Round 3 Results:
Tyrias: Oh Hiroshima - AriaFirst impression: Holy shit, this album art is spectacular. The design is fabulous. The song isn’t too shabby either.Well, the first impression still stands as mighty as it ever was: this album art is spectacular! This is a great example of an album art that would make me buy the album without even hearing a note from it. But hey, this isn’t going to happen as you actually sent me a song from that album too, and holy shit, man.
My experience with post-rock was limited, but I mostly thought it was that kind of boring, minimalistic music which would not apply to me (see Massive Attack – Heligoland), and instead I’ve got wonderful track I’m still in awe of. I’m a firm believer in the fact that strings make everything better, and they seem to do that in this particular song; and this track made me look differently at all the post-rock being released nowadays. This is beautiful, and this is art, and this is something I’ve been missing and didn’t even know I needed.
9/10wolfking: Talisman - HumanimalFirst impression: I wondered when people will start cheating in this roulette.Okay, well, first thing is that Jeff Scott Soto is awesome. I haven’t checked anything from Sons of Apollo because MP and Derek’s shenanigans really soured my expectations on that project and I decided that I won’t even touch it, so I didn’t buy their album and didn’t go to the live show they had here in Moscow. I’ve also heard JSS was too restrained on Sons of Apollo, and while I haven’t heard any of their songs, that sounds like a shame. Because I love JSS, and based on, well, Yngwie albums he rocked on which are thirty years old, he’s great. And well, this song is another testament to it, because all things aside, JSS is fantastic on this. He just brings that old spirit of rock to a song, making me headbang and wonder how this is possible.
The song itself is a mixed bag, or well, I thought that on my first listen. On my subsequent listens I thought the song is actually pretty great. It has the JSS advantage, but then it’s a bit generic, but then it’s not a bad thing, you know? This song actually rocks, and even if I feel that it lacks something that would’ve elevated it beyond the “just good” barrier, the way it makes me headbang to this is unhealthy. This is good, very solid, actually this is great. I like it. I’m interested in checking out this band, which I probably should’ve done earlier, too.
8/10jingle.boy: Damnation’s Day – To Begin AgainFirst impression: There are a couple of moments which I can only describe as, perhaps, “primal”, especially combined with the lyrics. This is one of my early favourites of the round.These guys aren’t prone to fooling around, are they? This song quickly goes from the mellow acoustic intro into the fucking fray with the singer screaming at the top of his lungs how he’s feeling alive, and I
love this. There is some part of that primal energy in his screams about feeling alive, and it works so well in this song.
This song must be taxing to perform live, but in the studio the singer seems to do a great job; and when this song gets to the instrumental break, there’s that fantastic guitar solo that fits the song so well. All in all, this is an extremely well-constructed track, playing off the strong sides of the singer’s voice, and I’ll be honest, I’m quite interested in the whole album of this kind of stuff right now.
8/10LordCost: The Ocean – Permian: The Great DyingFirst impression: This track with my previous experience with this band: this is a lot to take in on the first listen. First impression is positive though.This is a weird entry, in a way. I feel like it explores a bit of death metal and then goes into the alternative realm for the rest of it, but while it does that, it manages to maintain memorable and fantastic vocal melodies—and I love how it repeats the ideas and hooks it uses during the short death metal part in the beginning.
I’ve heard of The Ocean before, and I’ve even checked some of their songs from other albums, and good thing that you haven’t sent the song with Jonas Renske on it, because that would’ve been rejected. This song also has this mild Katatonia feel with both vocals and instruments, and this is more than welcome. They seem to know what they’re doing, and their singer has this melancholic tinge to his voice which works just as intended for their music. There’s no denying these guys are experts in their craft. This is good.
7.5/10 + 1 for winning the themed roundTAC: Lost Domain - …In the Waiting Room of DeathFirst impression: This has to be the most unexpected choice of vocals in this round, and it works quite well.I’ll be honest, I definitely didn’t expect a female-fronted song from you. Even though you sent me that song for female-themed round (Forgotten Winds? Broken Winds? Broken Hopes? Forgotten Hopes?), this is not something I expected from you. A progressive death metal song with female vocals, this was definitely curious.
The first surprise for me was how well the female vocals work with that kind of music, and the second surprise was how well they fit in this particular song—it’s as if the songwriters made a conscious effort to fit them or something! This song does a great job creating the suspense and the tension, and then slides into a different part altogether, with acoustic guitars, which builds and builds until the growls finish this song off. It is a bit too much for a roulette, but then that’s why this Time Shift ability exists, isn’t it? I liked this.
7.5/10Indiscipline: The Windmill – Make Me FeelFirst impression: You seem to have a knack for picking songs with strong vocals, although I started to wonder if this song will ever end.Man, I’ll be honest. This is cheesier than Spandau Ballet.
This song reminds me of a Russian chanson musical scene, only the actual Russian chanson artists mostly sing about criminal acts and drinking, and this band is doing what chanson is supposed to be, which is refreshing enough. However it’s so cheesy that I can’t hold the smile off my face. I kinda want to host a drinking game where you drink every time he sings “make me feel” and see everyone destroying their livers and die from alcohol poisoning in nine minutes. Or even earlier.
And the worst thing about this cheesy abomination of a song? I fucking like it! I love the flute, and I like how classy the singer sounds, and I like the overall atmosphere and mood of this tune. The singer is very good, and although his voice makes me imagine him dressed in a cheap suit with a flute of champagne in his hand, his dark hair slicked back, charming the whole bar on a karaoke stage, he does his job here just fine. My main complaint here is the length: this song doesn’t have enough ideas for nine minutes, but even still, I’m not going to lie. I like this one.
7.5/10Luoto: Fireproven – The TowerFirst impression: It seems like they had this one idea and built the whole song around it.It was tough to pick between this and The Interior Castle, because both songs had their moments, but in the end, this one won by the sheer amount of memorable sections in it; and the constant keyboards running beneath the meat of this song, peaking at the climaxes in the choruses finally tipped the rating scale towards this track. That being said, The Interior Castle is very close to this one in terms of rating, probably only half a point behind it.
I like the contrast between the verses and the chorus, and I like how this song stays quite predictable while still introducing some fantastic elements—the quiet middle section is a great example of this—and I like how they implemented that keyboard part too. My only complaint is that this is a bit too safe and generic, and the chorus sounds like the band decided to have a collective yawn together, it’s so slow and boring. The chorus actually manages to lose most of the momentum the song is building, and while the keyboards save some of it, it’s still noticeable. That being said, I liked this song.
7/10Sacul: Cosmo Sheldrake – Come AlongFirst impression: I see, the good old “I passed the elimination point, now it’s time to send whatever I want” strategy.What the fuck?
Cosmo Sheldrake sounds like a female pop-singer, and that was absolutely what I expected, but instead I’ve got… this? What makes it more hilarious is the orchestral dramatic intro, after which the song quickly devolves into what it is. This is now the song I imagine Roland was singing to the Calla Bryn Sturgis villagers, as the lyrics fit loosely here and hell, why not?
This is weird, and then this is unexpected, and then this is happier than I though, and then this is just outright joyous and not pretending to be anything else. It may be surprising for people playing in this roulette, but I can certainly say I liked it for what it is.
7/10senecadawg2: mewithoutYou – Julia (or, ‘Holy to the LORD on the Bells of Horses)First impression: Concise and to the point, this is possibly your best song yet.This is once again reminds me of Agalloch and your latest entry, Alcest, except this time the vocals are way more tolerable. I don’t know why this band decided it was a good idea to bestow that monster of a name on this song (personally I think just “Julia” would’ve been enough), but the song is, in fact, quite enjoyable. It still suffers a bit from the lack of emotions for me, as the vocals—while not being annoying as they were on that Alcest track—don’t quite do much for me here. It does get a lot better when they put the growls behind the cleans on the last chorus, and it shows a lot of potential this band has, and I wish this was explored further on this song.
I like that they didn’t drag these few ideas they had for this song, and instead made this track quite short and accessible. This definitely makes me feel they’ve got some potential, and I wonder what else they have in their discography.
6.5/10Stadler: Slash ft. Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators – Driving RainFirst impression: Sounds genuinely fun and yet utterly forgettable at the same time.This song sounds authentic and genuinely fun. It sounds like Slash and Myles and the Conspirators, whoever they are, are having a blast, a lot of fun in the studio. I imagine them just jamming this song and Myles singing and everyone’s happy and rocking out; this one must be a good one to play live.
At the same time, this sounds like your generic rock song which is played at every bar, at every karaoke club where people are mindlessly butchering it, I dunno. This song sounds like the most generic rock song ever, and it’s not exactly a bad thing—it just makes it a bit boring in comparison to the rest of songs I’ve got here. It’s nice, it’s safe, it’s well-executed, but it’s just that, a generic rock song.
5.5/10Puppies_On_Acid: YYNOT - EtheriaFirst impression: Good thing this was short, because the vocals grated on me a bit.Yeah, this one… well, my first impression still holds. This is a decent rock song with the vocals that are still grating on me. It has a good pace shifting from the heavy and fast to loose and wacky, but I just can’t enjoy it with these female vocals—and not to say they don’t fit, because they kinda do, it’s just I don’t like them.
And because of that, this is a weird one for me: I’m usually a big fan of whatever female vocals you throw at me, but this one was genuinely annoying. What makes it worse is that the actual song is well-written. But hey, I’ve made it clear the vocals are big deal for me, and this song, well, just fails to deliver in that department. The actual song is alright though.
5.5/10Kattelox: Florence + The Machine – No Light, No LightFirst impression: I guess I’m not a very open-minded person when it comes to music, but this is a big oof.As a person who’s hosting his third roulette right now, I feel I can pinpoint one aspect of these things that profoundly sucks: the moments where you don’t emotionally connect with a song that makes the guy who sent it cry and weep. This is honestly the worst, and I’ve been on both sides of this particular conflict when people slammed down my Mark Knopfler – Dream of the Drowned Submariner song. I feel so bad criticizing this song, but I’ve got to be honest, and I hope you’ll forgive me—this sounds just like a bad, lazy pop song.
I think it’s a good idea to stray from the power metal in order to find something I enjoy, but this is just a whole wrong fucking direction, because this was… well, not great. The quiet part in the beginning was good, and then this has descended in a whole dancing disco pop cheesefest with terrible rhymes—I have this pet peeve about rhymes that use –tion or –cion, so the whole “You want a revelation / Some kind of resolution / And it’s a conversation” thing laid over that disco drums is just, uh, not for me.
I can appreciate the emotional weight this song has for you, but the actual song is… not for me indeed. It’s not terrible, it’s not unlistenable, but it’s definitely not enjoyable in any sense of the word.
4/10
Topic: Evermind's Third Roulette v. Final Round Results (Read 70084 times)
