OK, you will get 4 randomly chosen writeups now and then the rest tomorrow and/or Sunday.
Round 3 Results
Solefald - Norrøn livskunstLethean
Avant-Garde Metal
NorwayFirst Impression - This album is just silly This album is nuts. At first it started out all serious with a great folky metal song with great use of various vocal styles. Then the title track comes in with some pretty intense black metal vocals. I was expecting it, considering the band, I was just lulled in to a false sense of security with the relative lightness of the opening song. The use of the black metal vocals is used well though.
Tittentattenteksti is where the album goes off the rails a bit (a lot). The clean vocals are fine, but what are those harsh vocals? It's either The Chipmunks trying to do black metal vocals or a witch being boiled in oil.... It made me laugh really. I'm sure there's a good song here somewhere, but I couldn't stop laughing long enough to find it. Blackabilly-Stridsljod is just weird. Is this hillbilly black metal? Is this what those guys from Duck Dynasty would listen to if they were in to metal? I guess with a song name like Blackabilly I should have expected this. There are short bursts of brilliance in this song, just not enough to make it more enjoyable than weird.
Now Eukalyptustreet is where the album really shifts gears. This is something entirely different from everything that preceded it and I like it, a lot! It has this jazzy noire sound with this sexy saxophone sprinkled throughout. There's some great use of varying vocal styles to set the different moods of the song and some nice piano to accompany the sax. The rest of the album doesn't really reach the same levels of brilliance of this song, but there are some highlights. For instance, the third part of their Icelandic Odyssey, which is much more familiar to me. About 10 years ago I used to listen to a quite a bit of Solefald with their Red for Fire and Black for Death albums, which are the first 2 parts of their Icelandic Odyssey. I hadn't listened to those albums in quite a few years, but this song brought back some memories of those albums.
Overall this album is quite the mixed bag. There are parts that are fantastically brilliant and parts that made me laugh, and parts that were more just un-listenable.
6.6/10
The Receiving End of Sirens - The Earth Sings Mi Fa MiParama
Alternative Rock
United States(bonus point band)
First Impression - Interesting mixture of various styles in a relatively basic frameworkI am of course somewhat familiar with TREoS, being the band where Casey Crescenzo got his start before leaving to form The Dear Hunter. I only ever listened to their debut album though. Mostly because my wife told me that this album wasn't anywhere close to as good. I wouldn't say it's not as good though (I actually like it slightly more), but it is a bit different stylistically. I'm not sure if the band went in this direction because Casey Crescenzo left or if Casey Crescenzo left because of the direction the band wanted to go. Which is interesting to me, because Casey would go on to explore a lot of the sounds and styles that are present on this album. Although to me Casey has done a better job when exploring these styles in The Dear Hunter. The album definitely isn't bad though, but it does get a little long winded, both in length of the album and length of some of the songs and the vocals tend to lean more towards the standard emo style than I would like. They seem to make the most of the shorter songs. For example, Saturnus is a really really good song clocking in at less than 4 minutes with great hooks, guitar leads, and vocal melodies that aren't too emo. They seem to get in their own way with some of the longer songs. Like The Salesman, The Husband, The Lover; it gets too repetitive. This is also a problem on Wanderers and Pale Blue Dot, but to a lesser extent. The Heir of Empty Breath is really the only longer song that works 100% for me. The only other issue I have with the album
This album has definitely benefited and grown on me with more listens. It has a lot of layers to the music that isn't immediately easy to pick out. It has the depth that I like in music. I could see it growing on me more in the future possibly. If 8-10 minutes were cut from the album and a few of the songs were reworked this could be a 9/10 album, but as is, not so much. Unfortunately I will have to deny you of your bonus points. Nice effort though.
7.7/10 (-1) = 6.7/10 Total Score
Lost in Thought - Opus AriseJingle
Progressive Metal
WalesFirst Impression - This is just Vanden Plas with Derek Sherinian on keyboards in disguise, right?So this is a band consisting of Andy Kuntz's brother Dusty Kuntz on vocals, Jeff Loomis' Evil Twin on guitar, Mike Portnoy's younger cousin from the UK on drums, some guy trying to channel Geddy Lee and the bassist from Korn on Bass, and a guy that is obviously Derek Sherinian on keys. Did I get that all right?
Anyway, this band really isn't afraid to wear their influences on their sleeves proudly. They aren't blatantly copying the bands they are emulating and do have their own sound, so it's not a problem. I Just cant help but notice the obvious Vanden Plas and Derek Sherinian Influences. The vocalist sounds almost exactly like Andy Kuntz at times. I also here bits of Empty Tremor occasionally. The music is mostly good. Lots of cool things to pick out. Like that really cool section about halfway through Blood Red Diamond starting around 2:50 with that really growly/dirty bass tone and the double bass. I Really like the bass tone and how it's mixed in the music throughout the album, but it can get a little repetitive in some songs. The first 4 songs are all pretty bitchin, as well as the last 2. The problems arise with New Times Awaken. It's poorly constructed. The melodies don't work, the vocal lines are awkward, it's disjointed. I just don't like it and it feels super out of place. Then the beginning of Delusional Abyss almost sounds like a remixed version of New Times Awaken, I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn't listening to the same song again. Fortunately it changed up after a bit. The song actually gets really good at about the halfway point. It's just the first half of it didn't sit well with me. The last track Assimulate, Destroy is quite a bit different from the rest of the album. I quite like it, especially to close out the album. It actually feels like a finisher.
This album only has a couple of bad spots. Overall its a solid Progressive Metal release with lots of familiarity to latch on to without being a copycat band.
8/10
Agrimonia - AwakenTAC
Atmospheric Sludge Metal
SwedenFirst Impression - This album has me excited like the first time I heard Moonsorrow. I feel like this is going to be a huge grower.Not an album I ever would have expected TAC to send me in a roulette. But it seems TAC is paying really close attention to my tastes and music I have been gravitating to lately. This is another in the Atmospheric metal arena with heavy spacey riffs and awesome female vocals/screams/growls. Very similar in style to stuff like Obscure Sphinx, Dreadnought, and Oathbreaker. This though seems to be way more about the incredible and hypnotic guitar riffs that continually drive the music forward. The opening track is riddled with awesome riffs. Then Astray is moved from section to section with what sounds like late nineties post grunge riffs in an early Deafheaven-like atmospheric metal structure. If that sounds weird to you, it is, but it really works. I kept thinking I'd heard similar riffing before, but I couldn't pinpoint the metal band that these riffs were seemingly inspired by. Then it hit me, these aren't metal riffs, these are riffs similar to what bands like Dishwalla, Our Lady Peace, and Candlebox used in their heyday. I digress though, because it's really towards the middle of this song where it gets really good. The rest of the album follows a lot of the same structure, but is varied enough to not become repetitive. Plus there are a lot of subtle nuances throughout the album that you don't immediately pick up on in the first couple listens. This is where the Moonsorrow similarity comes in. These two bands don't really sound alike, but the music of both is very layered with lots of cool little flares to pick out everywhere. I could see me coming back to this album again and again. I'm curious if this is an album you actually really like or if it's something you sent because you knew it would appeal to my tastes or both. Either way it gets high praise and a high score from me!
9.1/10