Here they are! A little on the long side, which is why they took a little while longer than I thought. Overall, the round was quite strong, one of those with a lot of songs in the "very good" range. No standout great song, but a lot that I liked pretty well plus a trio that I liked a whole lot. Looking forward to round 2!
TAC: Anabasis - Terminal
Impression: I really love the build-up on this one. I love a long intro like this that slowly increases in intensity. And the later part of this song just feels huge, with big riffs and an awesome anthemic chorus. I’d call this an early round favorite.
I have to say, given our shared status of having Iron Maiden and Dream Theater as the huge formative bands in our lives, it’s always been interesting to me how our tastes seem to very often just miss the mark for each other. That has certainly often been the case with your submissions in my previous roulettes.
And I have to say, I was apprehensive this time when I saw that you had submitted a song from a new band that had only released their debut this year. Usually, when you’ve done that in the past, it really just hasn’t worked for me at all.
Well, not today. This is really, really awesome. These guys are hugely talented just from a sheer songwriting perspective. This one begins with just a masterful buildup before launching into a fantastic melodic piece with some wonderful riffing, great guitarwork, and a chorus that just grabs hold of me and doesn’t let go. The vocal interplay between the clean and harsh parts on the chorus is superb, already one of my favorite uses of harsh vocals.
This type of song is what I listen to prog metal for. I’m definitely going to buy these guys’ album, because they are super talented and I really want to see them find the success they deserve.
Score: 9.0 out of 10.
Tomislav95: Soen - Lotus
Impression: The adjective that comes to mind for this one is “smooth.” From the subtle guitar work to the vocal melodies to the singer’s emotional delivery, the whole thing just feels so smooth. I’m into it.
I think I’ve said it as best as I can already in the impression. This song is so smooth, and I love it. There’s a ton of emotion in this one, carried out through precise and beautifully executed guitar and vocal work.
This is one of those songs that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel or do anything too far out of the ordinary, but does an expected thing unexpectedly well. Every note is in the right place, and the experience is excellent all the way through. A very well-crafted piece of music.
Score: 9.0 out of 10.
jingle.boy: Circus Maximus - Glory of the Empire
Impression: This song feels like it might be a major grower, and I’m hoping that there’s enough time for it to grow in the space of this roulette round. What I know right now is that I’m really impressed with the keyboards, especially how they are used both for atmosphere and for lead parts.
So, yes, this song did in fact turn out to be a grower. There was really so much going into this epic that it did take me a few listens to get a feel for the overall structure and sense of progression. Which is often a very good thing for my esteem of the song.
First, the individual elements that I caught onto pretty early: As the impression says, I’m really impressed by the keyboards on this one. A lot of prog metal bands, it seems primarily use keyboards as more of an atmospheric element, to create a sort of virtual string section that compliments the guitar leads, but doesn’t really ever come to the fore. And that’s fine as far as it goes, but I love when that’s combined with some great lead work on the keys, like Dream Theater has always had, and Circus Maximus does a great job featuring some lead keyboards here, in addition to the type of atmospheric stuff I mentioned.
I also am quite impressed by the singer. He can do the acrobatics and the high notes when the song calls for it, but spends much of his time singing pretty straightforwardly and focused on conveying the emotions of the song. A good combination, well-executed.
As a whole piece, this song does have a really excellent buildup to an emotional climax. The decision to do a song about the Spartacus story/Gladiator was a good one, I really like the lyrics a lot. Structurally, I feel like the song is always going somewhere, but has no trouble taking the time it needs to get there. That’s always nice in a short epic like this. In the end, this is the type of thing that’s right up my alley, and it’s quite well executed, so, yeah, it’s one of the top three of the round.
Score: 9.0 out of 10.
Elite: The Ocean - Hadopelagic II: Let Them Believe
Impression: This is an artist that I’ve heard of, and kind of been led to think would not really be my thing. Which is why I’m a bit surprised by the fact that I really like this right off the bat.
Surprised no one guessed this impression. I guess the background behind this is that I’ve heard of this group before as a prog metal band that people loved, but mainly loved for their ability to create atmosphere using harsher, heavier music. That sounded to me very much like black metal or something, maybe, and definitely music where the emphasis would be on creating some sort of mood, with melody taking a back seat.
That is definitely not what I found to be the case here. This song certainly does have a strong sense of atmosphere, but more importantly, it is melodically quite interesting. The heavy-soft dynamic works really well on this one, and I find myself enjoying both the smooth guitar and string parts and the more bombastic sections. I’d definitely say that this is an instance of harsh vocals used to good effect to emphasize and highlight intense parts of the music, especially in compliment with clean vocals and performed by a vocalist who can “slide” between the two (which is a technique I like, in preference to the one where it’s more like an on-off switch).
Definitely looking forward to hearing more from these guys, especially if, as I hear, they are an album-centric band who tends to try to create a certain kind of flow.
Score: 8.5 of 10.
Evermind: Lords of Black - Ghost of You
Impression: Really liking how many layers there are to the melodies on this one. I’m only worried that the song might overstay its welcome by just a little bit.
As I always emphasize in roulette writeups, intros, etc., melody is really important to me. This song is right up my alley, then, because there are a lot of melodies, often layered on top of one another in the form of twin guitar parts, parts where there’s something going on with the guitars and something else with the bass and vocals, etc., as well as parts where everything comes together to emphasize one big melody.
This song is one big, awesome anthem with some nice buildups and payoffs, and a memorable, powerful chorus. I do still think that it feels maybe just a little bit longer than it needs to be, although that impression lessened as I got more and more into the awesome instrumental section. Overall, I really enjoy this song, and rate it as one of the stronger ones in the round.
Score: 8.5 out of 10.
Cyril: Amendfoil - Skyline Escape
Impression: One of those songs that feels like it covers a lot more ground than it has any business doing considering its runtime. I’m really enamored of that sort of thing when done well, and this one shows a lot of promise.
Yeah, what the impression says. There are a lot of moving parts here, and they really run the gamut from some quieter, sinister sections, to some really heavy stuff with harsh vocals. And they really make it work well here. The heavy riffing feels relentless at the right times, but it’s well-complimented by the more melodic parts.
And of course the vocalist is the lynchpin, who makes the heavy stuff and the quiet stuff work equally well. He has that quality of being able to go from clean to harsh vocals as though moving along a continuum, rather than like an on-off switch. And that’s a big part of what makes this song so successful, in my opinion. The transitions from one vocal style to another, one level of intensity to another, one section to another, within a relatively short piece of music, are really well-done. None of the individual sections may be a total mindblower, but that’s not necessarily needed when the whole is well done like this.
Score: 8.5 out of 10.
Sacul: The Cardigans - Explode
Impression: I’d definitely characterize this song as something that feels comfortable to me. The vocals are nice, but I worry about the song being a bit too repetitive.
This song was one of the growers of the round. At first, as the impression suggests, it was something I found comfortable, but not really much more than that, the sort of thing that might end up as something like a casual 7/10. On repeated listens, I’ve really come to be more intrigued not just by the lovely chorus, but by those nice twisting verses, which I think compliment the more straightforward style of the chorus very well.
The singer is really excellent, her performance is emotionally evocative, and the tone of her voice feels like it was made to going along with the style of electronic instrumentation they’re using here. I think the instrumentation, while generally understated, is pretty strong, and it sort of adds to what I’ve been describing as the twisty feeling that’s present on the verses.
Overall, this is a pretty enjoyable piece with some hidden depth. I definitely liked it a lot.
Score: 8.0 out of 10.
Topic: 425's Third Roulette v. Fell and rose and tried... (Read 32455 times)
