Round 9 resultsElite: Mr. Bungle – Ars MoriendiKicking off this two-puncher with a song I can safely say I have as much of a grasp on as I do with rocket science, that being said after a good 5-10 listens.
Mike Patton has been one of those singers I’ve seen nothing but praise for, and I have always had certain expectations from this guy since well, he is the staple bandmember of both Mr. Bungle and Faith No More if I’m not mistaken. To a certain extent, I feel like the things they pull off over the course of 4 minutes is fucking impressive, and the amount of styles they manage to blend together is off the charts, but in the ‘crazy‘ department, this didn‘t quite live up to Schizoid Lloyd at first. Probably being one of the slowest growers overall of this roulette, when it did, it did big time.
And on top of that, I gotta give it to that tremendous middle-eastern sounding intro, it’s the small things like that that seem to win me over. Okay, moving on to..
Mr. Bungle – Goodbye Sober DayThis.. this is a good transition. This song manages to take the crooked-as-fuck vibe I got from Ars Moriendi and turns it into this gloomy atmosphere that still maintains the crazy twists around pretty much every corner imaginable.
Putting this next to Ars Moriendi there’s not really much left to say. The former is far and away my favorite but as a whole this is just a really good set of songs. I guess that slow tango-like section does stand out on this song properly though, reminds me immensely of TMV’s L’via L’viaquez which is one of my alltime favorite songs.
Final verdict:A really solid set of tracks from one of the weirdest bands I could ever imagine listening to. I’ve heard one song by these guys before and enjoyed it thoroughly though I remember it being more metal than either of these, pretty sure it was from their s/t. But yeah I don’t have much to complain, Ars Moriendi is my clear-cut favorite of the two but to be honest I’d take the both of them over any of the two songs separately, it’s a pretty smooth transition for a band that excels at having terribly sudden transitions between styles.
8.25/10Scorpion: Persefone – Shin-Ken (Part 1)Coming in with what’s probably one of your heaviest submissions (which is quite an achievement because overall you’ve probably been the person that sent me the heaviest shit on average) I get to revisit a band I once dismissed because of the vocals right away.
And this time around I feel like overall I’ve grown way more tolerant of heavy growls, but this is still a really tough one to digest, among all the weird shit that I received this round, this was easily the one I’ve been pondering about the most. There’s some great fun switchoffs between the keyboard and the guitars, which is probably my favorite thing about this song.
This very speed-metal type of guitarwork is something I can appreciate, and I feel it’s very well-executed here, very melodeath sounding. But the vocals just don’t work for me. It’s a wall of sound to my ears. They remind me of a weaker alternative of the vocals on the Chthonic song twosuitsluke sent me, I thought they pulled it off beautifully. Anywho, time for part 2..
Persefone – Shin-Ken (Part 2)This is more like it. I wish, since according to you (if I understood correctly) this is seen as one big song among most fans, that they balanced out the vocals a bit more and made it sound more like a progressive melo-deathmetal band or something of the like. Then again, if that were the case, this set of songs wouldn’t be as cool of a progression, because I love how instead of building up to the heavy climax, they break it down (
) from the crushingly heavy vocals and pounding riffs to this beautiful powerballad sounding ending.
Tying together this 11 minute two-parter with a great guitarsolo and a pretty subtle symphonic finale makes this a pretty great experience as a whole, despite not being huge on Pt. 1.
Final verdict:Can’t help but feel a bit disappointed that the first part of this hasn’t really clicked with me, I was introduced to a few great metal moments (special regards to the lead guitarist) wrapped around vocals I could not really get into, they weren’t bothering me much but at the same time didn’t appeal to me either. The second and final part luckily fixed some of my worries and in reality the transition is way better than you’d expect, but as a whole I wouldn’t be all over this two-parter. I’d listen to it and mainly get a kick out of part 2, but not the most impressive thing I’ve heard this round for sure.
7.0/10Parama:Progenie Terrestre Pura – La Terre Rossa Di MarteOne thing’s for sure, this set of songs was by far the one that interested me most, from the science-fiction like title and cover art to the weird odd sounding atmospheres. On a regular basis I can really enjoy this type of ambient (I guess that’s what best describes it) in the background, it has this really cool futuristic sound to it. But I have a hard time giving this my full devoted attention because it’s just not something I do very often for this type of music.
On the other hand, it shares some very striking similarities with one of my favorite instrumentals, Disconnected Pt. 2 by Fates Warning (beware, lots of samples). And that’s something I can really appreciate because it’s a unique sound that not a lot of bands I heard manage to capture very well. Slowly but surely I’ve gotten more used to this song, but it still pales a bit in comparison to Droni.
Progenie Terrestre Pura – DroniI love how in the context of these songs, whenever I hear a proper instrument it sounds much more isolated than on your average modern song, it’s just something about the way they balanced out the instruments in the mixing/mastering process, marvelous production.
And the real reason that I prefer Droni over the former song is that this song breaks free from the barriers they set during the first one, after about a third of the song it just completely erupts, the production quality remains perfect, the newly introduced vocals are, they are EPIC, echoing the statement of Tomislav’s “screams like an alien“ about the Hypocrisy song he sent me, but these are even more epic. The drums have this machinegun type of feel to them in the finale and I feel like they can singlehandedly drive the rhythm of this song, ending it with an awesome guitarsolo layered on top makes for an even better finish to this two-parter.
Final verdict:This is like nothing else I’ve heard to be honest, I always appreciate that no matter the outcome, and I guess to make it perfect I would’ve liked the first song to be a little more interesting in the grand sceme of things. This way I was pretty much being stalled for the entire duration of the first song while the second song built itself up completely fine, so I could almost render the first one pointless.
But it does go through some nice atmospheres and does make the whole experience a bit more complete. On its own I think it’s a solid ambient track too, but it does have its place in here. Glad you went for this route, there’s no way I would’ve found this band on my own and I feel like I’m going to love them.
8.75/10Bolsters: Trans-Siberian Orchestra – Wizards In WinterFirst and foremost, I think at what it seems to try to achieve it’s brilliant. It does really capture that wintery vibe very well. Like a snowfall soundtrack or something. But this is really that same type of instrumental I’ve gotten so much of in this roulette and I keep having the same complaint for it. They base the song around one melody/riff (melody in this case) and strife for it to be this remarkable thing that reminds everyone of that band. But it’s a melody that I’m completely indifferent about, not doing much for me.
Considering its length, it’s odd to me that it already feels like it overstays its welcome in a mere three minutes of playing time. You probably did the right thing by thinking this would be better to save for this less valuable round for individual songs, similar to round 8. Moving on to Jorn..
6.25/10Magnus Karlsson’s Free Fall – Kingdom of RockThe kingdom of rock?.. It sounds stupid, but what the hell, I’m here for the music, and the truth of the matter is that this is just some great solid heavy metal, I’ve always had kind of a soft spot for these straightforward vocal lines, and its structured pretty neatly, with the vocals being the centerpoint of attention.
I feel like I’m really starting to dig this Jorn guy, and from what I understand he has many different projects and featurings on other bands and such, so I look forward to checking out some more songs/albums he is on.
8.25/10
14.5/20 = 7.25/10Tomislav95:Ensiferum – Lai Lai HeiYou don’t seem to run out of folkmetal anytime soon
Anyway, folk elements don’t automatically win the race unfortunately. I’m really not feeling this one. The music overall mostly reminds me of Korpiklaani, the kind of chanting/yo-ho-ho folkmetal that seems to attract fans of partymetal and the like aswell. I personally like some of those bands (Avatar does this quite often and it always pumps me up
) but despite it being a fun little track I don’t get much out of it, the vocals are slightly offputting but still bearable and the instruments, with a thick rhythm, mainly seem to complement the vocals, so that’s no real help in that regard either. Middle of the road song for me, if not slightly worse.
6.25/10 Daughter – LandfillLike pretty much everyone apart from Rich, your second song is your best, and by quite a big margin.. I love intimate ballads like these, getting an extremely strong singer-songwriter vibe from Daughter, mainly because all I’m reminded of is Susanne Sundfor here, and she captures a sound I never get from any other similar artist, but you managed to find another one with this song.
“I want you so much, but I hate your guts“ is such a strong line, sometimes bands repeat lines to the point where you get sick of them but here it’s completely fine, the varying delivery dims that down even more so yeah, a really strong entry here, probably should’ve gone with two Daughter songs.
8.75/1015/20 = 7.5/10Standings1. Tomislav95: 65.0 + 7.5 = 72.5
2. Parama: 63.25 + 8.75 = 72.0
3. Elite: 62.0 + 8.25 = 70.25
4. Bolsters: 62.5 + 7.25 = 69.75
5. Scorpion: 62.0 + 7.0 = 69.0
So to a certain extent the standings will have effect on the EP round, but not much. Tomislav starts with 3.5 points, Parama starts with 3 points, etc. and Scorpion starts at 0.
Furthermore, everyone but Parama has already sent their EP, but you still have time to tweak it in case you see anything in these writeups that makes you think it could benefit you to swap around one or two songs. If you do nothing I'll assume that the EP I currently have is going to be the definitive version for the finals. Good luck everyone, the end is nigh!