Some interesting developments in the standings this round.....
Parama
Atmospheric Black Metal
(Greece) Spectral Lore - A Rider Through The Lands Of An Infinite DreamscapeAtmospheric Black Metal is probably my favorite sub-genre of metal lately. It has everything I'm looking for in music. So I'm pretty easy to please if you send me something in this realm of music. This comes out of the gates running. No foreplay, no preamble. Just go! I typically prefer a bit of build up or intro with this type of music, you know, warm me up a bit first
. Anyway, it isn't a bad intro. Wait is that a harp or harpsichord, where did that come from?? There is a lot going on here. Spacey synths, jangly tremolo picked guitars, lot's of fast drumming, echoey vocals. Reminds me a bit of Darkspace with a clearer production, although I love the murky production of Darkspace, this is still good and it fits the song. At about the 4:30 mark the song goes pretty much full heavy atmosphere with an almost funeral doom approach. It's super heavy and slow. This is one way that music can be super heavy (the dense atmosphere) and I love it! It slowly picks up pace to a magnificent climax. Which then drops in to the final outro of the song. I always find it amazing when just one person can come up with music like this. I'm not sure how many of the instruments this guy actually plays and how many he programs, but the song writing in general is spectacular. The lyrics are also pretty interesting. This is the type of music I love to drum to as well. Overall not quite perfect, but a fantastic song and it gets you a round win!
9.5/10
TAC
Thrash Metal
(USA) Testament - Throne of ThornsAn interesting song choice for this round. I know of Testament, but never listened to them. I know they are Thrash Metal. I know who Chuck Billy is. I'm familiar with other things that Alex Skolnick has done. I also know that Gene Hoglan and Steve DiGiorgio (although Steve didn't play on this album) are in the band, two of my favorite musicians at Drums and Bass respectively. I suppose me listening to Testament was a long time coming. This is really good Thrash metal. It's actually pretty heavy for Thrash. Not necessarily the heaviest stuff I've heard, but still... The song is pretty enjoyable for the most part. The breakdown in the middle is really cool, with some of the best riffs in the whole round leading up to it and during the breakdown, which then breaks in to a nice guitar solo section. The solo is what I like to call a Painkiller solo (after the Judas Priest song), it keeps evolving and changing, it's long and awesome. That whole section reminds me a bit of Death too. The only major issue I have with the song is the fade out at the end....it makes absolutely zero sense. The song feels pretty short, even though it's 7 minutes long. They should have just played the song out instead of fading it out. I don't get that recording decision at all. It seems completely random. Just when you think they are going to go in to this awesome buildup to an epic outro it just.....fades out and ends....lame...Otherwise it's a really cool song. Docked a point for the stupid fade out.
9/10
Tomislav
Melodic Death Metal
(Sweden) Hypocrisy - Roswell 47 (Live in Sofia)First live song I've received in the roulette. There are some bands, for me, that are more enjoyable live than studio recordings, but a lot of really heavy bands tend to lose that heaviness live. This though sounds huge! I've never listened to Hypocrisy before, but I am familiar with Peter Tägtgren. He's done guest spots for a bunch of bands. So there's that. This song though, it just works so well live. It's not fast, but it doesn't need to be. It slowly and methodically works through numerous heavy riffs and crushes you with some heavy atmosphere as well. And the harsh vocals are some of the best in this round. It's not an overly complex song, but the song writing is superb. I'm not sure what it is about this song, but it really just works for me. The sound, the instrumentation, the vocals, the atmosphere, it all just comes together and gels so well and makes an epic, heavy song.
9/10
Home
Sludge Metal
(USA) Old Man Gloom - To Carry the FlameThis song is one of the genres I had in mind when I think really heavy! Good old heavy, doomy, sludge. This starts off quickly out of the gate with heavy dirty guitar riffs, pounding drums and a heavy mid pace tempo. I love the bass tone throughout. It has that growly, crunchy sound that works so well in this style of music. The song also gets its point across quickly and doesn't overstay its welcome. My favorite part is at about 1:30 in the song goes to just drums and 1 guitar, then 2 guitars, then bass, and just builds back up to more heavy riffage. Really cool song. I'm familiar with most of the musicians in the band, 2 are from Cave In (which I like) and then there is Aaron Turner from Isis (one of my favorite Sludge/Post-Metal bands of all time), so I figured I would like this. This is a good turn around from the last round for you.
8.5/10
Evermind
Post Black Metal
(USA) So Hideous - YesteryearThe beginning of this is not quite what I was expecting for the Heavy Round. It kicks in pretty heavily about a minute and a half in, though, and it doesn't really let up, except in the middle. This has a lot of Post-Rock elements to it with some bits of Post-Hardcore. There's a lot of guitar layers. The atmosphere is good, but it's not a heavy, crushing atmosphere. The parts where the song slows down with just piano and strings/synths serve as a good contrast to the heavier bits and they are really beautifully played. I really like this kind of music with the loud/soft dynamics (like most post-rock/post-hardcore). It definitely follows in the footsteps of the recent Post-Black Metal bands. There's a lot to love here and I'll be checking out more of this stuff.
8.5/10
Jingle
Progressive Metal
(Germany) Flaming Row - Rage of DespairThis is pretty heavy for prog metal. Some of the vocals don't lend themselves very well to a heavy song and some I don't particularly like (some of the male clean vocals for example). There's some really heavy guitar sections. I like the riffs here. There are spots that remind me of Dream Theater's Systematic Chaos album. I get some Ayreon vibes here as well. Which I guess makes sense with the massive cast of musicians on this album. I suppose if you took Dream Theater and Ayreon and mixed in a bit of Epica and Pain of Salvation you would get this band. The bass solo is cool. The keyboard patches don't really fit the heaviness of the song, in my opinion. I just don't much care for this type of keyboard playing. I typically prefer keyboards to be used for more atmosphere than a lead instrument. There are exceptions, but for the most part atmospheric keyboards is where it's at for me. I think this song would work much better in the context of the whole album, though, so I'm going to end up giving it a listen. Another pretty good song from you, with just a few things that held it back a bit.
7.5/10
KTLX
Thrash Metal
(USA) Testament - D.N.R.A lot of what I said in the writeup for TAC's song applies to this song, for obvious reasons. With the exception that Gene Hoglan didn't play drums on this song and this song isn't as good
. This probably would have worked better for you in the Speed Round
maybe. This is still fairly heavy Thrash Metal. It borders on Melodic Death Metal at times with the harsh vocals and blasts beats, except it seems to be missing a face melting guitar solo or two. I kept waiting for one and it never came. There were spots where I thought, oooh here is comes, bring on the face-melter, but it wasn't meant to be I guess. I was a little disappointed by this. And more disappointed every time I listened to this. It would have easily got a better score with a guitar solo or two to break up the song and add some variety. It's not a bad song, it just made me upset is all, so much potential wasted
7/10
Soupy
Melodic Celtic Metal
(Switzerland) Eluveitie - The Call of the MountainsThe folk/Celtic instrumentation is a bit too cheerful to be heavy and a little too cheesy for my tastes. They are a bit in your face too. The female vocal style doesn't help. She has a decent voice, but it feels somewhat out of place. Then the ?children? singing at the end loses all heavy credibility for the song
. I know you mentioned you were probably going to struggle in this round and then posted about maybe messing up when you changed songs. Perhaps you did, I haven't listened to the other song you sent yet, but I have heard the other band before and didn't care much for them, so who knows. I keep thinking this sounds a bit like Nightwish with some folk instruments thrown in. Unfortunately for you I just don't much care for this song.
5.5/10
Train
Djent
(Netherlands) Hibakusha - KowloonHoly Bats Djentman! Down tuned guitars, Meshuggah like vocals (not my favorite).....Meshuggah like music, only not as complex. Breakdowns everywhere. Some (very minor) Trance metal trappings and crab-core breakdowns... I don't know if there is enough variety here to make the song interesting for its six and half minute run time. I mean the song does go through different chug patterns and some different riffs as it goes on, but none of it was very interesting. It is pretty heavy, I'll definitely give you that. The part that starts at about 1:45 and goes through to about 2:25 seconds is really cool. Unfortunately most of the rest of it is just chug chug chugga chugga chug chug. The bass player does some cool things from time to time to stand out. After about 4:30 minutes they do kind of change things up a bit for the better. It just feels too much like I've heard this all before and done better.
5/10
Standing So Far
Tomislav - 7, 9.5, 8.5, 9, 7, 9.5, 7.5, 9 (67)
Parama - 6, 9, 7.5, 8, 8.5, 9.5, 9, 9.5 (67)
TAC - 8, 8, 8.5, 6.5, 6.5, 9.5, 9.5, 9 (65.5)
Evermind - 7.5, 7, 8, 7.5, 9.5, 7.5, 7.5, 8.5 (63)
Train of Naught - 9.5, 7.5, 9, 9, 5.5, 8, 9, 5 (62.5)
Jingle.boy - 9, 4, 8, 8, 9, 9, 8, 7.5 (62.5)
Kattoelox - 5.5, 6.5, 8, 10, 9, 9, 6.5, 7 (61.5)
Soupytwist - 8, 10, 7, 8.5, 4, 7.5, 8.5, 5.5 (59)
Home - 7.5, 7, 7, 7, 7.5, 8.5, 3, 8.5 (56)
I hope I did all my math correctly
Poll
Topic: Puppies_On_Acid's Gentlemen's Roulette! Epilogue (Read 81487 times)