Evermind's Third Roulette v. Final Round Results

[senecadawg2]

I like how you keep sticking to your guns in each round. Unfortunately, this isn’t nearly as good as your previous entry.

Nope, nope, nope. Fuck this song.

It’s fascinating how the intensity level here is turned from about two or three to a freaking eleven in a couple of seconds. I dig this.

Holy shit, this is [/i]powerful. I want to buy the album right now.

Either way, it's all my fault.

[Indiscipline]

"Catchy" if I'm lucky, "Dull" if I'm not.

Interestingly, the "intensity level from 2 to 11" could technically apply to the tune's first 30 seconds.

[jingle.boy]

I got a feeling you really don't like the gimmick of the grade school teacher.

[Evermind]

Results in ~22 hours, folks. Sorry for the slight delay.

[senecadawg2]

No Sorry required. The pace has been great 

[jingle.boy]

[Indiscipline]

Results in ~22 hours, folks. Sorry for the slight delay.

It's alright, Ev. We've all spent a couple of nights in jail.

[jingle.boy]

Results in ~22 hours, folks. Sorry for the slight delay.

It's alright, Ev. We've all spent a couple of nights in jail.

Smooth talkers can get out before sunrise.

[Indiscipline]

Results in ~22 hours, folks. Sorry for the slight delay.

It's alright, Ev. We've all spent a couple of nights in jail.

Smooth talkers can get out before sunrise.

Yup, and they walk funny until sunset.

[Evermind]

Results in ~22 hours, folks. Sorry for the slight delay.

It's alright, Ev. We've all spent a couple of nights in jail.

This round was probably the most consistent one I suppose, except a few duds here and there, so the scores are a bit cluttered compared to the previous rounds, but there's nothing I can really do with that. Here you go:

Round 5 Results:

senecadawg2: The Protomen – The State vs. Thomas Light

First impression: Holy shit, this is powerful. I want to buy the album right now.

Well, as a fan of concept albums, I must admit I’ve never heard of this band. Neither have I heard of the singer, and his vocal delivery on this particular song is nothing short of outstanding. I knew this song was special when he woke me up with his incredible singing during my very first listen on my morning commute.

One problem with this song is that it’s clearly from a concept album, and it kind of lacks structure—but instead it substitutes it with a strong storytelling and soulful delivery. The addition of female vocals in the pivotal parts of the song is indeed brilliant, and I, like you, love the ambiguous ending. And I just can’t avoid mentioning how freaking great the singer is during these last lines. This ending is by far the most memorable thing in this round.

I don’t know anything about this album, but I want to buy it just because how great this one act of the story was. The song isn’t perfect—although it’s probably my favourite from this round—but the storytelling here is exceptional, in my opinion. Therefore, here’s your half a point for your Wordsmith ability.

This album is on my shortlist now, too.

8/10 + 0.5 for the Wordsmith ability

Luoto: Barren Earth: Dysphoria

First impression: I like how you keep sticking to your guns in each round. Unfortunately, this isn’t nearly as good as your previous entry.

Contrary to the first impression, this ended up being a grower. And I mean, it’s still not as good as your previous entry, but it’s still good enough.

See, on my first listen I thought there were too many growl passages, but as I listened to this song again and again, I realized that it’s mostly the chorus, and, well, the first verse. But the nature and the sound of growls here are so overwhelming that it’s easy to make this mistake. I would say, this kind of growls sounds like an equivalent of a chocolate cake sound for me, the one JP has been talking about.

So anyway, as this song continued to unfold for me, I realized the growls were mostly on the chorus—and the chorus here was actually fairly good. As a fan of Insomnium, I can say that one of my favourite things in growly passages is where the singer doesn’t just hit this one note over and over, but where you can actually perceive how he goes from one note to another, and this chorus nails it, especially with the guitar passages beneath it. This took my appreciation of this song up a notch. So did the clean parts, which are not that impressive in the verses—though still fitting, and doing a good job to build up the whole thing to this explosive chorus—but are incredible during this quiet break of which I wish the band explored more.

As the time went on, I liked this song more and more.

8/10

TAC: Waysted – Night of the Wolf

First impression: It’s fascinating how the intensity level here is turned from about two or three to a freaking eleven in a couple of seconds. I dig this.

Well, this is quite good. Nothing in this round was close to fantastic, but I had three songs that fit the theme competing for the bonus point, and it wasn’t easy to decide, but I’m confident now that this one is the one that impressed me the most.

I love the quiet start with the fabulous electric guitar parts, and then the singer just screams his throat out on the title line delivery. The faster parts are all on point, and the guitar solo in the middle is also quite fitting and interesting enough. It also doesn’t linger and gives you just enough taste of all the good parts without overplaying and repeating them too much—I think this unexpected THE NIGHT OF THE WOLF scream only happens like thrice, and I would’ve expected them to abuse the hell out of it, because it’s such a cool part. After three tries, you finally get your bonus point—almost literally tearing it out of Puppies hands, because for the first few listens, Riding the Storm held the crown of the best fogey aka pre-93 song.

8/10 + 1 for winning the themed round

Puppies_On_Acid: Running Wild – Riding the Storm

First impression: This is exactly the reason I decided to do this round’s theme. This song rocks!

Bad news: this one was in the lead for the bonus points, and only during the last few listens did it lose to TAC’s wonderful rocker of a song. Good news: this one is still very good, it still rocks, and it’s much, much better than the Crimson Glory song you sent me.

This reminds of me some modern power metal bands like Powerwolf, which aren’t too big on original compositions, but they just write these catchy, predictable verses and choruses and the people love it. And hell, does it work here. This song is very simple, and it’s very accessible, and I can’t help but headbang and sing along to it. I think the biggest problem here is its length… were it around 4:00 or 4:30, I think this would’ve won over Waystead. As of now though, I honestly enjoyed this a lot, and I will check it out, but sadly, the bonus point goes to another player. Good song though!

7.5/10

wolfking: Blessed by a Broken Heart – Shut Up and Rock

First impression: Not exactly what I was expecting, a solid tune. This song is probably a lot of fun in a live setting.

Okay, first things first, I’ve somehow broken the B key on my laptop and it’s a fucking pain in the ass to type this stupid band’s name each time.

I suppose I was somehow influenced by Born with a Broken Heart song by Primal Fear (stupid B key, I hate everything as I type this, at least it’s not Bridal Bear or something, man), so I believed this was strictly power metal or hard rock, and instead this is a peculiar mix of that with some freaking growls which brings it into a melodic death metal territory I guess? This is way more like Scar Symmetry than Primal Fear, that’s for sure, except the chorus is way more like Primal Fear—also this gimmicky “hey hey hey!” should be extremely fun to sing live. Sometimes I hate those obvious crowd hooks, but I feel like this time it works fine.

I like how this song walks the fine line between generic and innovative, and ends up being interesting enough to hold my attention. This is not great, but this is indeed quite good.

7.5/10

Indiscipline: Skid Row – 18 and Life

First impression: I’m not exactly a fan of this, but I can’t deny this song is catchy beyond belief. I’ve spent the past few days humming this damn chorus.

A few listens after, you know what? I’m quite a fan of this.

I honestly don’t remember much of I Remember You, the song that Chad shared with me three or four years ago, and I will probably revisit it after this one. I found this song quite catchy but nothing special on my first listen, and then it kept growing and growing on me, just because of how simple and yet well-written it is. The small touches like the singer going into the higher register in pivotal moments enhanced this song even further, and soon I found it to be one of my three favourites among the fogey, aka pre-1993, songs, and I realized that I was indeed enjoying it like it’s ’89.

I love how you and a few of the other players are sticking to the themes so far, and because of that I’m discovering some bands I’ve either wasn’t interested enough in, or just simply the bands I’ve never heard of. This isn’t the best of the round, but it was close.

7.5/10

Tyrias: Cloud Cult – There’s So Much Energy in Us

First impression: It sounds like this band could’ve really benefitted from having a better singer.

This is a beautiful progressive rock piece, with a very appropriate and tasteful usage of strings, and for one moment I even thought it was perhaps from pre-1993, but apparently nope, it’s from this decade. It has a great sense of setting the atmosphere, and it has a fabulous payoff with the one-line chorus. It also does a great job utilizing a choir in the middle section, it does a fantastic job with keyboard sounds, and once again those strings, they’re just out of this world.

Which brings me to one very simple question: why couldn’t they find a singer than can do a better job on this song? He doesn’t ruin this song for me per se, but he gets dangerously close to this territory, bringing this one from potential 8.5 or 9 to a mere 7. The instrumentals here are on point, and the singer sounds like he just woke up and had to record his section at 7 A.M. without his usual morning coffee. I can imagine his disheveled hair as he sleepily walks from his bed right to the recording studio in the next room.

Also this song has this rhyme which I still can’t decide if it’s brilliant or if it’s a huge stretch, “and now the crew is cold, and drunk on chemi-cals”. Leaning towards a stretch, though.

7/10

Stadler: The Allman Brothers Band – Nobody Knows

First impression: It doesn’t feel like there are enough ideas to warrant the song length, but this is pretty good otherwise.

The quality of your submissions has dropped since the stellar first round, in my opinion, but you seem to slowly find your ground back again. This is very solid, and in fact, there’s absolutely nothing I dislike in this song—but there are some parts I’m ambivalent about, and the long instrumental section loses me at some point. And the biggest problem of this song is that the payoff doesn’t feel that big for its length, the whopping eleven minutes, no less.

But this is enjoyable, this song has nice groove, fitting vocals, excellent guitar work beneath them and in the solos. Also love the Hammond here and there. Were the song a bit shorter—you mentioned in your PM you thought it was around 8 minutes—I’m pretty sure it would’ve warranted a higher score. Still, you’re on a right track.

6.5/10

Sacul: Giles Corey – Blackest Bile

First impression: Sounds like Steven Wilson-lite, not bad.

First of all, this is indeed quite depressing, but I’ve got to say that Nelson’s song slightly edges this one out in the competition for the additional SW Wave points, because of sheer magnitude that one has.

This is an okay listen, although I would’ve appreciated the vocals to be a bit more upfront in the mix, because the acoustic guitar here is quite loud compared to them, and it gets even more ridiculous when the song gets into the intense more around 3:20. I also would’ve appreciated the vocal melodies to be a bit more well thought-out, I guess—one of the things I really like Steven Wilson’s music for—and perhaps a bit less echo on his voice? This was alright, but nothing special really.

5.5/10

Kattelox: Benny Goodman – Sing Sing Sing

First impression: So I was fairly sure I’ve heard parts of this song before, and turns out it’s used in a famous Russian intellectual show which I used to watch as a child. This brings back a few memories, I’m not going to lie.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have allowed this, because the first minute or so is very familiar to me. Then it gets into a wilder territory, and it’s interesting enough, but I’ll be honest here—it kinda feels like a soundtrack to something. Be that a famous Russian intellectual show or the Benny Hill show or whatever, this piece screams “soundtrack” for me, perhaps because I’ve also heard it elsewhere. I’m definitely familiar with the main theme of this song.

And besides, this is not quite my kind of thing, too. It’s decent, it’s well-written, it’s good enough to be actually used in a couple of TV shows and wherever, but I’ll take a rock song over this anytime. I know, I know, I’m close-minded, but on the scale of how much I enjoyed this overall, this is barely enough to pass the “average” marker.

5.5/10

LordCost: Cardiacs – Day is Gone

First impression: I watched the video, and then I saw your comment telling me not to watch the video. Oh well.

I will tell you this: it was a good idea to send a safer song along with a risky one, because Anything I Can’t Eat was pretty close to The Hirsch Effekt territory, score-wise. This is safer, and this is not too bad, especially if you don’t watch the video, but judging from these two songs, I just don’t know what is it about this band that some of the people on DTF like them so. I guess this is how it feels for the folks who dislike Haken.

The good things here are the intro, the instrumental break and the outro. The bad parts are whenever the singer opens his mouth. So I guess this brings it to average, all in all. It sucks to send your favourite bands just to see them being trashed, but hey, such is the nature of roulettes sometimes.

5/10

jingle.boy: Steve Vai – The Audience is Listening

First impression: This was a fun gimmick on a first listen, but I’m two listens in, it’s already irritating, and I’m not looking forward to the subsequent listens at all.

…

This has got to be the most frustrating writeup I’ve had to write during all my three roulettes.

Man, I can see what he was going for here. And I genuinely appreciated the humor on the first listen, especially the moment when he says “turn it down… I mean down like… this?” and cracks the volume is hilarious (the video does it justice). And the part where his grade school teacher tells him he won’t get anywhere with his dreams of being a rock star and all, this was good too, on the first listen at least. And the most frustrating thing is, it’s a good guitar instrumental, and this is coming from a guy who isn’t that fond of guitar instrumentals lately—which makes me wondering why you sent this out of everything you had at your disposal, but still, the guitar instrumental here isn’t the problem. The whole classroom spoken word thing is.

Boy, did all this spoken word parts grate on me on the subsequent listens. I don’t even want to talk about it. This is a good song to listen once, preferably with a video, yeah, and it’s an absolutely terrible song to send in a roulette, as far as I’m concerned. As soon as I’ve heard “now Stevie, now don’t be nervous, honey”, I wanted to skip this. I hoped I just listened to some wrong special edition when I asked you about this on Facebook.

I’m not even sure if you can bounce back from this one, maybe you can, maybe not, but I’ve got to be honest here. This would’ve been a good or at least a serviceable instrumental, but all the spoken bits turn it into something that I don’t want to revisit again ever. This was actively annoying, and unfortunately, the worst song of the round. Can I have more Lords of Black?

3.5/10

[Evermind]

Don't forget there are two more rounds left, and only the Top 8 advances further. However, after that, the previous scores don't matter, it's a simple play-off system. So don't give up, send me your best shots in the next two rounds, and I think everyone, even Katt, still has a chance to make it.

Scoreboard:

Luoto: 42
TAC: 38.5
LordCost: 37.5
Indiscipline: 37
Tyrias: 35.5
wolfking: 34
senecadawg: 33.5
Puppies_On_Acid: 32
Sacul: 32
Stadler: 31.5
jingle.boy: 30.5
Kattelox: 29.5

[Evermind]

Round 6: Open Round w/ optional theme: Songs with lead female vocals

The length limit is 10 minutes unless you have an ability to ignore it, in which case you're free to use it as you wish.

Please try and send for this round in 48 hours from now on.

[Ruba]

Now I got the chorus of 18 and Life playing in my head. 

[The Walrus]

Nah I got no chance. Sending something in a couple hours tho

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I'm curious what you would have rated the Crimson Glory song. I almost just sent it by itself. Boy am I glad I didn't.

I guess I'm going to have to check out that Waysted track.

[The Walrus]

Sent something absolutely beautiful that will lock me into last place for round 7.

[Tyrias]

Fair enough, I agree that the vocals are the weakest part of the song, I'd still give it more like an 8, but I can totally see where you're coming from this round.
There's a really cool live recording of an acoustic show of them that I might send with my PM for my next round, where I fond his vocals fit a bit better with the vibe.

[LordCost]

I think the comparison with Haken it's fitting, because I can understand people who does not like Ross Jennings at all, but I would not feel Haken the same band without him. And Cardiacs without Tim Smith as singer would not be the same too.

I have a track with female vocals but it's still a weird band, maybe I will send something different, I'll think now.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Sent some female vocals. Expecting to get Rule 6'd 

[senecadawg2]

The momentum is gaining! 

I do think you'd find that album a hoot. There are times that it feels a little rough around the edges, but overall its a great story and delivery.

[jingle.boy]

So what you're saying is when I over think things, I suck... and when I just go with my gut because I have no time to really think much about it, I suck worse!   

None-the-less, I see where you're coming from, and knew I was fucked as soon as you sent me that FB message.

Well, at least Kwyjibo knows what's what.

Sent.  Aiming for a 2 this round!

[wolfking]

Man, that Steve Vai song is awesome.

[TAC]

I missed the themes earlier. I would've definitely sent Lost Domain here.  OK will send in a bit..

[jingle.boy]

Man, that Steve Vai song is awesome.

[TAC]

@ Stadler....WAYSTED!!!!

[Kwyjibo]

Man, that Steve Vai song is awesome.

Yes it is, but I can also see Evermind's point, the talking can be annoying sometimes and I wish there was a version without the talking. But then, the talking is kinda part of the song, so I really don't know.

[jingle.boy]

Agreed.  In the context of a roulette, probably not the best choice - and OBVIOUSLY not the right choice for Ev.

[Indiscipline]

So happy 18 and Life did good, mate!

It is indeed one of the catchiest choruses ever, and - Chad be my witness - a whole generation's manifest in a way.

Sent a very risky girly tune.

[jingle.boy]

It is indeed one of the catchiest choruses ever, and - Chad be my witness - a whole generation's manifest in a way.

You say true.

[Stadler]

So... roulette strategy.

Best song?
Best performance?
Best overall package?

[Evermind]

Alright, busy day at work, let's answer some of these. Thank you folks for still showing interest in this.

Now I got the chorus of 18 and Life playing in my head. 

So happy 18 and Life did good, mate!

It is indeed one of the catchiest choruses ever, and - Chad be my witness - a whole generation's manifest in a way.

It is by far—by a huge margin—the catchiest thing I've got in this roulette so far. Good stuff.

I'm curious what you would have rated the Crimson Glory song. I almost just sent it by itself. Boy am I glad I didn't.

I guess I'm going to have to check out that Waysted track.

I'd say it was around 5.5. Pretty average as far as metal songs go. Also wasn't too impressed with Midnight, expected more from him.

Nah I got no chance. Sending something in a couple hours tho

Watch your opponents shit the bed in the next round, man. This is quite unpredictable so far. The upper ranks are consistent, the lower... aren't. There hasn't been a round where someone didn't send me a steaming turd. I expect this tradition to continue.

Fair enough, I agree that the vocals are the weakest part of the song, I'd still give it more like an 8, but I can totally see where you're coming from this round.
There's a really cool live recording of an acoustic show of them that I might send with my PM for my next round, where I fond his vocals fit a bit better with the vibe.

Please do. Love acoustic shows by any band.

Sent some female vocals. Expecting to get Rule 6'd 

This band was actually on my short list to check out, we'll see how it goes!

The momentum is gaining! 

I do think you'd find that album a hoot. There are times that it feels a little rough around the edges, but overall its a great story and delivery.

Definitely checking this out. Perhaps even before the roulette is over.

Agreed.  In the context of a roulette, probably not the best choice - and OBVIOUSLY not the right choice for Ev.

What gave it away?

So... roulette strategy.

Best song?
Best performance?
Best overall package?

Let's see, and since I don't want to give you a generic answer, I'll go somewhat in depth for each one.

Best song: Sólstafir - Miðaftann

Nothing has managed to beat the emotions and the feelings that this song raised in me  so far. This is pure art in a music form. Combined with the video, this is one of my favourite things I've ever discovered through the roulettes. Second place is Oh Hiroshima - Aria, this is the post-rock I never knew but always wanted in my life.

But hey, what about metal?

Best metal song: Communic - Waves of Visual Decay

This is a close call between this and Anabasis - Human Supremacy Illusion, but I'm sure I've enjoyed this one more. Great dark progressive metal.

Best performance: There are a lot of songs that fit here. So I'm going to divide this in two parts:

1) Best vocal performance: Ronnie Romero with Lords of Black - Ghost in You; a singer I don't know with Starsailor - Way to Fall; your own Graham Bonnet with MSG - Desert Song; also see the links below

I don't really follow the whole instrumental picture in the songs usually, so I'll give you the parts that really gave me goosebumps in terms of performance, and songwriting too, and they also have vocals too, so this is just my favourite moments I guess:

2) Rishloo - Landmines from 4:40 till the end (this is hands down the best thing ever really)

The Protomen - The State vs. Thomas Light from 2:04 till the end (this is just so freaking incredibly emotional, both vocals and piano)

Golfrapp - Stranger from 3:00 till 3:52 (this is mostly vocal but it never fails to give me goosebumps)

Best overall package: (excluding the ones I mentioned already)

1. Anabasis - Human Supremacy Illusion, a perfect prog song, everything's there, growls, cleans, flutes, piano, guitars, fantastic composition.
2. Eastern High - Afterglow, this just tickles my folk and world music fancy, and this is pretty well-written to boot
3) Swallow the Sun - Firelights, I wish I could've given this song a better score. It's a fantastic, well rounded doom metal that manages to naturally unfold, as slowly as it wants to.

I know, I know. My tastes changed a lot since 2016.

[Evermind]

Also folks, a general update about the whole roulette.

I have seven songs right now. There's no big rush since I'm seeing Amorphis live tomorrow, so I won't begin listening until Saturday. After that, apparently I'm flying for a two-week business trip to Kazan (a city in Russia), I guess my bosses just waited for me to start the roulette to spring this on me. Kazan is a pretty well-known city so I have high hopes for our hotel to actually have a Wi-Fi there. If it works out, I will keep the pace of this roulette as steady as I can. If there is no Wi-Fi there, I will have to do the writeups in my hotel room and then search for some place which actually has the Internet connection.

But since this is the case, I absolutely want to receive all the songs on Saturday. As I'm going to listen to them on a plane, I want to be sure I can acquire the access to all of them before Sunday rolls. I mean, this business trip may be important, but so is DTF. So take your time, but be sure to send them in the next, let's say, 36 hours.

[Tyrias]

Best song: Sólstafir - Miðaftann

Nothing has managed to beat the emotions and the feelings that this song raised in me  so far. This is pure art in a music form. Combined with the video, this is one of my favourite things I've ever discovered through the roulettes. Second place is Oh Hiroshima - Aria, this is the post-rock I never knew but always wanted in my life.

Well, I'd say it was worth playing then .

[Crow]

Ev listen to Solstafir - Djakninn and tell me how much you hate it

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Best Solstafir album is Kold, by a long shot