So here are the results. Just remember this is some really tight competition. There's no shame in being the last here. I tried to be honest regarding the songs too.
Round 1 Results:
lonestar: My Soliloquy – Flash PointYou said you were digging deep for this roulette, and indeed, I’ve never even heard of this band. For one moment I was afraid since the intro riff sounded suspiciously like djent, but this is clearly no djent, but excellent progressive metal instead. I should’ve known better than to doubt you.
I mean, I love everything about this song. From the odd frantic riff in the beginning to the tension-filled bass-line and the quite on edge vocal delivery, this is just so excellent. This is the kind of progressive metal I love. The vocalist sounds quite like Peter Nicholis and would’ve been fine in some neo-progressive rock band, but he’s doing this kind of progressive metal instead and he’s doing a brilliant job with it. The vocal melodies fit him like a glove — I also love how he rolls his tongue doing the “r” sound in a few words. When the song goes into a lengthy, well, should we call it a bridge, I love the inclusion of acoustic guitar, it adds a lot of this tune; and the singer’s voice is working perfectly on this song.
“Simply can’t recall / This is how it was” part with acoustic guitars all over it… damn, this is so beautiful.
You were the king of 9 and 9.5 scores in my previous roulette – I recall you received a lot of those, and you had a great chance to win the whole thing until you blew it up with two duds in Round 7. But your game in the first rounds was top-notch, and I guess you’re doing the same thing now. This is a fantastic song, just excellent, and it’s the winner of this round. Just don’t fuck up later on, and if you continue sending songs like this, I think you pretty much have this roulette in the bag. But wait, well, maybe some participants have something to say about it…
9.5/10bl5150: Black Fate – Rhyme of the False OrchestraEven before I started my first listening, two songs’ names in the batch intrigued me. This was one of them, and I was indeed pleased to discover the interesting, promising song title wasn’t the only way this song could appeal to me.
Honestly, listening to this, I’m feeling like I’m discovering some secret Kamelot album I never knew of before, and this feeling is worth a lot. The singer has an incredible voice and his singing appeals to me big time – and I’m actually straight, but damn he’s hot and his voice is even hotter. So anyway, let’s get back to the song. I like how the whole song is pretty much power metal but the pace is slowed down, I love how the song’s name rolls off the tongue in the chorus, I love the instrumental arrangements… This is right up my alley, no doubt about it.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t intend this to happen at all — I mean, I’m just rating the songs depending on how much I liked them — but this is some kind of (strange) déjà vu going on here. But hey, I’m not to blame if you guys are constantly sending me the awesome music. This is the second standout in this round, and while I like the tune RJ sent a bit more, the difference is almost negligible.
9.5/10Big Hath: Leverage – Rise / Wolf and the MoonI’ll be honest, I had some doubts about my picks for the four remaining spots in the main competition, but you sent some great songs in the qualifiers so eventually I began to think you’re a great pick for this roulette and your tastes must be awesome since you were consistently sending me great tunes. I admit, I still had my reservations since we mostly didn’t interact here on DTF at all… well, you dispelled all my remaining doubts in this round.
First off, it was a great call to send me the orchestral intro along with the song; it enhanced my listening experience a lot. This is a fantastic power metal tune, the orchestral arrangement present in the song itself adds the necessary texture to it, and the narrative in the middle isn’t bothering me at all. In fact, it makes me even more eager to check out this album. The best part of the song and the one that never fails to send chills down my spine is when the chorus kicks in:
“Hey you!” with the guitars building the tension before this part kicks in and the keyboards accentuating (I hope this is an actual word) this powerful punch. The singer is brilliant on this song — in fact, most of the songs I’ve received in this round featured a great singer on them, and perhaps that’s why I loved this round so much — I place a lot of importance in the vocal melodies and vocal delivery. The vocals in your song were top-notch, and so were the melodies.
Well, what can I say? This song was awesome, but the other two songs clicked with me better. Still, this was great and I’ll be checking out Leverage after this roulette for sure.
9/10
Dr. DTVT: Sieges Even – The Lonely View of CondorsYou were one of the participants who were going to get 8.5 as their score, but as it happens, this song grew on me a lot. I didn’t think much of it on the first listen, and now look where it is, it’s the fourth best song of the round and it gets a nine. I’m not sure I know your tastes well, but judging from my first roulette, this is somewhat like a trademark entry of yours if you take the genres into account. Awesome atmospheric progressive rock with a touch of happiness.
I like how this song seems sad and longing, but at the same time I love how those unexpected moments of springy happiness burst through in the pre-choruses (
“Sometimes it’s coming over me!”). I don’t have anything to compare this song with, and at the same time I love how it sounds, and it’s a great thing. This truly feels like a progressive rock for me, pushing the boundaries of this genre yet still being a brilliant, enjoyable music.
You know, I always thought it wasn’t easy to impress me with the progressive rock bands, because they tend to be quite hit and miss with me, and loads of them fall into the miss category. But somehow you make it seem easy with your submissions. I think I liked everything you’ve sent in my first roulette except Xen. I guess you realized something about my tastes that even I can’t quite pinpoint, and I’m so glad you’re in this roulette.
9/10wolfking: Cloudscape – Under FireI know you tend to send your entries without any extended thinking. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t; and I don’t actually know what strategy you used when you sent me this one, but I guess it worked better than anything you’ve sent to Bolsters in Championship roulette.
This song is interesting. The band sounds tight and great, the musical landscape is right up my alley here, but despite myself I’m finding the small things to complain about (while the world is under fire, no less). I really feel this track could’ve been 9.5 material if some vocal melodies were tailored to fit my tastes. I mean, the soaring chorus lines with
“the world is under fire!” are so promising, but then it gets just a bit underwhelming with
“still we complain about small things”. I think the quieter part in the middle and the following instrumental are very good though.
So yeah, while I feel this has potential, the vocal melodies could’ve been better and thus this track isn’t as awesome as the four above it. Still, it’s a great song and one of the best you’ve sent to me so far.
8.5/10jingle.boy: Vandroya – Why Should We Say GoodbyeIt was a nice call to send a female-fronted power ballad, striving to submit something different and refreshing from other participants’ song. This song definitely was refreshing among the sea of all the male-fronted tunes (well, except Dave’s entry), but unfortunately, “refreshing” doesn’t quite mean “flawless”.
I guess need to get this out I guess… Is this me or there’s a huge Avantasia vibe in the chorus? I swear, the vocal melodies and rhythm are so much like The Seven Angels outro I’ve found it startling. I mean, not only they’re called Vandroya (and I’m sure you know the character Kiske played in The Metal Opera is named Vandroy), but I’m always tempted to sing the chorus like this:
When you try to say the truthAnd sometimes it takes the toll
Dreaming of a nearly pastFrom the other side of life
But hey, if I dismiss that, it’s actually a nice song. I love ballads, and this one is right up my alley. I do think some of the lyrics sound a bit cringe-worthy (
“Oh baby, don’t you dare to leave me coz’ you’re inside my heart”), and the similarities with Avantasia do take away some of my enjoyment, but when it gets good, it’s really great. I’ve watched the video too, and while I’ve found it well-crafted, there weren’t any tear-jerking moments for me, so I guess it really is personal. (I think the singer looks quite saddened and she could use a
fluffy microphone instead of that steel one she has. Fluffy mics bring joy. Just like fluffy cats.)
I’m rereading my write-up now and it seems really critical. Well, don’t be alarmed or anything, in fact I like this song a lot. I just had a lot to write about it too.
8.5/10Tomislav95: Beardfish – Comfort ZoneSo as I said, I’ve heard the epic from this album called If We Must Fall Apart before, but only one time and I guess I wasn’t in the mood back then. Because now I’m listening to this song and I think this is quite good indeed. Naturally, I was worried about this song, but I must say, I’m glad this isn’t like that Quiet World situation at all: I saw the album was named Quiet World, not to mention this glorious peaceful art, and I thought it was going to feature some mellow progressive rock all around, and instead I’ve got blast beats, growls and all the not-so-nice stuff in one song. I was afraid this will be like that one, deceptively called “Comfort Zone” and turn out to be well outside it.
Well, it’s not, it’s right inside my comfort zone. This is that warm progressive rock I feel it could’ve been written and recorded back in the 70s or 80s. There aren’t any fantastic jaw-dropping sections, but it’s all just pretty solid and enjoyable. I like the main melody and I like how the keyboards are used throughout the song, and the vocalist doesn’t detract anything from the tune too… it just lacks something to be really fantastic. Still, it’s fine and I think it describes me when I get up for work at 5 A.M. perfectly:
“I hate everything and everyone”.
You feared you weren’t going to get such a good score, and well, it depends on what you think a good score is. Yeah, it’s not 9.5, but your song is still sixth out of twelve, so in the end you didn’t do so bad.
8.5/10Bolsters: Beyond the Black – Songs of Love and DeathAfter two kick-ass power and progressive metal songs in the preliminary rounds, this… well, this wasn’t what I expected at all. Mid-tempo female-fronted song? You managed to surprise me this round, for better or worse.
And well, while I didn’t expect to get such a song from you, it doesn’t make it less good. It’s not a clear stand-out in this round, but it’s a very strong track. Good melodies there, the chorus is quite an earworm and it’s so catchy it’s actually annoying on the subsequent listens. I’m quite torn at the singer’s voice, she sounds quite powerful yet she also sounds tired somehow, and this makes it grating on my ears just a bit.
I mean, this song wasn’t bad by all means, quite good actually – remember that anything above 7.5 is a good score – but it just couldn’t compete with those six songs above it.
8/10
Train of Naught: In the Silence – Ever CloserI’ve got to say, you weren’t wrong labeling this as “atmospheric metal”, because this is essentially what it is, but that’s not all. I’m subconsciously associating this song with alternative rock on its heavier sections and I’m not too fond of them, but the atmospheric parts are doing this song a huge favour.
I love some dark, quiet landscapes in metal music (see Amadeus Awad), and I think this song does this wonderfully. There are some great moments when it gets heavy too, don’t get me wrong, and all in all, the song does a great job convincing me about its awesomeness. You know, those heavy guitar parts beneath the song, the lingering vocals, all that… they add up to a wonderful song all around. This isn’t something I can instantly fall in love with, but it’s pretty damn good too.
8/10TAC: Odd Dimension – Far From DesireYou know, this may sound weird, but you surprised the hell out of me with this song. I’ve always imagined you being a fan of some heavy / power metal with high-pitched vocals (that Enbound song you sent me in my first roulette is a good example), and here you send me something that (in my opinion) walks a fine line between progressive metal and thrash metal, really heavy overall with raspy vocals.
This song has some fantastic sections and not-so-fantastic sections too. My biggest problem with it is that it sounds hugely disjointed to my ears. I don’t think the faster verses correlate with the slow-paced pre-choruses quite well; but I do like how this song maintains the heaviness throughout. All sections sound good to my ears, it's just they don’t quite work together as a song. It gets better towards the end, but it’s still not enough.
This song originally had the lowest score of the round, but I really appreciated the different sections here, even if I thought it was disjointed a bit, and I think the ending carried this song to the “good” level.
7.5/10senecadawg2: The Paralydium Project – New FrontierSongs like this one were the main reason I was taking such a long time posting the results for this round. I wanted to let the song sink in with its formidable length and all. I kept giving it more chances to grow on me, and now I finally feel I’ve got a good grasp on its structure and all… yet sadly I’m still not convinced.
This tune has some brilliant sections. The verses building the tension with the heavy, crunchy guitars beneath them are one of my favourite musical moments in this whole round (
“I’ve been seeing it over and over again / Appearing in my dreams / I imagine there’s a greater purpose for me”); but the quiet sections feel out of place, in my opinion. It doesn’t really help how this guy pronounces some words (
“is a vishion from a dream”). Don’t get me wrong, some parts here are top-notch, but some parts bring this song down quite a bit.
I was thinking about this for quite a long time, but in the end, I’m still not convinced. Yeah, this is good, with some excellent parts too, but that’s it. It’s good and that’s about it.
7.5/10ErHaO: DGM – TrustWell, I’ve heard about DGM, but I never checked out their music. I often get some Italian metal band promo albums in my e-mail, and they all sound, well, not exactly the same, but quite close to it. DGM seems to have somewhat distinctive sound, but the melodies and the riffs are pretty much generic here.
I mean, there’s nothing wrong with this song, but I feel they’ve only managed to get the chorus right on this tune – it’s quite memorable indeed – and then there’s some generic wacky instrumentation and forgettable verses. I’ve listened to this song a lot, probably 10 times or more, and still I was underwhelmed. The chorus is fantastic, yes, but the rest of this tune sadly falls flat for me. Still, it’s not bad and it’s quite listenable alright, and the chorus actually carries this tune up for a few points, but it’s still the least exciting song of the round.
7/10Bands added to banned list:My Soliloquy
Black Fate
Leverage
Sieges Even
Cloudscape
Vandroya
Beardfish
Beyond the Black
In the Silence
The Paralydium Project
Odd Dimension
The scoreboard:lonestar - 9.5
bl5150 - 9.5
Big Hath - 9
Dr. DTVT - 9
wolfking - 8.5
jingle.boy - 8.5
Tomislav95 - 8.5
Bolsters - 8
Train of Naught - 8
TAC - 7.5
senecadawg2 - 7.5
ErHaO - 7
Topic: Evermind's Second Roulette v. The Aftermath (Read 124668 times)
