---ROUND 3 RESULTS---1st Place: Sacul (+14 Points)
Have A Nice Life - BloodhailFirst Impressions:
I’m not sure if I enjoyed all of the sounds being melded together here, but the end result sure is hypnotic.I thought that both the sound and the songwriting of this song was fantastic. Let’s go over the former first; it’s got a relatively low-fidelity aesthetic, with a basic electronic drum loop, some hazy guitars, and a thick layer of reverb thrown on top of everything. While all of the instruments sound pretty cheap, none of them sound bad - I’d say the only thing that comes close is the drum loop, but it still works fine. While the reverb on the vocals and guitars is pretty thick, it sounds great and makes them feel like they’re just washing over you. The sound that results from all of these unique-sounding instruments combined together is incredibly atmospheric and mesmerizing. It’s haunting and sad, but not overtly-depressing, which I like. Writing-wise, the song is pretty simple, but it does a great job at adding and subtracting layers when it needs to, keeping it interesting throughout. The last minute or so when all of the harmonies get layered on top of each other is just fantastic. The song’s surprisingly catchy too - there’s some great vocal lines throughout, and the bassline has been stuck in my head for a while now. I wouldn’t be surprised if this goes down as one of the most memorable songs in this entire roulette.
3rd Place 2nd Place: TAC (+13 Points) [PERK USED: RANKING SWAP]
Cereus - OceanFirst Impressions:
I quite enjoyed the vaguely-sinister and doomy mood of this one.This one had a really nice, creepy vibe to it. Given its title, it sounds suitably dark and abyssal, especially towards the beginning. The doomy, echoing guitars at the start and that bassline during the verses sound particularly moody. My biggest complaint here is probably the vocals; they don’t sound bad, but they’re a bit weak and aren’t the best fit for the instrumentation. The song kicks it up a notch towards the end for a louder climax, which comes in at a good point and adds a nice element of intensity to the piece. I wish it were a little bit heavier than it is, but whatever. Good atmosphere, good song.
2nd Place 3rd Place: Tomislav95 (+12 Points +24 Points) [PERK USED: DOUBLE POINTS]
Todtgelichter - NeonFirst Impressions:
I think I liked the first half better than the second, but I definitely enjoyed this one overall.I’ve got no complaints at all about the first half of this track. I love how huge and layered the instrumentation sounds, especially when those choruses kick in. Awesome stuff. The clean vocals are very well done, and the melancholy wintery atmosphere is great while managing to not sound too much like so many other atmospheric black metal bands that go for that atmosphere. It makes me think more of a bustling city on a cold winter night, rather than a natural setting. The song unfortunately goes a bit downhill towards the end when the harsh vocals come in. At this point the song loses a lot of the fullness of its sound which made the first part of it so great, causing it to end on a bit of a sour note. Thankfully, that doesn’t knock the quality of the song down too much, so I still enjoyed this one a lot.
4th Place: jingle.boy (+11 Points)
Alithia - Thirteen RevelationsFirst Impressions:
This sounds fantastic; I love the musical influences and the cosmic vibe here.The main attraction of this song is easily its sound. The cosmic soundscape created by the spacey guitars and synths sounds really unique and captivating, and the world music (for lack of a better term) influences add yet another interesting layer to it. I can’t think of too many negatives about this song’s sound and atmosphere. Rather, all my complaints are related to the songwriting, more specifically its pacing and flow. It’s a pretty long song, and structure-wise, it’s a bit too freeform and directionless. There aren’t too many musical ideas that get used more than once, and there doesn’t feel like there’s much of a logical flow across the entire piece; it feels like it accidentally comes across its destination rather than building up to it. It also takes a while to get going; I would have liked the vocals to have come in a bit sooner. The ending, on the other hand, is fantastic. I wish that section appeared once before and acted like more of a chorus to the song, rather than just showing up at the very end. Songwriting complaints aside, this is still a very solid song - definitely one of the better ones I received this round.
6th Place 5th Place: DTA (+10 Points) [PERK USED: RANKING SWAP]
Roine Stolt - Little Cottage By The SeaFirst Impressions:
Definitely hits the atmosphere it was going for. I wasn’t really into it at first, but it did get better after a couple minutes.Well, I think this song gets the award this round for best creating an atmosphere that vividly conveys a place. It sounds just like, well, a little cottage by the sea. The tropical-sounding guitars and samples almost feel like cheating to me, but who cares. The first minute and a half is pretty low key, but the song definitely picks up once the fuller-sounding instrumentation comes in. That descending melody that most of the song is based around is quite pretty, as well. I probably won’t return to this one much, but you certainly get kudos for following the round theme.
5th Place 6th Place: Ruba (+9 Points +18 Points) [PERK USED: DOUBLE POINTS]
Tori Amos - WinterFirst Impressions:
Maybe a little melodramatic, but quite pretty.I really liked the way this song went about capturing the atmosphere of winter. Most bands, especially those on the heavier spectrum, convey winter as a dark, cold, bitter hellscape. I mean, it is most of the time, but this song does a great job at showing the calmer, brighter side of it. This feels like a bright, clear day after all the snow has finished falling, rather than being in the middle of a snowstorm at night. This is mostly conveyed through the main piano melody, which is very pretty. The gradual introduction of orchestral elements is handled pretty well and leads to a surprisingly dramatic finale. I still think it sounds a bit melodramatic, but hey, that doesn’t usually stop me from enjoying things. I definitely enjoyed the verses the most here; the choruses started to get the slightest bit annoying after a while. This probably isn’t something I’d usually listen to, but I can’t deny that its atmosphere is quite beautiful.
7th Place: Nekov (+8 Points)
Yann Tiersen - PernFirst Impressions:
Very pretty, but maybe a bit too minimalistic.This is a very simple song with nothing but piano. The performance the pianist gives is definitely great, and it’s impressive how well it’s able to support an entire song just by itself. This song doesn’t need any added instruments to convey its ethereal, floaty and beautiful atmosphere; the piano is more than enough. That said, the end result is unsurprisingly minimalistic. That’s fine, but not really my thing. I still liked this piece though.
8th Place: Cyril (+7 Points)
Spectral Lore - A Rider In The Lands Of An Infinite DreamscapeFirst Impressions:
The atmosphere didn’t seem very pronounced on my first listen, and the heavy elements didn’t sound all that great. This better be a grower.This one’s all over the place, both compositionally and quality-wise. I feel like there’s a lot of cool stuff going on a lot of the time, but it all feels way more unmemorable than it should be. The freeform and meandering song structure probably doesn’t help much in that department. The vocals also add so little that they might as well not even be in the song. On the more positive side, the middle of this song definitely has some interesting stuff going on. It has an almost symphonic quality to it at points, which I definitely enjoyed. There’s some nice dynamics around the middle, which build up to an intense and crazy finale near the ten minute mark, with all of the instruments just going off. Why the song doesn’t end there and decides to tack on a pointless two minutes afterwards is beyond me. So yeah, the beginning and ending of this song did nothing for me, but the middle was pretty good. Were it more consistent throughout, I think I would have liked this one a lot more.
9th Place: Kattleox (+6 Points)
Enya - Storms In AfricaFirst Impressions:
This kinda just felt like background music to me.Well, the atmosphere here is definitely nice, and certainly fits the title of the song. The electronic instrumentation works well, and the soft vocals in the background contribute well to the peaceful and soothing vibe. But at the end of the day, this just feels lacking in substance to me. It sounds like something that would play in the background of a nature documentary, or something. I think it would work well as a nice segue between two more substantial songs on an album, but on its own, I can’t say it impressed me all that much.
10th Place: kingshmegland (+5 Points)
Slow Motion Reign - Life SimulatorFirst Impressions:
After a single listen I have absolutely nothing good nor bad to say about this one.The best thing I can say about this song is that its instrumentation is just weird enough to feel slightly “off”, which is a great fit for its lyrical theme. But man, there’s just hardly anything here to me in terms of gripping musical ideas. I’m really struggling to think of anything to say here. It’s a simple song, and from beginning to end it’s just… meh. Meh, I say!
11th Place: Stadler (+4 Points)
Train - Drops Of JupiterFirst Impressions:
I had zero expectations going into this one, given the other songs I’ve heard from this band. It wasn’t too bad.Having heard and actively disliked a couple Train songs in the past, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this one at all. After listening to it a handful of times I can safely say that I enjoyed it… more than I thought I would, but still not very much. I don’t have any complaints about the vocal melodies, but this guy’s voice still rubs me the wrong way. He’s nowhere near as annoying as he is in say, Hey Soul Sister, but I still don’t really like listening to him. The heavy use of strings in this song is kinda nice, but they do cause it to sound incredibly over-dramatic. The sound as a whole is just a bit too saccharine for me; like a lot of poppier songs like this, it’s immediately gratifying, but starts to make you feel a bit sick after repeated exposure. I don’t think this song flat-out bad, but it’s definitely starting to get annoying and I probably won’t ever listen to it again out of choice. Also, what’s with the “fried chicken” line? Were they really that desperate to rhyme something with “stickin’”?
12th Place: Puppies_On_Acid (+3 Points)
Altar Of Plagues - As A WombFirst Impressions:
Well, that was very long and uninteresting.My first impressions here are still pretty accurate, I’m sad to say. This song’s a very long and monotonous listen. The heavy sections are way too one-note and unappealing sounding, with almost nothing but blast beats and some really awful sounding guitars that just never seem to stop. The best part of this song to me is easily its intro, with its soft, suspenseful building that leads into a massive explosion when the full band comes in. But from that point on, it’s just a bore. I also didn’t find there to be much atmosphere here, outside of the intro. It’s dark, I guess. But it’s black metal, so that’s a given, and I received at least one or two songs this round that sound much darker than this. If the album this comes from is just this song four times like Cyril said, I’m keeping my distance.
Newly banned artists:- Have A Nice Life
- Todtgelichter
---THE SCORE SO FAR---1: Tomislav95 - 43
[PERKS USED: DOUBLE POINTS]2: Sacul - 40
[PERKS USED: RANKING SWAP]3: Ruba - 35
[PERKS USED: DOUBLE POINTS]4: Cyril - 32
[PERKS USED: RANKING SWAP]4: Nekov - 32
[PERKS USED: RANKING SWAP]6: Kattleox - 29
[PERKS USED: DOUBLE POINTS]In Danger7: Puppies_On_Acid - 26
[PERKS USED: DOUBLE POINTS]7: DTA - 26
[PERKS USED: RANKING SWAP]9: jingle.boy - 25
[PERKS USED: RANKING SWAP]9: TAC - 25
[PERKS USED: DOUBLE POINTS, RANKING SWAP]Eliminated11: Stadler - 18
[PERKS USED: DOUBLE POINTS]12: kingshmegland - 17
[PERKS USED: DOUBLE POINTS]13: senecadawg2 - 12
[PERKS USED: DOUBLE POINTS]14: Evermind - 9
[PERKS USED: DOUBLE POINTS, RANKING SWAP]No tiebreaker necessary this round; both Stadler and kingshmegland have been eliminated. Thank you for participating! Also, congratulations to Sacul for getting a new artist banned every round so far, and congratulations to everyone for using at least one perk!
---ROUND 4: OPEN---Think of this round as the qualifier for advancing onto the second half of the roulette. Not two, but
three people will be eliminated after this round, leaving half of the participants remaining. This is a crucial round, so send the best song you can! To help you out (I guess), there's no theme this time. Send whatever you want!
Poll
Topic: Buddyhunter1's Roulette v4: Post-Roulette Updates: Sacul (Read 43866 times)