Evermind's Second Roulette v. The Aftermath

[TAC]

As for who's who... I'll guess bottom right is RJ; and the one with Sun Caged is probably Big Hath.  Catley/Black Majesty has to be Kade; we know Agalloch/Thrice is Seneca; Pathosray/Labyrinth I'll say is Brent; Guaranteed Tim is the Hibria/Lords of the Trident... cuz he gave me those in mine!

You're right on mine.

I mentioned I had Pathosray on my first draft, and I was also going through some Labyrinth stuff as well.

I actually had a different Hibria tune on my first draft. Was going to send Screaming Ghost. But Millenium Quest has such an awesome instrumental part.

[lonestar]

You are le wrong.

No shit.  Well, then swap you and Jon - since he sent me Black Tora in my roulette, and you put me on to Secret Sphere.

Mother fucker... first two songs are Stargate.  You're definitely the top left.

[bl5150]

Looks like Kade has Trivium : The Darkness of My Mind

And yeah........it's me with the Italian assault (Pathosray and Labyrinth)

How could I resist?

Protip to everyone - stay away from Italian Power Metal

[lonestar]

Seems none of us heeded that advice. I sent two Italian prog/power bands.

[wolfking]

Looks like Kade has Trivium : The Darkness of My Mind

[Evermind]

Listening to this song right now. What does he sing in the chorus? "My bizarre design"? "My sesai besai"? I can't make it out and it drives me insane.

[wolfking]

The darkness of my mind
Where life and death divide
The ending of mankind
Demise is our design

[Evermind]

Demise is our design? Wow, I didn't heard that at all. I'll pay attention when this song comes up again.

[Evermind]

Here are the revealing pictures. I didn't add the names of the players to the EPs, but Chad pretty much got them all right on the second try. I added something else for you to be interested in... and the first part of tidbits will be up tomorrow.

[senecadawg2]

What are those...?

ETA: maybe favorite and least favorite track from each EP?

[wolfking]

When you said someone sent an EP called EP Empty Hollow, Rage instantly came to mind.  I didn't think they'd send that suite though.  Good long song though.

Interesting to see what the dots mean.  Two favs I reckon.

[jingle.boy]

Thank god they're not stars!

[TAC]

What are those...?

ETA: maybe favorite and least favorite track from each EP?

That is exactly what they are. For my EP, Nightmare World is his favorite, and as expected, Hibria is his least favorite.

[TAC]

I'm in trouble. None of my lyrics have been in the thread title.

[Big Hath]

if that is the indication, Agalloch is running away with this round (!)

[senecadawg2]

As they should

[bl5150]

If one of those is least favourite then I am happy with that .

[Evermind]

I'm in trouble. None of my lyrics have been in the thread title.

Well, "v. See my commands! Follow them all!" would look kind of silly.

[TAC]

I'm in trouble. None of my lyrics have been in the thread title.

Well, "v. See my commands! Follow them all!" would look kind of silly.

No it wouldn't!

[Train of Naught]

Wow, didn't realize this one was already in the final round, you're looking to finish the roulette within the 2 month timeframe since the first real round opened and I don't think a single day went by without at least one post here. 

Meanwhile Genowyn's roulette is still going on, which started almost 3 months ago

[jingle.boy]

This guy knows how to run a roulette.

[wolfking]

Wow, didn't realize this one was already in the final round, you're looking to finish the roulette within the 2 month timeframe since the first real round opened and I don't think a single day went by without at least one post here. 

Meanwhile Genowyn's roulette is still going on, which started almost 3 months ago

Exactly how it should be run.

[Evermind]

Thank you guys.

Just got home, will post the tidbits a few hours later. There will be two kinds of tidbits. The song-related tidbits will be posted today, and the EP-related tidbits will be posted tomorrow. I'll try to do something that may be fun at Saturday; and Sunday will be the results day almost certainly. I might have a certain real-life business on Sunday, but I'll try to churn out the results anyway. The listening is going as planned - I feel I'm quite familiar with four EPs out of six, which means I'm right on schedule so far.

[Scorpion]

seneca, that is a sexy EP. You'd probably get something like a 9/10 from me for that, mainly because I'm not a huge fan of Birch Black.

[Evermind]

Okay, just because Tim asked nicely...

Anyway, here are the song-related tidbits. One tidbit per EP. Some of those are pretty obvious, but why not.

This song reminds me – don't laugh – of Gamma Ray with growls. The vocalist singing clean totally sounds like Kai Hansen, and the growls add that Ensiferum-like feel. I wonder what were you thinking when you sent this one.

And don't get me wrong, the instrumentation here is wonderful, I especially appreciate the slow, melodic electric guitar soloing both in the intro and the instrumental part, and it's also nice how the rest is mostly acoustic guitar and vocals and some keyboards creating the musical landscapes. But the thing is, the vocals are bordering on annoying for me here, and the vocal melodies actually are annoying, and this doesn't bode well with this song's score.

So as I said, it just happened that my first listen to all the EPs took place at work, and I wasn't quite familiar with any of the tracklists at the moment. When I'm able to listen to the music at work I'm usually quite immersed in what I'm doing, and sometimes if the music itself is dull enough, I may end up not registering anything I've hearing. But when I was listening to this one, I found I'm growing less attentive to what I'm working on; and I've paid more and more attention to this song instead, but I had no idea what I'm listening to. And at some point I thought "wow, this is just fantastic, but when will the vocals come in?" So naturally I checked my phone to see which band was currently playing, and immediately I thought "Oh shit! I take that back! Please don't let the vocals come in!"

What really sold me on this song was the interplay in the end, where the most memorable line from the chorus was alternating with the softer line over some tasteful riffage going on. They've managed to project quite an interesting vibe here.

I won't lie, this is probably the most difficult song for me to get into. Maybe that's because your EP is still down there in the rotation – I'm planning to give it those ~6 more listens on the road tomorrow – but so far I'm on four listens to your EP overall and I'm drawing a total blank on this song. I daresay this isn't a good sign at all...

Now, I know I said this before in this very roulette, and this time I was prepared since I've heard this singer even before I did this roulette – but it doesn't really help this guy sounds like he's throwing up, or as Chad would put it, "got a little twerp in his mouth".

[bl5150]

Not much there that's positive and I am struggling to figure out what relates to mine    Maybe the growls (yes , I sent growls ) but I can't say Kai Hansen came to mind for me.

[Train of Naught]

The third one just has to be Agalloch based on prejudices of mine, I haven't heard too much but the song I got in my roulette had really pretty instrumentation too, and black metal growls

If that one is just a 'tidbit' I can't wait for my phone to explode when the full results will be posted.

[Crow]

yeah the third is def  Agalloch 

[senecadawg2]

Yeah but it doesn't reveal anything about how he felt when the vocals finally did come in. Tricky, tricky 

[wolfking]

Hard to read much into those honestly.

[TAC]

This guy knows how to run a roulette.

Yes he does!

And nice thread title!  

[Evermind]

Hard to read much into those honestly.

Yeah, well, I know. I can't make them too spoilery, because I don't want to give any significant hints towards the outcome. I have a lot to say both about the songs and about the EPs, I really do, but I can't put almost anything of it in the tidbits without revealing my feelings about the songs.

Same with the second batch of tidbits. I think it's quite easy to figure out which tidbit is related to which EP, so I have to err on the side of caution here. But it's only two more days to wait, so you'll just have to bear with me.

Maybe I should've abandoned the tidbits idea for the EP round, but then I wouldn't have had enough content to post here on a daily basis, not with the work interfering.

Anyway, the EP-related tidbits:

It's also very energetic and somewhat varied despite mostly done in one style. There's at least one song on your EP I'm not too fond of, but, ironically, it will give you some additional points, because it's essential to the overall flow, in my opinion. I just wish you found a better song to fill that spot.

I can see why this happened, but still, to me it sounds like this EP has two intro tracks, and while the first one is very well-done and fitting, the second one is clearly unnecessary; and it appears after a full-fledged song which makes it even more baffling in regards to the flow.

I feel like you just took the first metal tracks that came to your mind and dumped them into an EP – and you probably did exactly this – but it works surprisingly well. The outcome is quite consistent and solid.

This was definitely the oddest EP genre-wise (alright, I don't know what to write in the tidbit so you would be unable to determine it's the Nelson's EP because his EP is just so different from everything else I received here), but I like how well-thought out it is. From the certain atmosphere in each section to the interesting decisions regarding the flow and the song lengths, it's obvious you put a good amount of effort into this, and I think it works.

"Have probably taken the concept of the 'flow' to ridiculous lengths with this"? Yeah, no kidding! I mean, I expected anything but a concept EP with the similar music themes and a bloody story to go along with it. And you pulled this off with using several different artists, no less! I'm impressed.

Your EP is the only one I'm not familiar enough yet – will be heavily listening to it tomorrow, so I'm not sure I can give you any adequate comment regarding it. It definitely isn't the best in terms of the flow, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing because the competition in that department is ridiculous this time.

And nice thread title!  

It actually worked better than I assumed!

[senecadawg2]

That second to last tidbit is really interesting and sounds very ambitious. Cool idea

[TAC]

I am afraid I own the 5th tidbit in the first post and the 1st tidbit in the second post. I can see the fawning over Kade's EP here. I hope I didn't blow the whole thing on one song. Damn. So close...

[Evermind]

I am afraid I own the 5th tidbit in the first post and the 1st tidbit in the second post.

You're second-guessing yourself so much it's painful to watch. I'm willing to say you've got one of these guesses right.

And with that, I'm off to sleep. Watch out for this thread tomorrow.