Kingshmegland - Cell15 / Faith Without Works Pt2
Pink Floyd + Spock's Beard = this song. I swear to god when it picks up at 2:40-ish mark, I'm picturing Neal Morse hopping around on the keyboards. Really wished that this was more than 4:20, it's just so beautiful - musically, vocally, and lyrically. I gotta go spin Pt 1 and Pt 2 together now - it's strange, because the album on bandcamp doesn't split any of the songs on the album into 2 parts like Spotify does. Odd.
Ranking: 1Evermind - Karmakanic* / Send a Message from the Heart
Handicap? What fucking handicap? What's not to love here?? Reingold contributes to many other acts I've heard and loved (TFK, Time Requiem just a couple rounds ago… plus Kaipa and The Tangent). This hit on all levels, and is everything I love about prog-rock - complex, well balanced, well written, nice lyrics, diverse sections and styles that are beautifully interwoven together, Goran Edman (though I'm certain I hear Roine in there a few times). And like any good epic, when it’s over you have no idea that 15, 20, 30 minutes has passed. You ought to thank Train for that “handicap”.
Ranking: 2Puppies - Pallas / Ghostdancers
The strings in the intro were absolutely haunting - great composition… in fact all of the orchestral elements were fantastic. And dat solo… filled with emotion that matched the tone of the song perfectly, leading right into a fantastic climax. After a couple of turds, you killed it here.
Ranking: 3Kattelox - Wuthering Heights / The Desperate Poet
Fuck this was fun. Thought at first it was UDO or someone like that with the garbly sound, but then when I checked for sure, It was a
moment - considering how much I like Nils' other acts. Not sure why they didn't quite click 5 years ago when Doc submitted them to me, but this was great power metal without the fantasy/viking cheesi-ness. Don't get me wrong, the lyrics were pretty cheesy at times - that chorus is gloriously comical - but it was a different kind of cheese that I don't often hear.
Ranking: 4.1jjrocks88 - Alice Cooper* / Roses on a White Lace
Not knowing what year this was released, I was wondering who ripped off who until I checked the release year. I swear I thought I was listening to a (not very good) cover of Bark at the Moon for the first 15 seconds. Back in the day, I didn't really like Cooper's voice much. Can't really explain why. Now that I'm a little more ... seasoned ... I got no problem with his sound and delivery. Great tune.
Ranking: 4.2Lethean - Mindfeed / Mother
You certainly didn't need to hide the metadata, cuz I didn't know who/what song this was until I was checking everything on the 3rd set of listens - then I just used Soundhound.
Ranking: 4.3lonestar- Between the Buried and Me* / Desert of Song
While I'm quite certain this band would NEVER click with me, you picked a pretty enjoyable tune - that got better as the week went on. As a melancholic ballad, it wasn’t anything that absolutely wow'd me, but it certainly wasn't cringe-worthy like I'd been expecting
Ranking: 5.1Bolsters - Disturbed / Who Taught You How To Hate
Draiman doesn't distract from the tune, but there's no range in his delivery which makes the vocal aspect of this kind of music just 'ok'. Multiple listens helped this out, and while his vocal range was rather limited, it kinda grew on me.
Ranking: 5.2TAC - Crimson Wind / The Storm
This should’vd be right in the jingle wheelhouse… but something seemed a couple of degrees off. The intro started strong, but then, the rest of it fell a little flat (that repeating galloping riff got a little annoying after a while). Italian power metal can be hit or miss with me. This didn't miss, but it certainly didn't hit either - call it an infield single; just sounded kinda ordinary - though ordinary for a style and genre of music that does highly appeal to me lands you in the middle of the pack.
Ranking: 5.3Indiscipline - Billy Joel / Prelude/Angry Young Man
Nothing bad about it, I just wasn't wow’d. Upbeat, that's for sure. This is absolutely great song-writing… long gone are the days of perfecting the craft with a blend of excellence in musical and lyrical writing. That said, I enjoyed the hell out of this, nothing was bad about it, but I just wasn't wow'd enough to rank this any higher. Still, your song selection is improving with every round, even though the ranking isn't budging much.
Ranking: 6.1woflking - King Diamond* / At The Graves
Vocals were all over the place- bot not necessarily in a bad way. I can dig screamy. Music was quite excellent, but on the whole it sounded kinda choppy and disconnected to these ears.
Ranking: 6.2Train - Earthless / Come On (Let the Good Times Roll)
Not sure what I can say right now that won't outright giveaway whose submission this is - a Jimi Hendrix cover. It's a helluva solo, but Jimi just has a certain swagger in his sound that is often imitated, but never duplicated. This is like watching Demolition, but I can't stop thinking about Animal and Hawk (jj knows what I'm sayin); or listening to the Working Man tribute to Rush (eg, James Labrie singing Red Barchetta)... it's really good, but I'd rather be listening to the original. Very nice cover/tribute to him none-the-less.
Ranking: 7.1Stadler - Black Sabbath / Psychophopia
The first few listens were not so good - because I accidentally was listening to a live version of this. It sounded like a bootleg, and was awful. Getting the actual track certainly redeemed it a little, but it's fairly standard metal, imo… and Tony Martin just doesn't float my boat.
Ranking: 7.2Lowdz - Day Six / Castel Gandolfo
It improved a bit with a few more spins, but not a ton. I can hear all the elements that *should* appeal to me, but (like TAC’s) it’s just a few degrees off. Not sure what it is about Day Six, but they just don’t click for some reason.
Ranking: 8Parama - East of the Wall / Precious Memories
It just didn't have much that grabbed my attention. As I've said about many other songs, there was nothing wrong with this, but given how much music I have sampled over my life, I've come to the point where I need something to grab my attention or I just move on. There’s too much fantastic music out there for me to invest time to try and like ‘good’ music.
Ranking: 9Elite - Semistereo / The Search
Man this was a long 10 minutes. I was always taught if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all. Sorry dude, I got nothing else to say.
Ranking: 10Standings:
Evermind*: 4+3+1=8
jjrock88**: 4+2+4=10
Kattoelox: 1+7+4=12
TAC: 2+5+5=12
lonestar*: 2+5+5=12
wolfking*: 2+4+6=12
Bolsters: 5+4+5=14
kingshmegland: 4+9+1=14
Lowdz: 6+1+8=15
Lethean*: 4+8+4=16
Puppies_On_Acid: 8+8+3=19
Indiscipline**: 6+7+6=19
Stadler: 7+6+7=20
Parama: 9+6+9=24
Train of Naught: 9+10+7=26
Elite: 10+7+10=27
* - one point improvement
** - two point improvement
Elite... you get to handicap King, Evermind, or Puppies. I'm not going to award anyone the 'immunity idol', since you already had the tables turned on you for Round 2. I'll show some mercy.
FWIW, I'm shocked as hell that 5 of the top 7 tunes weren't exactly Metal in nature.
Topic: jingle.boy's 4th roulette: That's all she wrote folks - another happy ending (Read 97345 times)