Evermind: Need – TilikumFirst Impressions:Like I said in PMs I know I heard a song off this album before but I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one by name. The vocal has that very European timbre of vocals that I’m honestly growing less a fan of the more I hear it, but other than that no complaints from me. Okay I am pretty sure by now this is in fact not the song from this album I’d previously heard. I don’t remember any of this at all, so good. This is… a bit heavier than I was expecting from you, but I’m not complaining. The first issue that stands out to me is that… while it all sounds fine, there’s not really much of anything here particularly unique or original, nothing I haven’t heard other bands do before.
While I do think all the riffs and melodies are pretty solid on their own, the lack of uniqueness does take away from it a little. Just a little, though, since overall I still do enjoy this.Final Thoughts:Okay, dude, this is a safe as hell entry. You know it is, I know it is, we can both agree on that, okay? Okay. I mean I totally get why since this is an elimination round and risky stuff is the best way to get cut, so.
That first heavy riff is actually really good. It’s got decent groove to it despite being a 5/4 riff, and it’s also definitely sufficiently heavy. It’s the kind of riff that makes a great centerpiece for a prog metal song, certainly way better than anything DT themselves have been able to write recently.
I do think the song might be a bit too much “heavy guitar chords” overall though, the riffs change up a bit but for the first few minutes it doesn’t feel like there’s really so much else to the song. When the bass/drums/synth driven interlude pops up though I can totally get behind it, the guitar lead is honestly the least interesting this about this section really, could’ve cut it entirely and I wouldn’t notice.
The vocals at their cleanest don’t appeal so much to me, but the singer provides a rougher edged style throughout a lot of the song to match the intensity of the riffs and that sounds much better to my ears, I can totally get behind that. There’s even some growls here and there. The only downside is that I don’t think there’s a single catchy vocal melody in this entire track, which is one secret to writing a good chorus that a lot of bands seem to overlook. Oh and the female vocals are nice whenever they show up here. Not outstanding, far from bad, given plenty of room to breathe whenever they’re around. No complaints from me.
I do think overall the song could stand to be a touch more diverse, but I vastly prefer this to instrumental wankery prog metal songs & there’s enough here that I can still definitely get behind this and will probably at least check out the album.
8/10Train of Naught: Kwoon – SchizophrenicFirst Impressions:Okay this intro is giving me Radiohead vibes for some reason. Waiting to see what this evolves into though. Oh man at like 1:30, some pretty dang intense atmosphere going on. Yeah, it’s like a heavy post-rock feel that I really enjoy.
I feel like the quiet parts are a bit underwhelming compared to the louder moments but that might be because I like the loud bits quite a lot. The vocals are maybe a bit meh though, not really getting anything from them. He should be singing his heart out to match the intensity of the louder moments but he’s not and is just getting lost in the mix as a result. This feels maybe a bit light on substance but the substance I do like I like quite a lot.
Final Thoughts:I feel like you have a better sense of what I like this time around than you did in my first two roulettes, partially due to plug.dj I’d imagine. Obviously that’s the kind of line that starts out a fairly positive writeup and you’d not be wrong there, because I do think this works quite a bit.
I still do feel that the quieter parts pale a little in comparison to the louder parts, but that’s only due to the lush atmosphere of those louder parts. That combination of tremolo guitar, strings, organ, and ethereal vocals mixed in with the plodding drums and bass creates a really tense and ominous mood and the song only builds up that mood the longer it holds onto it.
I still am not so hot on the vocals in general on their own, though. During the softer moments they fit in well but during the louder moments I would really prefer a bit more intensity to them. This could’ve been really great if there was a particularly evocative vocal performance going on but it feels like even at their most intense the instruments have to restrain themselves to not completely bury the vocals.
And I feel I really am being a bit hard on the quiet moments, because, let’s be honest they’re totally fine on their own. But this song basically just has two parts; “soft” and “loud” and that’s all it really needs, it just leaves about a third of the song feeling necessarily inferior. And overall I feel this song had more potential than it was actually able to deliver on, but it’s still a pretty fine song on its own merits regardless.
8/10Tomislav95: Windir - Svartesmeden og LundamyrstrolletFirst Impressions:Well, that’s certainly going to be a fun one in hangman. Right off the bat this just punches you in the face with a buzzsaw black metal guitar line. I can dig it.
And the vocals are… completely buried. Just the way I like it, ‘cause that means the atmosphere is dense as heck. Like seriously I’m mostly indifferent on this style of vocals so burying them is totally fine by me. I don’t really have a ton to say about this other than I dig it, and that the synth is… interesting. It keeps things dynamic enough, there’s a few relaxed moments mixed into the intensity. Yeah, dunno what else to say about this other than that I like it. And that the production could be a bit better, but looking into it this is from 1999 so it can be excused a little.
Final Thoughts:That production is definitely the weakest aspect of this, it does sound a bit too muddy for my tastes & doesn’t really match well with the synth sound being used here either. But that’s really a nitpick at best.
As far as the rest of this goes though I feel like I don’t really have much to say about it. It’s kind of repetitive at points, but what it drives in are these massive walls of sounds punctuated by very memorable synth lines. Like, I don’t even know if I like the synths that much, I’d probably like this more without them, but at the same time it probably wouldn’t stand out so much without them. So ehh. It’s a fair trade.
That bit in the middle with the offbeat synth hits is a really strange interlude though. It’s nice that they broke up the song a little to keep it from feeling too samey, but I can’t say I’m actually a fan of that bit because it’s just too different to the point of feeling out of place. Maybe it’s just because it doesn’t sound as good to my ears as the more dense & intense metal on display here. It’s a brief moment of a 9 minute track though so I can’t complain too much.
Really as far as black metal goes... I’ve heard better for sure but I still do get a lot of enjoyment out of this. It’s not too repetitive and it’s more than sufficiently dense with only that one moment I’m not so fond of, and it just sounds good. The atmosphere is on point, which is one of the things I really look for in good black metal, so it’s hard to fault the song for that much overall.
8.25/10Escaped Impending DoomElite: Textures – Laments of an IcarusFirst Impressions:So I came within inches of buying an album from this band like 3 years ago when I was still into djent! Not the one this is on, but. Right away this is slamming me in the face as a “look at dem polyrhythms bro” type of song, which is. Well, it sounds kind of cool, sure, I’ll give it that, but it also feels really gratuitous in a “show-offy” kind of way, and it’s not something I feel could hold up interest for very long. And I mean, they don’t stick to it for that long. Eugh, those growls though. I am not into them at all. At
aaalll. Which is a shame, when there’s moments of clean vocals I actually dig them a lot. Bit in the middle is actually really dense while still pulling off that djenty groove thing. And the break focusing on drums & synth is a cool little moment too.
Knowing what I know about this band I went into this prepared for the worst but what I found was surprisingly solid and actually really diverse considering the genre, so props for that if nothing else.Final Thoughts:This really core-y style of growls is just. So not my thing. Honestly I never liked it to begin with, it’s what put me off listening to BTBAM originally and I still can’t think of any examples where I find the style a positive. This guy should’ve just stuck to his cleans more. They don’t have the whiny sounds that a lot of other djent vocalists tend to have, they’re actually very smooth and pleasant.
A lot of the riffs in this song feel like… a lot of chugging on one note, just varying up the rhythms. Not every riff, but that’s the kind of riff the song seems to focus on the most. And I dunno, it just feels like heaviness for heaviness’ sake.
That synth & drums bit though is actually really great and I wish they would’ve held that vibe longer, or heck, based the song around that instead of the chugging it does. And also I’ll say that the moments of lead guitar, when they do show up, are pretty solid. Nothing mindblowing but they stand out by virtue of not being chuggy nonsense.
I feel like I’m being really down on this song now, but I think it’s just a consequence of me not being too into this style of music much anymore. Even warned people away from sending djent in the tastes section of my opening posts (it sort of feels like only a few of you even read that, honestly, you should all go read it). But as far as the genre goes I’ve heard words. But I’ve also heard better.
And the vocals here are the real dealbreaker for me. I think I could tolerate the song without those vocals but they drown out a lot of the positive qualities & there’s not enough cleaner or more melodic moments to make up for them. I find myself only liking the “little moments” this song has to offer but not so much the song as a whole, and while I wouldn’t say I dislike it, it doesn’t stir up enough positive emotions for me to want to revisit it, either.
6/10Sacul: Kamasi Washington – The Rhythm ChangesFirst Impressions:For the record, I have in fact heard a song from this album before (Change of the Guard). But only that song. This starts off… a little strange and kind of dissonant really.
When the vocals enter, hmm… on one hand I’m generally not a huge fan of this style but it works well here. The vibe of the song and the vocals play off each other well & they go together nicely on the larger-sounding chorus as well. The instrumental moments of the song are… nice enough, I suppose, but I’ll be the first to admit that I just don’t really get jazz. But I definitely prefer the moments with vocals. I don’t know, just in general I can’t get very hyped for soloing in general, unless it’s like Thank You Scientist doing it because they make it fun as hell. This is pleasant enough though and doesn’t overstay its welcome and I’d be totally okay with spinning it several more times.
Final Thoughts:I honestly have no clue why you sent me this. I’m sure you’re already aware that this is just so far outside of the kind of music I’m interested in and familiar with. And I honestly have no clue how to talk about this.
Well okay, the vocal parts I totally get. They’re nice. They sound a bit too old-timey to be something I’d find myself returning to, but they work. The vocals sound nice enough & match with the music well enough, and the chorus has a lot of swell and power behind it. And the swell of the outro is pretty solid too. If the song was just these parts I wouldn’t call it something I really enjoy that much but I would’ve certainly scored it higher.
The rest of the song is just… I can appreciate the skill of the musicians, but that’s just something I’m not interested in really listening to for entertainment. And even then it doesn’t even sound that particularly good to me.
In order. The first solo just sounds bad. I think this is actually genuinely badly played and performed. Nothing about it works. The saxophone solo is nice enough. It’s not anything special but it’s pleasant to listen to. Third solo. Again this one’s pretty alright though I’m not as big fan of the tone of this instrument. The keys solo kind of just fades in from the layers beneath it. Not a fan of the tone but it’s. An okay solo. That’s like all I can say about any of this though.
The core instrumentals of the song, the drums and piano, are both okay enough but a bit too unchanging. I’m sure there’s a ton of subtleties going on here but little subtleties don’t keep the overall song sounding very diverse. So I don’t really care. They at least provide decent groove for the song but that’s about all they do as far as I can care.
Overall… I don’t mind listening to this as much as some of the other songs this round I’m kind of meh on, it’s chill and laidback and thus a lot easier to sit through. But at the same time that mostly relegates it to the domain of background music, because it also doesn’t catch my attention as much. It’s reeeeally hard for me to fairly score this though. I don’t know. The parts of this I like aren’t even especially great, at least for me, so… I don’t know.
6.25/10The Eye of the StormBolsters: CHVRCHES – The Mother We ShareFirst Impressions:Risky move sending the band that got you eliminated in my last roulette as your preliminary round entry for this roulette, isn’t it? Right away I am not liking that choppy vocal thing, honestly. Maybe a weird complaint to make but it feels like the vocals are mixed just a bit too loud to the point where they sound disconnected from the music. Like even on the chorus which is supposed to sound huge and climactic, the vocals drown out everything else.
I can see this being fairly catchy, a lot more so than the other song I’ve heard from them. It’s a bit fluff-y as far as pop goes but so was Purity Ring and I dug that song. I feel like I’ve mostly been negative in this first impressions bit but I do feel this a lot more strongly than the other song from them at the very least. Seems solid.
Final Thoughts:I don’t know if this is as good as the Purity Ring song from last roulette. For one the vocal hooks aren’t quite as good. And I just don’t like that choppy vocal effect at all. Haven’t ever liked it. My least favorite song across Pure Heroine and its bonus tracks is Million Dollar Bills for that exact same reason.
Anyways. The instrumental groove of the verses is really strong and kind of addictive. Maybe my favorite part of the song. The punchy synths and the straightforward drums, and the vocal rhythms playing off it well. And that chorus hook is actually, really great. I had the title drop line on its own stuck in my head after just a single listen (though I couldn’t remember anything else about the song).
The production on this song is also pretty great in general, lots of depth to it but it breathes at the points where it needs to. It’s a really great pop production. I also do like the tone of the vocals here, probably more than the breathy sound of Purity Ring (which I have to keep using as a reference point, shut up).
This writeup feels kind of scattershot but I mean. On the whole I like this a lot. I have no clue what I was talking about with the vocals feeling disconnected from the music in my first impression writeup to be honest, they play off each other really well. Whatever. Screw you, past-Parama. Anyways, this one’s easily getting you to the main roulette. I haven’t even done any other write-ups yet but this was one of my favorites the whole way through.
8.5/10Current Standings:Bolsters – 8.5
Tomislav95 – 8.25
Train of Naught – 8
Evermind – 8
Luoto – 7.75
Stadler – 7
twosuitsluke – 7
Nekov – 6.75
home - 6.5
LordCost – 6.5
Everyone still in, go ahead and send for round 1. I’m going to send out the round 1 songs to the secondary judge once I’ve posted first impressions tidbits for the round.