I lied. Here's the first half, with some due help from throwback early nineties TV.
Mullet Round Results, 1 of 2:
:
DestinyOfChaos - The One Trick Ponies:Iced Earth – Dante's Inferno:Couch Impression: “What If the Four Horsemen replaced dead Cliff with alive Charles Manson?”
Time Travel Snippet: My mother would have chased me out of the house, wielding crucifix and garlic.
Peaks: There's some excellent technical thrashy riffing, almost And Justice for All's ideal natural evolution. Rythm guitar work is constantly stellar.
Valleys: I like evil music, not too much music trying hard to be evil. The occasional well measured maleficent interval could work wonders, while sixteen straight minutes of it neuter the sense of menace and open the door to unvoluntary comedy. I would like to eradicate growls, keyboards and chants from the whole tune and see what happens.
Vote: 5.8 - Roseanne
romdrums - Seedy Rom and The Hard Drives:Marillion – Beyond You:Couch Impression: “What If Ian Curtis found solace in mild prog?”
Time Travel Snippet: Now I know why I stopped researching their repertoire after a precise date.
Peaks: Trevawas is a hero, giving life and purpose to a plodding golem. Production is state-of-the-art, considering the publishing year. Fading out is an excellent songwriting choice for this tune, maybe the only one.
Valleys: It's atmosphere for atmosphere's sake, featuring musical ideas worth a pedestrian Ultravox neo-romantic tune. The more Hogarth tries to push emotions, the more he sounds contrived to these Fish-biased ears. Where was my man Rothery in all of this?
Vote: 6.0 – Saved by the Bell
Shadow Ninja 2.0 - Wayward Vagabonds:Red House Painters – Katy Song:Couch Impression: “What If Lou Reed met Laurie Anderson before meeting the White Duke?”
Time Travel Snippet: This song would have found its way to my house only via my sister.
Peaks: Nice tremolo work all around. When it gets spacey around minute four (but before it gets too Radioheady), it channels everything I like in The Moody Blues.
Valleys: It spends too much time ripping off Walk on the Wild Side, but whereas the original had a naughty lively soul, this one is seriously hemorraging life. I'm a picky bastard with vocals, and I must honestly state that – albeit I can acknowledge someone may like it – this is not singing, as far as I'm concerned.
Vote: 6.3 – Full House
Kattelox - The Rainbow Warriors:Aliotta Jeremiah Haynes – Lake Shore Drive:Couch Impression: “What If Baby Groot weren't so damn cute and I could focus on the song better?”
Time Travel Snippet: My parents were too distant, geographically and culturally, to even know this.
Peaks: Nice fun foot-tapping device and tasty piano work. The chorus and the violin solo make me think of Dylan's Stuck in a Mobile and Hurricane, respectively. I also admire the ability to provide excitement without “raising your voice”.
Valleys: Folk music needs ears with the same folk identity to be fully appreciated, and mine belong to many but different folk traditions. If you can't work that magic marriage, you can still enjoy sheer musical quality, but evocative power goes totally lost.
Vote: 6.5 – Family Matters
lonestar - Team Fuck Canada:Grateful Dead – Jack Straw:Couch Impression: “What If every band were so tight live and we didn't need to buy studio albums anymore?”
Time Travel Snippet: This was about being in a specific place and culture at the right time. My father just wasn't there.
Peaks: Beautiful vocal harmonies. I've rarely heard such tightness and dynamics control in a live recording. Also, the orchestration sounds incredibly refined: a job either by top level professionals or trascendent jammers. Or both, who knows. What I like here are the same intangibles I like in early Steely Dan, and that's one of my Top 20 acts ever.
Valleys: Partially, the same considerations expressed for Katt. I will add I really can't access this act's unique mystique, and I feel this song will never be more than “okay” without that step.
Vote: 6.5 – Married … with Children
Stadler - The Hartford Walers:Squeeze – Up the Junction:Couch Impression: “What If Ken Loach ghost-wrote lyrics for the Fab Four?”
Time Travel Snippet: My parents were already too regretful about having kids, wouldn't have appreciated this.
Peaks: I don't give lyrics a lot of weight, unless they're focking brilliant, and I mean “Gotta be good-looking 'cause it's so hard to see” brilliant. Pre-Rubber Soul Beatles irriverent fun principles married with heavy pounding rythm. Nice subtle work changing every verse's orchestration accordingly to the plot. The Weezer guys owe everything to this act.
Valleys: Why not playing the same verse-mutation trick on some choruses? It feels a bit rushed and thrown away without them. The Lennon vocal channeling feels almost like a gentle mockery this time.
Vote: 6.8 – Mad About You
Parama - Six Roaming Owls:Porcupine Tree – The Moon Touches Your Shoulder:Couch Impression: “What If the Madcap were allowed a wee less acid?”
Time Travel Snippet: Nobody knew about this where I lived, but I don't feel I've missed on a seminal act.
Peaks: It takes a lot of balls to play on Pink Floyd's ground (even though Camel sounds like a better point of reference here and there), but they display the same innate ability to understand times and spaces. There is not one nanosecond on this tune an audiophile can't enjoy, and – as DT music should be sold in musical instruments stores – this tune should be sold in mixing engineering tech stores. I love the surprising riff towards the end.
Valleys: After a bunch of listens, vocals miracolously stop being annoying, but the real crime here is the lack of good vocal lines. Floyds could write them, their genius engineer couldn't. Wilson, the new Parsons?
Vote: 7.0 – The X-Files
Sacul - Hangmanen Addicts:Kyuss – Gardenia:Couch Impression: “What If Tony Iommi were a teenager in '89 Seattle?”
Time Travel Snippet: A bunch of home-made bamboo bong sessions would have featured this.
Peaks: Wildly uncomprmisingly heavy as fock, with a main riff I'm instantly forbidden to listen to while driving my beloved Alfa Romeo for obvious safety reasons. Before losing itself inside a senseless mid section, it could really represent for 90's kids what early Black Sabbath represented for my dad's generation. Despite despising his following works, I'm loving Josh Homme's tone and attitude here.
Valleys: Why the fock did you try to be Whole Lotta Love in that middle section? That's not your schtick. If you have decided to keep you groove going and get jammy, please jam! Can't recall dates, but either they owe Beastie Boys a lot of money in Sabotage royalties, or it's the other way around.
Vote: 7.0 - Frasier
Topic: Indiscipline's Roulette v. The Dirty Aftermath (Read 125501 times)
