Results, Part 11st Place: Puppies_On_Acid – Starfall Ascension Book 2: Vestiges of Lamentations in Residuum1. 3 – The World is Borne of FlameFirst Impressions:Hmm, not the kind of vocals I was expecting to get from you, to be honest. Also this is a really rad way to start an album in general. The acoustic guitar vibes build into electric guitar vibes and the drums come in to match the smooth flow that was built up. Only real gripe I have is that the percussive guitar hits at the very end don’t sound great. But yeah, for an intro track this does its job pretty well. (GOOD)
Final Thoughts:Yeah, this is just a good buildup track, plain and simple. The vocals feel a bit less out of place after multiple listens and I’m pretty into the melodies too. Honestly this actually gives off some Coheed vibes, now that I think about it. I could absolutely see a song like this on, like, The Afterman. I dig how it builds up and I dig how it sounds. I can’t really fault it for kind of ending abruptly because on its own it’s not intended to be a full piece, so instead I can only really judge it on what it’s intended to be and in that regard it does a damn fine job.
8/102. 3 – The End is BegunFirst Impressions:Honestly, I think when I rate these I’m going to combine them into one score because of the way they flow into each other & how pointless it kind of seems to rate them separately since the first track is very much an intro. Anyways. This doesn’t exactly leave off on the groove the previous track had and some of the sounds of the lower guitar tones I am still not keen on. It’s got a straightforward marching rhythm to it though which is good to keep the feel of the song driving. If there’s one gripe I have with both of these it’s that there’s maybe a bit too much of a disparity between how the acoustic guitar sounds vs. the electric. And I guess the vocals feel a bit weak against this music. It’s not a bad song but I don’t think it delivers on the promise the previous track built up, honestly. (DECENT)
Final Thoughts:Okay, so I think I was a bit harsh on this one the first time. It’s not really the same kind of track as the previous track, to be sure. But it is pretty damn catchy, as I’ve found, considering I’ve had “Shall I Die, Shall I Cry, Shall I Be Shot Through The Sky” on loop in my head for over a week now. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t see the Coheed comparison the first time, though they don’t have as good of a guitar tone and I don’t think they sound thaaat similar outside of the vocals. I still would say I’m not as into this one as I am the previous track, though, simply for a lack of driving energy, but I do like this one well enough regardless, it’s certainly been on my mind a lot more than I expected. I’m definitely gonna check out the album here.
7.5/103. Altar Of Plagues – Earth: As A Womb First Impressions:The big boi, a whole 12 minutes of black metal (to my understanding?). And like, the whole few first minutes are ambient and foreboding in just the way I like. You know the song’s going to kick in hard at any moment but you don’t know when. It seems to be in the good ol’ fashioned black metal tradition of lacking solid melody, but admittedly I really like the texture of the guitars and everything else sounds pretty good too, except maybe the drums mixed a little loud. It kinda holds steady to just the straight-up black metal song for a bit but gives it a break in the middle for a bit of variation. Black metal friggin’ sucks to write about because it tends to intentionally not be very musically complex. It’s just intense & hopefully pretty emotive and I mean, yeah, I don’t know if there’s much about this specific song that’s sticking out to me on first listen, but it certainly does “intense” well enough in its heavier parts and has a bit of more dynamic moments at the start, middle, and end. I’d check out the full album of this, for sure. (GOOD)
Final Thoughts:So I made a comment in my third round impressions that this doesn’t really feel like a song intended to be taken outside of the album it’s on, because, well. For one you’ve got the whole “two minutes of ambient intro” thing which, you know, in a song by itself usually isn’t something you want. Like, I dig the hell out of it and it probably makes for a killer album opener, and it makes for a good transition here too. Anyways in terms of the black metal these guys play they just sound a lot like Der Weg Einer Freiheit to me. Which, considering I love the hell out of DWEF. Yeah. And DWEF is absolutely an albums band too, I can like some of their songs out of context but I don’t think I’ve ever put on a song from Stellar just on its own even as much as I love that album, and I’ve been spinning Unstille lately as well which is much the same way. And this song is basically just the full suite of stuff I love hearing in black metal. Got that rad ambient bit. Got a good chunk of that meaty, blastbeat-y heaviness. Got some nice, atmospheric clean moments. Got that more downtempo but still plenty intense heavier bit. The only thing it really lacks is a sludgy, doomy moment but that really wouldn’t work in this song in particular. But yeah. While I can’t say there’s anything or any part of this that really stands out in my mind, it’s just 12 minutes of a good-sounding song that sounds good, and I absolutely am going to check out this album.
8.25/104. Imperium Dekadenz – Dis Manibvs First Impressions:Following up the last black metal track is… another black metal track. This one reeeeally has that wall-of-sound effect going on but with more downbeat drums instead of blastbeats drowning out the texture of it and I appreciate that, the tone is rad as hell. I don’t really have a ton else to say about this one either. It pretty much gets more intense as it goes on, it isn’t super melodically-driven either but it has enough for me to be satisfied and it’s intense in the way I want black metal to be. Boring to say but it’s just plain good. (GOOD)
Final Thoughts:The one unfortunate thing about this EP is that this song has the task of following up an already 12-minute, pretty strong example of black metal, with… more black metal, but just not quite as good. Granted, this is a German black metal band and, surprise, I’m gonna check out this album too regardless because even if this one doesn’t strike me as hard as the last one, I still do dig the hell out of it. When I mentioned that the one thing the previous track didn’t do was doomy, sludgy black metal? Well, the first half of this isn’t fully what I meant but it’s pretty close. The guitar tone is fantastic, to be frank, it’s got that great wall-of-sound texture to it without being too washed out either. I said at first this was a step down but I don’t really know if it is? I think the one thing is that it just isn’t quite as dynamic as the last track and maybe doesn’t have as good of a throughline to it, but it’s still pretty dang strong black metal and probably “sounds” better overall as well, so really, I dunno. It’s good, yo.
8/105. Anata – Downward Spiral into Madness First Impressions:And here’s some tech death ehh. Tech death has a bad habit of having audible bass in a death metal genre, which is a really dumb idea. I mean, who wants to hear cool bass licks and a more full sound on their metal albums? Rude. This seems to do well enough at having melodically-driven moments and seems to be wise enough to not just be an endless stream of disconnected ideas either. I reeeeally dig the bits where the two guitars are playing in unison but with different rhythms, it creates this doubling effect that sounds great, kind of reminds me of a thing Oceansize did a lot with their triple-guitar unisons. I think it lacks for really strong, memorable melodies and seems a bit emotively dry like a lot of tech death can tend to be, but it’s a solid enough example of the genre that still gets a fair few things right, so ehh. Could grow on me too. (DECENT)
Final Thoughts:I think ultimately the faults of this song keep me from really getting all that into it, or at least not as much as a good chunk of the rest of this EP. The bass almost seems a bit too loud, actually, to the point where it sort of crushes the guitars at times. The drums feel weirdly disconnected from everything else. And the vocals basically serve no real purpose, I get nothing at all out of them. The main, repeated motif throughout a lot of this song also isn’t particularly strong, but it’s serviceable. I think they’re smart enough to not go too wild and cram too many different ideas into one song, since there’s more than a few moments that are repeated or are just slight variations on other motifs in the song, but there’s enough diversity to keep it from getting stale too. I don’t know, though, it’s a bit out of place on the EP as the one song that fails to really resonate emotionally, and the kind of muddy sound of the song as previously mentioned I’m not too wild about. It’s still solid enough at the end of the day, I do like it, I’d probably at least listen a few songs deep into the album if nothing else. It’s just a step down from the rest of the EP especially after how strong the previous tracks are.
7/106. Falloch – Beyond Embers and the Earth First Impressions:And closing out with more black metal. And clean vocals, gasp. This seems to have a bit of a symphonic swell going on too. I don’t like the textures of the guitar as much on this one as I did on the other two black metal tracks here but it still works well enough for the sound, I’m not complaining too strongly either. It’s more of a blackgaze-y sound and the cleaner moments kind of reinforce that but it’s kind of toeing the line a little. I will say that it’s probably my least favorite of the three black metal tracks here but only really by comparison, since overall I still dig it a fair bit. I guess the ending is a bit disappointing too, I feel like it should’ve gotten louder there before the quiet finish, but ehh. (GOOD)
Final Thoughts:With the flute that shows up near the start I get a lot of Saor vibes off this, actually. That’s like, uhh. The one thing about this song that’s stood out to me across all three listens, mainly. Yeah, I dunno, this one didn’t end up having quite as much replay value? It’s the really pretty style of somewhat-folky black metal that I can like the sound of but I’ve consistently had trouble getting really into. And that’s not to say I dislike this, I don’t at all, it’s a pretty good example of the style. But it does run into the problem of sounding kind of muddy during the heavier parts in a way that the other black metal here doesn’t, though the clean stuff and all the strings and piano and whatever else gets thrown in there all sounds plenty fine. I also feel like that, as a closer, it isn’t really… climactic? It feels a bit directionless, not really going anywhere with its 8 minute runtime. I don’t know. I feel like this is the kind of thing I want to like more than I actually do.
6.75/10Overall:First Impressions:So yeah one early comment is that the first two tracks and the fifth track don’t really fit in so well with the black metal tracks here, I feel. They’re also way outnumbered in terms of length, taking up like 12 and a half minutes of a full 40 minute runtime, and they also feel like the weaker tracks compared to the black metal track.
But at the same time I at least liked everything here, and aside from those songs not quite stylistically fitting, it all does flow pretty well and has a good start/middle/end feel to it. It even comes full circle with quiet acoustic bits bookending the whole thing. Definitely one of the EPs I’m looking forward to revisiting, for sure.
Final Thoughts:So yeah I guess this is probably the best EP I’ve been sent in any roulette so far? It’s like, just a lot of stuff that’s really well-fit to my tastes, particularly the two big black metal tunes in the middle, and nothing I really even come close to disliking here either. I still stand by the notion that the black metal stuff overpowers the other styles, but I do like the two 3 songs a good bit and the Anata song is heavy enough to not feel that out of place either, it’s organize to flow pretty well overall too, save for a lack of a satisfying ending. But still, this was the clear standout of the round for me from basically the start and I’m probably gonna check out an album or two from each and every band here, which is also a first for me and EPs. The bar has been set and the real goal for the rest of the roulette should be to top this one, y’all.
Current Standings:1. Puppies_On_Acid
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Altar Of Plagues – Earth: As A Womb3.
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3 – The World is Borne of Flame 7.
Imperium Dekadenz – Dis Manibvs 8.
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3 – The End is Begun12.
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Anata – Downward Spiral into Madness 16.
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Falloch – Beyond Embers and the Earth20.
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