Oops, I finished writing them and I was like "okay, done" and went on to other things, and only just now realized that I didn't do that whole thing where I post them.
This was a fairly average round, and I don't think the spread of scores from me will be all too surprising. This is one where I felt the constraints of the relatively small number of increments I have—for example two songs got a certain pretty good score this round, but they're both kind of halfway between two and got pushed up to a —if I was the lead judge I would be giving those songs different scores in the interval between the two scores. But here the scores are rougher.
One song was pretty great and did get the highest score. I liked some other songs, but there was really just the one that I got really excited about. On the other hand, there was nothing that I didn't like. I would consider checking out all of these albums.
Anyway, writeups:
Evermind: Mark Knopfler ft. Ruth Moody - Wherever I GoEvermind, you seemed to have nothing but doubts that I would like this song, for whatever reason.
I’m happy to inform you that your doubts were all wrong. This is a beautiful song that I really like everything about.
Knopfler writes a kind of minimalistic music that sometimes is a hit with me and sometimes is something I like but don’t love. This song just hits all the right notes for me. The guitar work isn’t complex, but it’s that type of thing where it’s better to play a few of the right notes than a thousand notes a minute. His style is really one-of-a-kind and tugs at the heartstrings quite a bit. I can see why he and Gilmour are both among your favorite guitarists. They’re both real talents at emotive guitar playing.
I’ve always liked his singing voice, as well. Like his guitar playing, his singing is usually not acrobatic, but it works for the emotion of the song. Here, he’s accompanied by a female vocalist who is singing in a higher octave, which creates a very beautiful contrast.
The presence of the saxophone really tops the whole thing off in create the beautiful, relaxed atmosphere of this song.
Contrary to all your expectations, this is a definite hit with me.
jingle.boy: Anubis - Blood Is Thicker Than Common SenseThis is an interesting song, no doubt. This is one of those prog songs that depends pretty heavily on rhythm, which can be something that I don’t appreciate at times. And it is true that in this case one of the things I’m not crazy about here is that this song feels like it’s a bit too relentless in driving forward at a fast, rhythm-driven pace for much of its almost 9-minute run time. But this issue is also mitigated somewhat by the fact that there is strong melodic vocal work over the rhythmic parts and that there are a few slower breaks spaced throughout the song.
This one has been a definite grower. At first I really didn’t care for much of anything about this song, but over the course of several listens, I’ve come to appreciate the instrumentation and a lot of the songwriting here.
All that said, the end result here is a prog song that I certainly find interesting enough to hold my attention for its full runtime and to consider checking out the album at some point (especially because the album title and artwork are awesome), but not one that I’m passionately in love with.
That is to say, I liked this better than Tyrias did for sure. But I’m not going to be saving you. You’ll have to hope that Red liked it better than I did if you want to stay in.
Nekov: Dragon - SunburstSo here’s a very 70s-prog-sounding song. It sounds quite Yes-inspired to me, with the style of the basslines and the emphasis on keyboards and organ.
This is a fairly pleasant song. There are a lot of nice melodies here and there’s a generally positive, pleasant atmosphere. The chorus in particular is memorable, as is the organ part that takes place around the 4:30 mark. It’s a pretty song. It’s not something that’s spectacular to where I’m crazy in love with it, but it’s a pretty song that makes me at least fairly interested in this band. The main drawback here is that it’s maybe a little too long. But I suppose that’s what prog is for.
Sacul: DJ Shadow - Stem/Long StemAlright, so here’s a song from the same album as one of Sacul’s submissions in my solo roulette, which did not score particularly well. I liked alright, but I wasn’t crazy about it.
This is a pretty nice song. The bulk of the song is some nice atmospheric instrumental parts. They aren’t melodically complex, but they work really well at creating a pretty atmosphere. The appearance of the more percussive parts over the top of them is sometimes a bit disorienting. I wish that would be toned down a bit to emphasize the melodic stuff more so than the crashing percussion.
There’s also some weird, out-of-left-field stuff that I don’t get why it’s there. There are two moments within the first couple of minutes where I don’t get why that sample is there.
This definitely feels like two songs, as Tyrias said. The second part is more atmospheric in orientation than the first, and it makes more judicious use of the percussion. I’m not sure what the spoken sample is all about, but it doesn’t really detract.
This is a pretty song, but there are some aspects I don’t appreciate here. I also feel like it’s disjointed, like it’s really two songs. I don’t want to say that this artist completely isn’t for me, because there’s a lot to like here, but aspects like some of the jarring samples and the over-the-top percussion in parts of the first half do drag it down a bit for me. I’ll commend you for taking the risk of sending an artist that was one of the lower scores in my solo roulette, but I’m not sure I can say that the risk really paid off for you as far as I’m concerned.
Still interested in checking out this artist, but there are some misgivings that detract from the song for me, and what is good isn’t quite enough to cancel those out (as happened for Evermind with his Roger Waters submission with the awful lyrics). But I did like enough of this to say on the whole that this is a good piece.
Scorpion: Arcane - UnturningSo here’s a pretty cool prog metal song. There’s a kind of crazy, Spirit of Radio type guitar part at the beginning here, but the very soft, peaceful clean vocals over the top of that create an interesting contrast, even more so when some more frantic vocal parts join in. That pretty complex opening is attention-grabbing.
Then we get into some heavier sections, where the singer shows a bit more variation in vocal style while maintaining a certain softness—which is pretty cool and is an interesting contrast with the heavy riffs. There’s also a good moment when the quiet section builds up back into another heavy part—that heavy part might be the highlight of the song.
My main misgiving here is that this song is a bit long. However, there’s enough to like here that this isn’t an overpowering objection. It’s a pretty good song.
senecadawg2: Leprous - The PriceI’ve definitely heard and seen a lot of praise for this band. For whatever reason, I thought they were more of a death metal band, just based on the name and album artwork, I guess. But this is certainly not death metal, more of a fairly different twist on prog metal.
This song is, I guess, a little djenty at times (well, at least in the sense of being rhythmic and staccato)—which is hit or miss with me, and is fine but not excellent here. That’s interspersed with some parts that I like much better, which are dominated by melodic vocals and either soft or heavy melodic instrumentation. The chorus here is quite good. As I think I’ve established by now, I really like big, anthemic choruses, and this fits the bill. The singer is pretty good and is the type of singer I like to hear in prog metal. Good song, I like it a fair bit and I’ll check out more from this artist.
wolfking: Solution .45 - Winning Where Losing Is AllAlright, so I suppose this is most likely my final dose of melodic metal from wolfking, which is a pretty cool thing to get.
This, I guess, is what they call melodic death metal. I find this type of metal interesting, though I don’t know much about it, because, as the name suggests, there’s a lot of melody here. More so than there is in a lot of metal. But then there’s also the death growls playing a prominent role. It’s almost like quality pop songwriting mixed with heavy guitars and death growls.
Here the growls are fine with me. They don’t really add or detract. I think the clean vocals are pretty strong and I prefer them to the growls in this particular song, especially on the chorus. The chorus is pretty addictive and is the best part of a pretty strong song.
Wolfking, I suppose this is the end of the line for you, unless the Red Judge gives some very unusual scores. It’s been good to have you. Though you never really broke out above a certain ceiling, I liked all of your submissions. All the stuff you sent was pretty strong, melody-heavy, catchy metal songs, and that’s definitely something I’ve enjoyed getting every round. I know you’re kind of ready to be done anyway, though, so I suppose it’s well enough that it’s ending here. It’s been good to have you, though.
Topic: 2016 Roulette Championship v. THE CONCLUSION (Read 106473 times)
