they are local boys I probably should have given them more of a chance.
This song doesn’t quite have the vocal or instrumental brilliance to be getting a 10/10 but it’s certainly very strong power metal and there were some little melodic things going on that revealed themselves over multiple listens. The vocalist getting in a huge scream before the first verse was even over is very
and put a smile on my face. In the end I was really enjoying it.........more than I probably should
. Having said that there’s not enough in this track for me to tell if they’re capable of setting themselves apart from the crowd over the course of an album or three. If they have some decent variety in their material then I could certainly get into them properly, but if this is just the best of a bunch of similar power metal tracks then I’m not sure. Only one way to find out I suppose.
2) Haken : The Mind’s Eye/Portals/Shapeshifter – erwinrafael Rating: 9 + 1 bonus =10Well you’re a brave boy Erwin. Haken are in my DTF Fave list because I have sampled a few tracks and never been all that impressed and so you decide to gently try and change my mind with a 3 track “song” that is over 17 minutes in total. Hmm – you wanna re-think that strategy?
The good news is that you have pulled it off to a large extent. The songs do flow well into each other and I can see that they work fairly well as one unit. Across that 17 min journey there were a couple of flat points where my attention waned , and at times I find the vocalist a bit “plain”, but for the vast majority it did what I have been asking for –
the progressive elements were almost always infused with melody and there were enough regular twists and turns (without meandering proggy stuff) to hold my interest across a very long listen. Each time it seemed that a proggy section was wearing out its welcome , there was a cut back to something more melodic/catchy before I zoned out ,which is the sort of writing that I like in “prog”.
3) Angelica: Harvest – jjrock88 Rating= 9+1 bonus = 10Like a couple of instrumentals in this round ,I feel this is more like an intro or interlude rather than a self contained instrumental “song” but I am rating things on how I enjoyed the listen and I quite liked this. It is a bit like a neoclassical thing you might expect on an early Malmsteen album but it is quite melodic in amongst the shred (and I don’t mind shred at all – Lowdz and I kept Shrapnel in business in the early days dontcha know
) with some nice atmospheric keys backing it. How’s the rest of the album JJ ?
4) UFO : Fool’s Gold – TAC Rating = 8.5I have never been a huge UFO fan – aside from a few classics I just never found them near as ear catching as some of the albums from the various MSG’s. That may be the songs , it might also be the vocals. Phil Mogg is a singer that I have no problem with at all– he is pleasant enough to listen to but I don’t find him a big stand out in any area. So I certainly wouldn’t avoid an album because Mogg is on it – I also wouldn’t go out of my way to find something he is singing on either.
So with this it’s mostly going to come down to the music. The riffs are very straight forward “classic rock” sounding which I don’t mind and Schenker is shredding all over this in a way that he doesn’t always do.
A strong, pacy guitar driven track that I enjoyed more than most UFO that I have heard. I don’t think the chorus is brilliant but the guitars get this one over the line. I wavered a lot on the rating for this as the guitar playing is so much better than the other components of the song . 7.5 for the basic song , 9.5 for the guitars...........8.5 for Tim.
5) Sieges Even : Tidal – kingshmegland Rating = 8.5Another move in the right direction king. This may not quite have the musical highs of Apple Pie or A.C.T. but I felt it was the more consistent song. Your taste is really quite modern – as a fellow fogey I just don’t have it in me to delve too much in that direction but you have chosen well here. It does have that modern vibe at the beginning that can be a turn off to me but it also has a well integrated progressive edge ,nice vocal harmonies and there is basically no “down time” where I zoned out waiting for something catchy .
6) Down : Stone The Crow – Bolsters Rating = 8.5 Kentucky Fried Pantera huh? I don’t mind this – it has quite a unique country rock atmosphere and the main lick is quite the earworm.
The only album in my collection that it reminds me of a bit is Zakk Wylde’s Pride and Glory which came a year before. I wonder if there’s some influence there? I am not sure that when Anselmo gets his more agro voice on that it suits the song at all times but for the most part I found it quite enjoyable. It’s no Cemetery Gates but certainly something I find very listenable.
7) Ice Age : Musical Cages – jingle.boy Rating =7.5 + 1 bonus =8.5I have a vague memory that one of the Killer Z’s (Zook,Zydar) might have used another album of theirs in a roulette at some point? I seem to remember checking out The Great Divide album and being a bit 50/50 on it. Anyway......
I have been known to be rather picky with the guitar instrumental side of things. Having been a guitarist who grew up in the era of the shredders and spending 15 years or so playing/recording on the instrument myself I find it quite easy to visualise what is happening on the instrument, how impressive or otherwise the playing is and so forth. So I can be impressed/pissed off by factors other than just how it sounds with this stuff.
As I have hinted I tend to prefer a structured instrumental “song” rather than being based on jammy/less structured playing over a basic chord progression. This one leans towards the latter for a fair part of it but then there’s the nice and unexpected keyboard section in the middle. I find the structure of this song rather unusual in that regard and so I found the listen a bit up and down. Two minutes of technical guitar wanking probably isn't the ideal way to open an instrumental song - and it's mostly just open string pull offs which probably sound more impressive than they really are. If that had been kept to 30 -40 seconds rather than almost 2 minutes then my attention would've held much better and the rating may have been a touch higher. Just as an aside the section at 3.40 sounds a bit like Metropolis for a little while.
That's not to say that there weren't strong points. I liked the song a lot better after the initial couple of minutes or so and as a rule the more melodic parts that had the keys backing the guitar were my highlights. Not right up near my favourite instrumentals by any means but a solid listen that with a bonus point adds up to a strong score.
8) Anathema: Lost Control – Evermind Rating = 8.5Anathema have been a bit like Haken for me . I have sampled a few tracks and they have never struck me as my cuppa tea. This track is quite nice......a slow melancholy song that’s not ambient enough to send me off to sleep and has quite an atmosphere to it.
It’s the sort of music that I would really need to be in the mood for if I was to listen to a full album.9) Kevin Gilbert : Goodness Gracious – Big Hath Rating =8 I am only loosely familiar with Kevin’s music . I have the Giraffe s/t and to be honest I am not sure why I have it as it’s not near my normal taste – probably a “review buy” way back when. I think I also have Toy Matinee somewhere.
Anyway – this has some typically cynical social commentary in the lyrics which works quite well with the music. I don’t normally take much note of lyrics but from what I have heard from him Kevin’s often seem to cut through . It sounds great and the song is quite catchy. I hate to say but I think I prefer the track from the other album that we discussed. With this one I was waiting for another tangent to develop and it never quite did. Good song though.
10) Death: Voice Of The Soul – Lowdz Rating = 8I wasn’t expecting a track from Death but I can see why this was sent. We have another instrumental here that is a bit of an interlude style track. I can’t say that any of the playing is particularly impressive at a technical level but for a death metal band it’s a bit of a melodic feat.
I found it quite a pleasant listen ,although I am not sure that there’s enough going on for me to be itching to play it over and over. It would work very well on an album in between tracks to create an atmosphere, which I imagine is how it was employed. The acoustic strumming reminded me a little of WASP’s Crimson Idol at times – might just be me.
11) Worlds : Little Lens – splent Rating = 8Another very rare one from splent’s musical connections. I wouldn’t know where to find this album and that’s saying something
This is very definitely right at the wimpiest edge of my musical taste . I can’t think of a band to compare it to directly but it’s certainly that lite AOR/westcoast style. The singing isn’t particularly powerful but it’s nice and melodic and he has a very nice range. The rhythms got a little jarring at times which I can only assume is due to programmed drums – I used them on the few solo pieces I recorded so I can’t talk
Not brilliant but certainly a nice song that I would be happy to have on from time to time.
12) Portishead: Glory Box - Sacul Rating = 7As soon as I saw “trip hop” under the genre for this I wanted to trip hop as far away as I could. I have no idea what all these genres are about these days but I actually don’t mind this. If someone asked me to describe this I would say a female fronted , smoky jazz club type vibe perhaps? I do struggle with the seriously dawdling pace but on the whole I thought it was quite okay , although not something I would listen to regularly.
Updated Standings: Number of * = number of bonus points used.
Evermind 10.5+9.5+9+8.5=37.5*
Lowdz 8.5+9.5+9+8=35*
Big Hath 9+9+9+8=35*
Bolsters 9+9+8.5+8.5=35*
wolfking 8+8+9.5+9.5=35*
jjrock88 10+7.5+ 7.5+10=35*
erwinrafael 9.5+7+7.5+10=34**
jingle.boy 8.5+7.5+8.5+8.5=33**
Sacul 9+9+7+7=32*
kingshmegland 8+7.5+7+8.5= 31*
TAC 9+6+6.5+8.5= 30*
splent 9+5.5+6.5+8 = 29*Banned bands
Almah
Anathema
Angelica
Apple Pie
Ayreon
A.C.T
Animals As leaders
Black Majesty
Blondie
Blind Guardian
Buckethead
Cryonic Temple
Dead End
Death
Down
Haken
Holst
Ice Age
Iron Maiden
Jimi Hendrix
Jon Lord
Karnya
Last Crack
Mark Knopfler
Mystery
Opeth
Pain of Salvation
Portishead
Primal Fear
Queensryche
Riverside
Shineback
Sieges Even
Stream of Passion
Steely Dan
Steve Vai
The Blitz
The Sacrificed
Throne of Chaos (TOC)
UFO
X Japan
Topic: BL5150 Roulette - Ghost Protocol......GRAND FINAL RESULTS (Read 69617 times)
