Alright folks, here's the penultimate round results before the playoffs kick in. I know it's been, once again, a week and a half since the previous round, but hey, we're almost there. One more round, and then the exciting part begins!
Round 6 Results:
Sacul: Mike Oldfield – Ommadawn Pt. 1First impression: Strategy in Evermind’s Roulette 101:
Ballad round: send a female-fronted song
Pre-90s round: send a ballad from 2011
Female-fronted round: send a 19-minutes instrumental from 1975Man, if only you’d sent this in the pre-90s round, that would’ve got you an additional point you might need after the next round. As things stand, though, you don’t get that additional point—but at least you’ve won this particular round. This song is great.
I don’t really like instrumentals that much. They mostly don’t quite manage to grab my attention, and in case of most progressive metal bands, there’s usually quite a lot of flexing technical muscles and noodling along on the guitars and keyboards—it’s been months or maybe even years since I found a progressive metal instrumental that I loved. This isn’t progressive metal, and perhaps that’s the key. This song encompasses everything I love about instrumental music, such as the intro to Shine on You, Crazy Diamond and some of the instrumental parts of Thick as a Brick. This screams brilliance from almost every section—and while there are parts I’m kind of ambivalent on, most of the parts here are spot on. The sections driven by acoustic guitar are by far my favourites, but I suppose just the main recurring melody is so strong—and so simple, really—that it guides the song, and serves as glue between all the different ideas.
I was baffled how your 35-minutes long instrumental managed to beat my Joan Baez song in the DTF Roulette Championship. Well, if it’s the same quality as this one—a 19-minutes long instrumental song that stays interesting, especially for me as I don’t really like instrumentals—that was a well-deserved victory indeed. This is exquisite songwriting.
8.5/10Puppies_On_Acid: Jinjer - PiscesFirst impression: FARTING INNOCENCE! I was bloody sure this song had two singers.This is such a unique submission for the female-fronted round. First of all, this was my favourite singer in this round, and not only because she’s killing the growl parts—like really, how the hell is she doing this?—but also because her clean vocals are fantastic. Quiet and intense, incredibly fitting to the song, I love everything about this song in terms of vocals. I also like the balance between the clean parts and growls, I feel they’ve got it just right here.
The instrumental work is also on point—and once again, there’s a great balance between calm, dark and somewhat malicious parts and the all-out heavy moments. Everything here is well thought out and well written—it seems to me that a lot of thought went into this song, and the result is fascinating and commendable. This was enjoyable.
8/10 + 1 point for the Ragequit Generator ability + 1 point for winning the themed roundKattelox: Indica – Eerie EdenFirst impression: This band is like five cheesy succubi (succubuses?)—I saw the album cover—composing music. I can’t believe the album is named the way it’s named, either.This song has a few things working in its favor and also a few things working against it. It does an admirable job building this eerie atmosphere—but unfortunately, it comes with a price. In a lot of cases, you have to divert from the song’s natural flow to create the eeriness, and as far as I’m concerned, here it’s achieved with the vocal melodies during the verses, which are excellent for the mood, but not as great for the general flow of the song. The song also does a good job building the atmosphere with this regal, orchestrated chorus, then going into a quiet section with the wordless singing and then the violin reprise of the chorus melody, and then it just… ends. It just ends without any payoff.
The chorus is easily the best part of the song, and the whole second part with different takes on the chorus melody is also great; the verses could’ve been better, but I see what they were trying to achieve with them. This song could’ve easily been your best if it had a huge chorus in the end to channel all the energy it manages to build during the second part. As it is, it’s up there, but not quite past the “good” mark.
(also, A Way Away is a hilarious album name. Wait for the sequel album, A Float Afloat and the conclusion of the trilogy, A Head Ahead)
7.5/10jingle.boy: Ethernity – The Human Race ExtinctionFirst impression: Whenever she goes on about seven million people, I can’t help but laugh because I remember those pretentious spoken word parts in Pain of Salvation’s Be. SIX THOUSANDS AND EIGHTY MILLION PEOPLE. Also the chorus is a bit annoying.Honestly, and this is my general complain about this band, at least as far as I was able to judge their music from those two songs I’ve received, they’re trying a bit too hard to play a thousand notes every few seconds. Whenever this song (and Tim’s song, too, and I’ll include this paragraph in his writeup too) gets busy, it gets
busy.
This one is quite a bit better than Chaos Architect, although the beginning was so starkly against all my impressions of the music Chad likes, that I was beginning to think he’s just taking a piss with this submission. However, the song quickly got itself back on the rails, and I will say this—the verses here are fabulous. They’re doing excellent job on ramping up the tension for the chorus, which is, however, a bit of a letdown. It’s catchy and memorable, but I would’ve liked something a bit more intense in terms of the vocal melodies—the part where they sing the title sounds like they’re trying to diffuse the tension instead of releasing the pressure they’ve just built up.
Still, this is better than Chaos Architect, and I see why this song is a title track. I’m not sure I can endure the whole album of this progressive metal chaos—are there ballads on this one? I’d like to hear one—but this was solidly good. I already have your Round 7 song, and I don’t know how the scoreboard looks right now—but it’s better be bloody excellent.
7.5/10wolfking: Soilwork – The Ageless WhisperFirst impression: I expected death and peril and wisdom beyond mortal minds, but this chorus is pretty much made for stupid dance moves. This is fun!My expectations for this were somewhere in the realm of “hey, this is going to be alternative metal, right?”, so this was a pleasant surprise. I’ve found I was excited for this song to come in the rotation, and honestly this is pretty great in terms how simple and straightforward it is while maintaining the integrity of the song. The chorus is made for live performance, with this rhythmic beat and the guitar playing. Excellent blending of cleans and growls too.
The rest of the song isn’t too shabby, either, but honestly the high points here are the pre-chorus and the chorus, they pretty much make this song, and to be honest, just based on this song, I want to see these guys live. Too bad there will probably be a moshpit. This makes me want to headbang and dance at the same time. This is good.
7.5/10Luoto: Eternal Tears of Sorrow – Red Dawn RisingFirst impression: With this band name, I expected the shittiest production, the bleakest album cover and the trademark vocals like the guy is screaming on top of his lungs, except he’s 65 years old, living in the freezing -45°C in Yakutsk and has asthma. You have disappointed me.Why the hell the band is called Eternal Tears of Sorrow? This is quite a fun song. Actually kind of reminds me of the band that was opening for Amorphis here a week ago—Animae Silentes, I think it was called. The ever-present keyboards run is nice, and so are the clean verses. I think the growls could use some refining though, they sounded a little rough; and while the chorus is fine, I thought it also could use some improvement—in particular, the growly “red dawn is rising!” and “red dawn is shining!” sounded like they could use just one more syllable to be perfect. I kept singing “red dawn is rising up!” in my head. The ending was also quite unimaginative—it was basically the same chorus, only modulated up a notch.
I definitely enjoyed that one, it was pretty good, but it also could use some improvement. Still intrigued by this band, though.
7/10senecadawg2: Enslaved – Roots of the MountainFirst impression: Just for fun I didn’t Google any of the growl-lyrics for this round, and this song has “Fuuuuuuck! Men of faith, where were you when your children bled to death?”, which is the situation that deserves that “Fuuuuuuck!” alright.Well, if I had to describe this in one sentence, it would be something along the lines of “inferior version of The Ocean song I’ve received a few weeks ago”. This has some good ideas, but ultimately fails in their execution, especially where the clean vocals enter the equation. The chorus somehow manages to be worse than the growling verses, and the whole song could use some trimming, in my opinion.
However, it also has some good moments. The quiet part they’re doing in the middle of the song (4:30) followed by the growling almost-spoken word is a great touch, and the breakdown following it is also excellent. The way they arrive to the pompous tremolo-driven ending is admirable, and the clean melody makes its return—which would’ve been fine if only I didn’t dislike it. Still, the structure and the idea here is solid, it’s just the execution that’s lacking. I liked some of this.
6.5/10TAC: Ethernity – Chaos ArchitectFirst impression: That’s chaotic alright, like the band members are trying to randomly hit keys and drums and whatnot.Honestly, and this is my general complain about this band, at least as far as I was able to judge their music from those two songs I’ve received, they’re trying a bit too hard to play a thousand notes every few seconds. Whenever this song (and Chad’s song, too, and I’ll include this paragraph in his writeup too) gets busy, it gets
busy.
My main gripe with this was the lack of memorable moments. The sound is nice, the song itself seems solid, but it took me about six listens to actually memorize the chorus and recognize the song’s structure. In fact, only in the last two days the song took shape for me, and that affected the score a lot. And once again, the chorus is undermined by all the instrumental stuff going underneath the vocals—and given that it’s not that good of a chorus, that’s one thing the band should’ve probably anticipated. I can’t complain though—for the song named Chaos Architect, this is very fitting. I only wish they managed to organize the chaos a little bit more.
So I’ll be honest, this was serviceable, but I liked the other Ethernity song quite a bit more.
6.5/10LordCost: Aereogramme – Dreams and BridgesFirst impression: Electronic sounding drums, a few moments of clean vocals, a lot of vocal effects and an insane doom-like ending with more electronic sounds. Bring on your predictions on this one, I’m not saying anything else.Well, after a few listens I realized that the drums stop sounding electronic halfway through the song. There’s somehow this industrial tint to this song, as if the music is coming through a thick veil, which is lifted in the moments when his voice becomes clean—the singer has a beautiful voice, by the way. I realize this is probably an artistic choice to do, and I honestly enjoy some aspects of mood and atmosphere of this song, but the distant, cold verses aren’t quite my cup of tea.
What’s worse though, the song takes a turn in the second half, going into the heavy, doom-influenced ending (which, admittedly, gets some momentum as it evolves), and this part does absolutely nothing for me. Curiously, I’m still probably going to check out this album, because there are some good moments here, and I’m intrigued—but this song in particular was a bit of a mixed bag.
6/10Stadler: Heart – Wait for an AnswerFirst impression: On one hand, the goal of this round’s theme was to get some songs with good female vocals, and this one fits the bill. On the other hand, the vocals are the only thing that deserves the praise here.The first impression is still exactly how I feel about this. I have received Heart in one of my previous roulettes, the song was called Barracuda, and I didn’t really like it, vocals included, I think (it’s been a while). Here, I like the vocals, but the rest of the song is just so unremarkable. The band is just going on autopilot, and there’s absolutely nothing to latch on.
I think the whole problem with a bunch of your songs in this roulette is that most of what you’ve sent after that brilliant MSG song is pretty plodding or, at least, quite mid-tempo. I don’t mind mid-tempo songs, but apparently I mind mid-tempo songs from before 90s, because, once again, while it’s quite inoffensive, it also does pretty much nothing for me. I’ve got to give it to Ann Wilson though, she does a good job here.
5.5/10Tyrias: Angus and Julia Stone – I’m Not YoursFirst impression: Except for a few chosen lines, these lyrics are on par for this type of songs, which means they’re astute enough to beat the two examples above, but that’s about it.When I see a song called I’m Not Yours, I can only envision two scenarios: either it’s a love song (or, you know, not exactly a love song, but a relationship song), or it’s a power metal epic where a crusader of light struggles against a devil or a demon who is actively trying to lay a claim on the crusader’s soul. This time it’s the former one, and it takes a lot of talent and subtlety to write those.
Unfortunately, this is not exactly subtle. Except for a few good moments in the lyrics (
“You’re the only one that wants me around / wants me to die”), this ticks a lot of my personal pet peeves about this kind of songs. The chorus is just one line being repeated into infinity without any kind of melody, the verses have two lines (out of four) that stay the same throughout the song, the vocal melodies are uninspired as hell—in fact, the only good melodies are the ones that begin each verse. The music is also kind of “there”, a basic drum beat and restrained piano playing. The instrumental break is probably my favourite part of the song.
All in all, this is not impressive at all for a breakup song. I’d say it’s pretty average, actually.
5/10Indiscipline: Lauren Pritchard – The Song of Purple SummerFirst impression: I left this song for the last impression, because not only I don’t have any impression for this one, in fact it’s so bland I don’t even have a stupid joke to offer to go along with it.I looked this song up, and apparently it’s from a Broadway musical, which makes me wonder if I would’ve appreciated this more if I’ve heard the whole thing. As it is, this song is such a bore. The song never goes anywhere, and while it would’ve been fine if the quality it establishes from the first note was great, it’s not, at least not for me. My main gripe with this is that the vocal melodies feel forced and they inhibit this song way too much. As a result, this song sticks out like a sore thumb among the rest of the bunch.
Once again, I think this may work better in context, and if I understand correctly, this is intended to be a closer of the story with a bittersweet ending, and I can see this working with that theme in mind—the lyrics certainly suggest so. Which brings me to another point and your Wordsmith ability: I’m going to say this works just enough to get you this half a point. I like how they paint a picture in the broadest strokes. In fact, the lyrics may be the only thing here I’m not indifferent towards. As a standalone song, this doesn’t work quite well.
4/10 + 0.5 for the Wordsmith ability
Topic: Evermind's Third Roulette v. Final Round Results (Read 71928 times)
