Second PlaceTACThe Sixth Commandment (The Final Day)
Genres - Melodic Death Metal, Metalcore, Power Metal, Progressive Metal
Countries of Origin - Australia, Canada, Finland, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, SwedenFirst Impression - This flows surprisingly well and is fairly diverse to boot (considering the genres involved)Tracklist1. Let It Be Written - You Shall Not Murder
2. Karnya - Flooding Blood
3. Branch Arterial - My Curse
4. Scarlet Host - Altered State Of Denial
5. Euphoreon - Mirrors
6. Fractal Cypher - Idle Words
7. Frosttide - Final Hour (Instrumental)
8. Golden Resurrection - God's Mercy
9. Absolute Priority - Tragic Reconciliation
10. Mask Of Prospero - This Road Leads To Desolation
11. Lost Domain - ...In The Waiting Room Of Death
12. Before The Dawn - DeliveranceSo the songs on this album are all so good, I don't even really want to talk about the story. Although the story is pretty good too, so I will give a few of my thoughts. First of all beginning and ending the album with instrumentals works really well here. And using an instrumental to begin the second half works well as a transition between the lead up to this man's execution and then his final hour. In the end I think the man found peace and accepted his fate, at least that's my interpretation.
On to the songs themselves. First off you have the band Let It Be Written, which I had never heard of before and I couldn't find much info on them either. Nothing on Metal Archives or RYM and basically nothing on Last.fm. No matter, this is a pretty cracking way to open the album. Great riffs, a great solo, and a song title fitting for the concept of the album. Flooding Blood is a great song for showing how broken this man is, his internal thoughts and the lead up to the murder. The music is a fantastic blend of Power and Progressive Metal with great melodic solos and some fantastic singing (he has great range and lots of styles at his disposal). Then a keyboard solo from what sounds like Falling Into Infinity era (or I guess really any era) Derek Sherinian (I looked, it's not him). There are a lot of obvious Dream Theaterisms in this song too, but they all work for me. My Curse from Branch Arterial is another awesome song. This is another band where I could find almost no info. This song reminds me a lot of The Great Discord's first album, which is a good thing. The vocals are very similar, as is the music. Scarlet Host's Altered State of Denial is more melodic Prog Metal. This is a really good song, but the vocals feel slightly buried in the mix. Actually the overall production of the song is kind of weak (I know, I'm extremely anal about these things). With better production this would easily be on par with the Karnya song. Mirrors on the other hand is quite awesome. That lead guitar melody is really cool (it reminds me of something Joe Satriani would do) and the symphonic keyboards add a lot of atmosphere to the song. The background choir vocals are nice too. The lead vocals are a little overbearing at times, but not enough to ruin the enjoyment of the song. Idle Words started out as the weakest song on the album for me, but it has since grown on me. I didn't like the djentyness of it mixed with the other songs of the album at first, but it doesn't really bother me anymore because there is a lot more to this song. I especially like the second half with the jazzy stuff. The lyrics are also really fitting for the concept. I love the instrumental take of Final Hour. I listened to the other version out of curiosity and I think it was wise to use the instrumental version. It has this grandiose epicness to it. It reminds me of Equilibrium's Mana, but not quite as epic or nearly as long, but there's still some great keyboards and melodies and several movements it goes through. God's Mercy was a great choice for representing the priest visiting this man on death row. And while I believe this is my least favorite song on the album (vocals don't grab me and the majority of the music is fairly pedestrian), it still serves it's purpose to drive the album forward. Plus it has a cool Yngwie-esque guitar solo in the back half. Tragic Reconciliation is yet another good Prog metal song. This time reminding me of Queensryche in places and a little bit of Rush (mostly in the phrasing in the guitar solos). To me This Road Leads to Desolation and In the Waiting Room of Death work well hand in hand. This was a great way to close out the album along with Deliverance. The first two definitely have this sense of panic, dread, acceptance, fear, regret, and whole slew of other emotions as the main character is lead to the figurative gallows. They are both great songs, but I think the Lost Domain song is my favorite on the album. It definitely tugs at your emotions. The keyboards/pianos in the beginning are perfect. Both styles of vocals are also very welcome here. Fantastic choice for the end of the story for our main character. Deliverance is a good way to end, signifying the man drifting off to sleep in death.....and the end.......or is it....?
Album Score - 17.5/20This album flows really well, not just in the transitions between songs, but lyrical cohesiveness, musically, and even vocally. It really sounds like someone like Arjen Lucassen or Devin Townsend could have put something like this together in to a concept album with a whole bunch of guest vocalists.
Flow Score - 9.5/10
Split bonus for Album Title - .5
Total Score - 27.5
AND THE WINNER! (to no ones surprise)
AriichThe Fall and the Flood
Genres - Alternative Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Progressive Metal, Progressive Rock
Countries of Origin - Australia, Sweden, United StatesFirst Impression - Great story telling and music that is both fitting and works well as a wholeTracklist1. Vangough - Thy Flesh Consumed
2. Dream the Electric Sleep - Black Wind
3. In Flames - Bullet Ride
4. Soilwork - The Ride Majestic
5. Novallo - Give Gravity a Choice
6. Vangough - Infestation
7. Soilwork - Death in General
8. In Flames - Only For the Weak
9. Dream the Electric Sleep - Culling the Herd
10. Soilwork - The Ride Majestic (Aspire Angelic)
11. Twelve Foot Ninja - Deluge
12. In Flames - Swim
13. Vangough - Between the MadnessThis is quite the ambitious undertaking. A lot of thought went in to this, it seems. You even used the different bands as different characters in the story you constructed. I like that. The story isn't exactly original, but it is told a bit differently than the traditional "Ruthless new disease nearly wipes out mankind" story. Starting in order of the tracklist, the first character we are introduced to is The Disease (Vangough). The song titles alone for the Vangough songs work well to tell the story of the disease. From where it begins (even though Thy Flesh Consumed and Between the Madness are instrumental), it has this sinister vibe to all their tracks. It even takes on a bit of a sentient quality in Infestation. Almost like it's taunting humanity, trying to take control or exterminate for it's own nefarious purposes. The next character we are introduced to is The Dying (Dream the Electric Sleep). This is one of infected and is suffering and he refers to the disease as The Black Wind. This poor sod (and others infected) is opposed by the next character The Righteous (In Flames), who believe the ones infected only have themselves to blame for not being pure, believing the infected to be evil and cowards for not becoming like the righteous and they eventually convince the Dying that they are right. The Righteous believe themselves to be impervious to the disease (or are they just lucky?). Next we have the Scientist (Soilwork), who thinks he has a cure, but it requires killing all those who are already infected, but he is conflicted on this solution because of the moral implications. Then you have The Hopeful (Novallo), who thinks that mankind doesn't need to resort to a purge to save themselves. Long story short, after humanity tries unsuccessfully to eradicate the disease, they finally resort to the purge, which introduces us to the last character, The Storm (Twelve Foot Ninja) which does exactly that, purges all who are infected. This eradicates the disease but mankind is left decimated and under the rule of The Righteous.....Kind of a depressing ending, even though they got rid of the disease.
So the music here mostly fits really well. The Vangough songs aren't my favorites musically, but they work within the context of the album as a whole. Thy Flesh Consumed being my least favorite of the Vangough tracks, although it works well to convey the sinister nature of the disease. That instrumental break in Infestation is really cool. The Dream the Electric Sleep tracks are both really good, especially Black Wind. The music is fantastic and the emotional quality of the vocals/lyrics fit really well with the story. I really like the In Flames and Soilwork tracks, being the style of Melodic Death Metal that I gravitate towards most. The In Flames tracks being used as The Righteous, these holy ones or priests, reminds me a bit of Rush's 2112, where when the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx come in and Geddy basically screams their vocal lines. It shows how brash and loud these "religious" figures are and how oppressive they are to those they believe to be beneath them or insignificant. Not sure if that's what you were going for, but that's what I got out of it. The Soilwork track Death In General has a really cool intro and I've always liked Bjorn Strid's clean vocals. The Novallo track isn't the most interesting here, but it works well story-wise, and it isn't a bad track. The only track that I actually disliked was the Twelve Foot Ninja song. This song to me was kind of bland and the vocals were not good (they reminded me too much of typical radio rock). Musically it just did nothing for me. I like the way this album ends with Swim and Between the Madness. These two songs are a great conclusion to a really good concept album.
Album Score - 15.9/20You executed the flow of this album almost perfectly. I particularly liked how you added in these spoken word news clips giving updates of what the disease was doing to the world at large. This helped immensely with the flow of not only the story, but the album as a whole. The way you got the tracks to flow from one to the next was also done superbly. The various bands also, mostly, worked well together. The only 2 outliers being Novallo and Twelve Foot Ninja.
Flow Score - 9/10
Total Score - 24.9
Ariich - 9.5, 7, 7.8, 8, 20.2, 9.7, 9.8, 7.9, 18.5, 24.9 = 123.3
TAC - 7.6, 8, 9.1, 8.8, 19.5, 9, 7.1, 9.9, 14, 27.5 = 120.5
Parama - 9.1, 8.7, 6.7, 8.9, 17.7, 8.5, 9, 4.8, 17.6, 28.8 = 119.8
Elite - 7.8, 7.4, 8.3, 9, 16.2, 9.5, 8.8, 8, 18.4, 24.7 = 118.1
Romdrums - 7.7, 8.5, 8.7, 9.5, 20.1, 8.7, 7, 7, 17, 22.7 = 116.9
Lethean - 6.8, 7.8, 6.6, 6.8, 21.7, 8.5, 8.5, 7, 17.2, 23.3 = 114.2
Kattelox - 9, 9, 9, 6.8, 15.5, 5.5, 9.6, 9.5, 16.7 = 90.6
Jingle - 8.3, 6, 8, 7.7, 19.9, 7.2, 7, 9.3, 15.9 = 89.3
Evermind - 8.2, 7.5, 8.5, 6, 21.5, 9.4 = 61.1
Sacul - 8.5, 8.5, 5.9, 8.4, 15.4 = 46.7
Indiscipline - 7.5, 8, 5.8, 7, 18.1 = 46.4
Stadler - 6.4, 7, 6, 6.5, 18.1 = 44
Shadow Ninja - 5.5
Lordcost - 4.5