Parama's Disastrous Roulette v3 (The End (not the band))

[TAC]

So if someone is Rule 6'd, another person still gets eliminated?

[Elite]

So if someone is Rule 6'd, another person still gets eliminated?

Of course. He still has to pick the worst out of the good albums.

[Crow]

#1: This and #2 both share a lot in common stylistically and both caught my interest more than the rest this round as a side-effect of that, but this one has better vocals, even if I’m not super huge on the style.

#2: As I called out above, I don’t really care for the vocals on this, they’re actually notably bad, but the music itself is way better than I expected and surprised me quite a bit, they should just fire their vocalist and go instrumental honestly.

#3: I liked this album a lot when it wasn’t playing to the tropes of its genre but the back half of the album certainly felt like they were slipping back into safer sounds and lost my interest a little, though it’s still solid enough all the way through.

#4: This is maybe a bit over the top for me, especially on one or two tracks, but stylistically I can still vibe with this & there was still a lot about it I liked, too.

#5: Again, same as #3, I liked this more when it wasn’t playing to its genre’s tropes, though I feel like this had a lot less diversions from the norm. Nothing about it I really disliked though, which I can’t say about any other album this round except maybe my current #1.

#6: There’s a level of disconnected irony that feels prevalent throughout a lot of the tracks on this album and a few really stupid decisions but at the same time a lot of the music on display here still works well, it’s just not consistent enough or cohesive enough to keep me interested the whole way through.

I think the theme of this round in general is "vocals be meh" but my thoughts towards this round are generally more positive than the last few rounds, at least at the moment. Any of these would probably rank above Mike Oldfield from last round, and around or above The Family Crest from round 0.

@TAC: Yeah, to me the reasoning is that the entire round is pointless if there's one album so miserably bad that it's instantly in my sights for elimination while everything else is good. There's just no competition at that point. And the end result is people could be throwing away their really good albums on a round they had no chance of losing to begin with. Which to me strikes as a bit unfair to everyone else. And to me as a host. If I just went "lol Dacul is out Round 2 is over I only listened to every album once" there's not even a roulette anymore really.

Plus, this helps keep the pace up 

[Sacul]

Huh, thought you'd like the quirkiness and the playfulness of her music, but certainly forgot your comment on that Flaming Lips track oops

I also really had no other stuff in mind for the roulette so it feels like a rightful ending right here 

[TAC]

OK, gotcha Parama.

Geez, those tidbits are pretty positive.

I just cut the grass to my album. I feel like any of those could be mine, maybe. Perhaps fire the vocalist but awesome music one.

I legitimately don't understand why you'd think I'd like this.

I legitimately don't understand why you'd think anyone would like this.
Sacul, sorry man, but I just checked this out. WTf'nF is that?

[Crow]

A music critic I follow is actually pretty positive on st. vincent and that album so I know there is some audience for it

Just... not me

[Elite]

I think #4 is Le Grand Guignol, but I'm basing that solely on the track I received in my Roulette.

I don't know what Hyperomm sounds like apart from the track I received in my roulette and that's not exactly similar to the album I sent (though still the same genre), so I'm guessing I'm not #1 or #2. Number 6 doesn't seem like the album I sent either, because I think it's cohesive enough not to warrant a comment like that.

So, I guess I'm either #3 or #5. #5 is more likely to me, because the comment about the back half being less interesting doesn't compute with how I feel the album (I think the weakest part is in the middle).

But watch me be wrong.

[Sacul]

I legitimately don't understand why you'd think anyone would like this.
Sacul, sorry man, but I just checked this out. WTf'nF is that?

I
I prefer your love
to jeeeeeeesuuuuuuuuussss

[TAC]

Parama, how did you end up here at DTF? I suppose at one time you were a fan of Dream Theater?

[Crow]

my join date is over 10 years ago

[The Walrus]

I'm checking out St. Vincent and immediately on the first song the vocal melody is the same as Kings of Leon's Family Tree

This is some totally Sacul stuff. I don't know if I hate it or love it or what but it's bizarre and interesting

[Crow]

okay i should probably post some results, i honestly don't know which album i'm gonna cut yet but i do have a bottom two, one of which is consistently "fine" and the other is all over the goddamn place with a few great songs and a few bad ones and a lot in between but i do have a few i know for certain are safe, like
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Honestly while I can't say this 100% works for me all of the time, this is pretty much exactly the kind of album I'm looking for; proggy but not in a generic way, pulling in bits and pieces of other influences to make something of an original sound without ever getting too wacky, and having a lot of moments where stuff really comes together. It's not the album this round I have the best grasp on for sure but it's probably the one I like the most overall just from both stylistically working for me and for having a lot of songs I like, though it maybe has a few too many overall, dunno, we'll see how I feel after more listens since this is likely gonna get them. Only real gripe is that the vocal style isn't exactly for me, but it doesn't really detract either, it's just... there. But yeah, no, I do like this one a fair bit and while it doesn't blow me away I'm still definitely interested in checking it out further.

Elite with White Walls – Escape Artist, step right and come to the next round.

i'll probably post another one tomorrow morning or something there's at least one other i know for sure is through but i don't really see my overall current ranking changing too much anyways, it was exactly the same after my first and second listens

[Elite]

Oh, well that's definitely better than last round. Glad you liked it!

[Crow]

another one because i definitely consider this one safe,
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Like I mentioned before, this and White Walls had a lot of similarities - proggy and heavy sound that pulls in bits and pieces of other sounds for a bit of flavor while never going too wacky to the point of losing cohesion. What this album unfortunately has is some pretty bad growls, but they don't take up that huge a chunk of the record & the instrumental moments are where the musicianship tends to shine naturally, anyways. I guess the only other gripe is that the average song length is pretty short, which is not really an issue unless you're an idiot like me who likes longer songs that have time to develop and evolve but I digress. While I don't think this was as consistently compelling as White Walls, (and I don't think quite reaches the heights of what I have as #3 in my rankings, but doesn't really have any low points either), I still enjoyed this a lot from the first listen and knew it was pretty safe once I got a few tracks deep into it. Shame about that horrid cover art though.

Of course, I'm talking about TAC with Hyperomm – From Nothing to Eternity, which is more than good enough to get you through to the next round.
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Current standings:
1. White Walls - Escape Artist
2. Hyperomm - From Nothing to Eternity

I'm gonna try and finish this round up by Friday at the latest, I don't think I'm going to have too tough a time deciding who to cut this round but we'll see, it always seems to come down to just two albums in the end 

[TAC]

 

[home]

Hey, that St. Vincent album is actually pretty good

[Sacul]

Hey, that St. Vincent album is actually pretty good

[Crow]

I'm gonna try and get results for this round done this weekend but after that I need to put this on break for a week, really busy with work atm

[Crow]

oh woops i meant to do this save earlier but forgot
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I pretty much always say that djent on its own is never gonna win me over, because as a style it tends to accentuate a lot of things I dislike; moving focus away from melody and hooks to focus only on rhythms and heaviness and ending up all sounding a lot like all other djent. But taking elements of djent and incorporating them into other styles of music, that can work well. I think this is more djent with other styles merged in rather than the other way around, but I still think it does enough to distinguish itself from other albums in the genre, especially with a lot of its jazzy elements they incorporate quite frequently. Moment Marauder is probably the highlight in this regard, in terms of uniqueness and interesting flavor. But the real highlights of the album are the two longest tracks, which both have a pretty similar structure of "pretty standard/somewhat technical first half, emotionally charged chorus-based second half" and both times this structure works incredibly well for them and for the album as a whole, giving a peak right in the middle and a peak right at the end, they're great moments. Breathe feels a bit... underdeveloped as a track, I get that it's supposed to be an interlude but it feels like they could've extended it a bit more regardless. The tracks between Breathe and the closer are all... there, they don't register as well with me and feel like they fall victim to djent tropes a bit more but I don't dislike them. Still overall I enjoyed this one a fair bit and it may be worth following up on, really, hell, I got another djent album earlier this year that... well, wasn't as consistent as this one, really, still had some highlights though, but really this only solidifies my opinion that djent works almost excusively as a flavor rather than the main course. And that's fine.

ariich with Intervals – A Voice Within, you're again pretty easily through to the next round.
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1. White Walls - Escape Artist
2. Intervals - A Voice Within
3. Hyperomm - From Nothing to Eternity

will see if i can get the rest of the results posted tonight, i still dunno which one i wanna cut, the one that's inconsistent and has a lot of elements that annoy me without ever really grasping me too hard but achieves a base level of intrigue regardless, the one that has nothing about it I dislike but doesn't do much to distinguish itself and feels pretty unmemorable, or the one that has a few great songs but a grueling ending and a pretty consistent problem of tonal inconsistency throughout. you can probably figure out which is which easily but that doesn't matter because i still don't have a clear ranking of them myself so it's w/e

[TAC]

I have Intervals' A Way Forward Saved on Spotify. I really like it.

[ariich]

I'd agree with pretty much all of that. I think I probably have a bit more tolerance than you for how much djent goes into an album, but I also don't like when I've heard albums that are just djent and not really anything else. Intervals got a really good balance on that album, and I think adding a vocalist really helped give the songs more focus whereas their usual instrumental albums/EPs always feel like they're just missing vocals. Anyway, glad you liked it!

[Crow]

ehh, i could do another relisten but honestly at this point i don't think it's worth it
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I don't have much to say about this album, I don't have a ton to say about any of these three to be honest. This one is... weird, yes, but I think it overplays its weirdness to the point where once you strip away the initial "omgsocrazy" reaction all you're left with is... okay metal that tends to be way too overbearing. Some of the vocals, especially the "crazy" bits in tracks 4 and 5, really just... don't do it for me. And as well the guitar tone on the heavier moments is... lacking. Especially since I think this is like, a remaster/rerecording of the album, that they released under a different band name a year before? I'm not sure on that but it doesn't really matter. The track you played in plug.dj was I think was Lucilinburhuc, which is... one of the more "normal" tracks but still with enough flavor to it & more compelling music in general than a lot of the album, which makes it a smart pick and also gave me expectations that the rest of the album didn't tend to meet. And the pacing of this album is strange too, three of the last four tracks are all quite brief after a lot of longer tracks in the front half, which makes them feel kind of tacked-on or unimportant. I feel like I'm being pretty down on this but I still did like this, it's just hard to call out specific things I did like because they don't stand out as much as the issues I have. I dunno. I still think this is pretty easily safe over the other two though.

Train of Naught with Le Grand Guignol – The Great Maddening, looks like you haven't gone off the deep end just quite yet.
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I honestly could just copy and paste my writeup on October Falls wholesale here because I feel -exactly- the same towards this album as I did towards that one. The issue is, to put it bluntly. This lacks the intensity that makes black metal appealing to me, same as October Falls. It's absolutely "nice" music, I am absolutely okay with listening to it, there's nothing about this I dislike at all, but at the same time I've heard this sound before plenty of times and without having anything really new to offer it just doesn't personally compel me much. I feel like there's a tiny bit more flavor here than October Falls had but it's not paced as well as an album overall either, and the production is maybe just a tad too muddy. I dunno. In a round without an obvious sore thumb in the bunch this would probably get cut for just not interesting me much, but the album I did settle on cutting just has a problem I can't overlook, so this is safe for now.

Evermind with Falls of Rauros - The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood is safe to tell another tale, yet again.
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And that leaves us with Spiritualized. Oh lord. I have THOUGHTS about this one, alright, and they are incredibly mixed. For starters. That intro track/title track? Absolutely GORGEOUS. Loved it from first listen. How did that get home cut from Tomi's roulette? Seriously dude? Okay. And then Come Together is pretty solid too, a lot more abraisive and lumbering but in a way that works. And then things start to fall apart... I Think I'm In Love contains one of the first moments of "the lyrics have to be ironic because I can't imagine them being straight-faced" and irony is one of the least interesting ways to make music to me. The "probably just" lyric bit, in particular. Every track after that until Broken Heart I don't... remember a single thing about. I don't remember really disliking any of them, but they don't really offer much for me. I'm just skimming through them now... All of My Thoughts is a pretty nice one actually, Stay With Me is... also pretty nice and builds well, Electricity isn't exactly my thing but makes for a nice change of pace, the next two are basically one track split into two parts and really ambient. Broken Heart then. I like how this one -sounds- a lot but god the lyrics are again so... banal. Ruins the atmosphere for me just a little. Next track is an okay instrumental, Cool Waves is a great album closer.

...

Right, now then. Cop Shoot Cop may be the single worst song in the entire roulette this far, worse than any song on that St. Vincent album, because... it's just the most grueling, pointless, overly long tedium-fest I've heard in a long while. That nice groove that starts the song off is okay for a minute or two. Until you realize. That's... that's it. That's the entire 17 minute song. Sure, they turn up the volume on that groove a few times. And they stop the song dead in its tracks to hit random notes on all their instruments for about 4 minutes straight, before just going right back to sounding exactly like the rest of the song beforehand. With like, a tiiiiny bit of added texture. It's the pinnacle of pretentiousness. It just inherently projects this "we're so awesome we can put anything on our record and the critics will eat it up". It offends me on a deep level that I honestly can't get past, especially because it drags out what would be a pretty solid album with a pretty decent length into becoming an absolute chore to finish, just by itself. If this song wasn't here, this would honestly almost certainly be safe, but the fact that I want to skip an entire 17 minute chunk of an album and would never wish to listen to this one song again, it's just a sticking point for me that my relatively mildness towards the other two albums this round can't possibly overcome.

Also, it feels to me like these guys are inspired by the Beatles a lot. A lot of this takes notes from them but reframes them into a more psychedelic, early-Floyd type of vibe. I think they even lampshade this by having a song name literally taken from the Beatles. Anyways.

home with Spiritualized – Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, looks like the cop shot you down this time. RIP.

1. White Walls - Escape Artist
2. Intervals - A Voice Within
3. Hyperomm - From Nothing to Eternity
4. Le Grand Guignol – The Great Maddening
5. Falls of Rauros - The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood
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6. Spiritualized – Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

i honestly half-wanted to give the bottom three another spin to solidify my thoughts further but i feel like it'd be as pointless as listening to that last spiritualized song felt all three times i did listen to it, so, whatever. like i said, not gonna be listening to anything for probably the next few days at least, Friday or Saturday, but go ahead and send for the next round

[Evermind]

Oh wow, I was sure that was the end for me. Well alright then! That's one step closer to the victory.

[Elite]

From almost eliminated to first place in just one round

I can recommend the album I sent to most of the players in this roulette here as well, it's a good progressive metal endeavour and I'm not surprised Parama liked it (that's why I picked it). Will look for something for round 3!

[Train of Naught]

I'm so good at this game huh


aren't I

[home]

That intro track/title track? Absolutely GORGEOUS. Loved it from first listen.

The "probably just" lyric bit, in particular.

What never wondered if you were in love or just hungry?


I agree that the Cop Shoot Cop drags a little, but I still think it's a pretty neat song. The repetition does really fit the "addiction"theme of keep getting another fix. You're completely right about the Beatles influence, Electricity definitely steals from Love Me Do, but the general sound of the song is kind of Doors like I think.

Anyway, thanks for hosting! Glad I was able to send some stuff you like

[TAC]

Ooh..old guy makes the Top 5!

[ariich]

Round 3 sent!

[Evermind]

Sent some circus/psychedelic black metal.

[Crow]

I think I have everyone except elite, tho there's one submission I'm on the fence about accepting rn, will think about it

[Evermind]

I think I have everyone except elite, tho there's one submission I'm on the fence about accepting rn, will think about it

I guess it's not mine, but if it is, better tell me right now because I may be away for the weekend.

[Elite]

Sent!

[Crow]

Nah I told the person already that they should get a backup ready just in case they know who they are

[Elite]

Has the culprit resent, and are we getting some hangmanenens?

[Crow]

i'm just gonna accept the album w/e, i haven't heard a second of it even if i've checked out the band a little before so
also sure let's hangmeme i'll put it up in like 5 mins