Round 3.5 ResultsRound 3.5 Playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1cECVD9wPECFBJkx4GxMv9ariich: Wintersun – Sons of Winter and StarsTheme: NoneFirst Impressions:Wow, this is extra as heck.
Final Thoughts:This is literally just Land of Snow and Sorrow. 2/5.
Okay so immediately my first problem with this is how bad the sound balancing is. Literally every time I have to turn up my speakers for the intro and then the song kicks in and it’s way too loud, that’s such a harsh cut! It’s maybe because large segments of this song are Devin Townsend-levels of “wall of sound” which… well, not necessarily bad on its own but it does make for a very cluttered sound overall.
The way this song unfolds over its long runtime fits into my head as such… first bit is a triplet feel, second bit is a 4/4 feel, third bit is a faster triplet feel, fourth bit is the quiet bit, and after that uuhh the song feels like it meanders for 5 more minutes. I really always start losing interest towards the end of this, since it’s pretty long and doesn’t feel like it has much else to offer towards the end, unless I’ve just been missing something.
Another issue I’ve had with this one is that I don’t find any of its motifs as memorable as the main motif of the other Wintersun song. That one’s kinda been lodged in my head for a bit, in part due to how often I repeats I guess, but it’s surprisingly catchy. For this one, I can remember how the title drop in the chorus goes and some of the main motif that repeats throughout parts of this, but that’s about it. Maybe it’s due to this being a 13+ minute song I’ve tried to absorb in about 2 days and change.
Comments on the individual sections, as best as I can give them… the first section is solid, it’s what feels like should be the “core” of the song, even though what turns out to be the core is the faster version of such. The 4/4 segment is probably the part of the song (besides the clean bit) that feels the least cluttered and most riff-driven and the riffs throughout are pretty solid. It’s probably my favorite bit of this? It has more to it than “trying to sound epic”, there’s some groove to it too. Not that “trying to sound epic” is inherently bad either. I also like how this section transitions into the one after it.
The faster bit after is probably the least memorable, especially with how short it sticks around until we get to the clean bit. There’s some solid symphonic stuff going on there but it’s all kind of a blur, it doesn’t have much of a melodic hook to it. The clean bit then, it’s a nice reprieve that comes right towards the middle of the song, maybe it would’ve been nice to have a bit of reprieve earlier too but I don’t really have any gripes about this segment other than it doesn’t really impress me that much? But it’s nice.
After that is the bit where the first segment gets reprised (yay motif!) and then the song goes off into an instrumental segment. I can’t help but wonder if these riffs would hit better at a slower tempo? It gets to a point where it’s almost too fast to build up a groove and the melodies can’t stick because they’re all noodling at an accelerated pace. I still don’t have a ton else to say about this. I like the big chorus reprise towards the end. It’s a good way to tie the song together and it does sound pretty epic too.
How does this compare to the previous song I listened to then? It’s more interesting, for sure. It’s kind of hard to compare because they really are completely different types of songs, even the slowest tempo this song has is still way more upbeat than that one has. I don’t find this one as hook-driven but there’s a lot more to pick apart in the music. It’s still no Wilderun, mind you – it’s a bit of an overdone mess with all the layers of symphonic swell and doesn’t quite hit that balance of metal-to-symphonic elements that makes stuff in this genre work for me, but I definitely can see why you’d send this one to me, whereas the last one did admittedly leave me a bit baffled. So yeah, it’s better. It’s not blowing me away or anything or making me want to dig into these guys further, but it’s good metal, even if it’s way too long and bloated.
If I had to put it in the rankings for round 3, I’d say it goes right around where Karas is. I really don’t know if I’d put it higher or lower than Karas, they’re a bit too different for me to compare & it doesn’t really matter anyways.
Reward:
Revised Standings:ariich: 13
Elite: 13
Evermind: 12
Dacul: 12
Nekov: 11
Bolsters: 10
Puppies_On_Acid: 10
Buddyhunter1: 10
Train of Naught: 9
TAC: 9
Topic: Cyril's Roulette v6 (Final Results) (Read 62480 times)
