Kingshmegland: Nova Collective – “Air”: I liked this, and found it intoxicating and evocative. The whole song had a vibe to it that was just so… it reminded me of the best of King Crimson; one thing about Crimson is that the songs were almost always given a chance to breathe, and that’s how I felt about this. Odd thing about me; I take song titles seriously, especially for instrumentals. I like when the title creates an atmosphere and the music delivers on that, like it does here. Strong piece, and I’d like to hear more from this band. 8.5
Antigoon: Snarky Puppy – “What’s About Me?”: This is a song that rewards repeated listening. I was predisposed to dislike it, because of the band name (yes, I wrote that; they just always struck me as a shade too hipster), and at first I was like, “okay, horns”. I’m touchy on horns. I either LOVE them, (“Paperlate”, “No Reply At All”) or I hate them. There isn’t a lot of in between. But as I kept listening to this, it just kept coming clear that this is a beast of a track, and every part is both necessary and relevant. That part at about 5:00 minutes in, where there isn’t really any soloing, but the band is grooving and almost… floating, really sealed the deal for me. I really liked this. 9
Jingle.boy: Dimension Act – “Drawing the Lines of Mortal Existence I”: Very Dream Theater-esque, but thankfully the Dream Theater I like best. Very melodic and driving, I liked the epic-ness of both the title and the music. I don’t really know what it means to “draw the lines of mortal existence” (does that involve Margot Robbie, by chance?) but I suspect this might be the music playing while I’m doing it. It would have scored higher, but it seemed to drag on a little and morph from really evocative music to a bit of wankery. Nice track, though. 8
Mosh: Camel – “Six ate”: Give a dollar if you can guess the time signature. Not very familiar with Camel, even with all the various interactions with one of my favorite bands of all time, Marillion (Andy Ward played in Marillion for a brief time; shorter than it took to do this writeup, and Fish has worked with Mickey Simmonds, Dave Stewart, and Foss Patterson). I liked this a lot; very different than most of the other submissions, but it had a distinct ‘70’s vibe and I liked it a lot. Built nicely, and kept my interest, which is no small feat for most instrumentals. 8
Lethean: Kiko Loureiro – “El Guajiro”: You benefitted from the delay. I didn’t like this at first; I thought it was boring shred guitar and having come off an Yngwie binge, I was kind of burnt on it. But I kept listening to my playlist, on shuffle and it kept catching my ear. I loved how the guitar emulated what would typically be a keyboard part (the ascending/descending run) and the drums brought a nice color with the percussive additions. It reminded me on occasion of Dream Theater – not a bad thing, and not as much as some of the other songs here - but generally this is a well-written as well as well-played instrumental. 8
Topic: Stadler's Wheel of Fortune! (A Roulette) - ROUND 7 RESULTS (Read 38333 times)