Round 4 ResultsRound 4 Playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7JFakMVO07WSMWDQcukMzQDacul: Kate Bush – The Big SkyTheme: Pre-2000’s PopFirst Impressions:Maybe it’s because of the version of this I picked but the production sounds reaaally flat in a kind of obnoxious way that makes it hard to listen to, it’s 90% percussion and vocals with everything else buried in the mix and compressed as hell and I can hardly appreciate anything else about this. Granted the vocals sound like standard 80’s pop to me and the instrumentation has some okay rock flair to it but not a ton, or at least, not that I can hear. I dunno, this already isn’t my thing and then the entire thing is trapped behind awful mixing to boot.
Who could’ve guessed the worst production of the round would come from this song in particular? Geez, it’s nigh-unlistenable in this state.Final Thoughts:Okay, let’s try to put aside the production for a bit, especially since it was never quite as bad for me after the first listen (though it, uhh, wasn’t good either). The other major problem this song really has is just how repetitive it is. The song has to say “the big sky” somewhere close to 50 times across the entire song if not more. Or it feels that way if not. And it’s over four and a half minutes long when it feels like it could comfortably be three.
And nothing about the overall aesthetic really appeals to me either. Like the drumming itself is kind of impressive I guess. There’s like two endless guitar loops throughout the entire song, the one acoustic one and the one electric one that’s barely even audible. The bass has presence but no discernable melody, it’s just another layer of endless thudding on top of the loud percussion. And I’m just not too into her vocal style much. Maybe it’s because most of the lyrics are just “the big sky” over and over again but this style of vocals just doesn’t do much for me.
And the production is… still baffling, especially considering the remaster that happened over 30 years later and changed, to my ears, basically nothing. What’s the appeal of crushing every aspect of instrumental melody under the percussion like this? Why even bother having the rest of the instruments? The song also ends on something like a minute long fadeout that literally is just repeating the same four measures over and over.
Anyways, I just don’t really enjoy anything at all about this song. It’s not the worst thing ever and if I’m not focusing on it I can mostly tune it out, but that’s about the highest praise I can give this.
Reward:
Bonus:
TAC: Gates To The Morning – Chapel PerilousTheme: NoneFirst Impressions:I actually listened to this album once or twice but didn’t end up digging deeper into it! I remember it being vaguely progressive & doom-y, let’s see if my memories are right. This one is uhh. Like, chamber folk or something, actually? Is that the right term? I think if this developed into a metal track I’d like it a lot but it’s, like, a super weird pick for a roulette, I feel. It’s not… bad, or unpleasant, by any stretch, and maybe in the context of the album it works really well, but on its own I’m just not sure what to make of it.
Did you mean to send this song? I’m genuinely wondering. Not that it’s bad but it doesn’t really feel like a roulette song, more an album cut that needs that context.Final Thoughts:I’m not really sure what to add to my first impression with on this one. It’s… almost completely empty. There’s like, a few recurring melodies here, sure. The vocal performance itself is pretty solid, he sounds nice, but there’s too much of a free-flowing vibe to it and it’s pretty dang repetitive, there’s like maybe two or three different vocal melodies throughout the song. And there’s never any accompaniment. If there are vocals, the instruments will wait until the end of the phrase to kick back in, and the vocals won’t come back until the instruments are gone.
And the instrumentation is like… looping guitars and, I think, harp? Throughout most of the song. You could probably make a decent soundscape out of that but there’s not really any attempt at doing so here either. There’s again just like, two different passages of instrumentation that repeat ad infinitum between vocal moments.
This even fails as an interlude track because it’s just too long for what it’s going for. It’s six and a half minutes long and it has less substance to it than any of the 3 minute songs I’ve received all roulette. I don’t know what this even has to offer outside the context of the album it’s on, either.
So I can only just wonder… why did you send this to me? Is this the song you meant to send? Is this the type of song you enjoy listening to on its own? Not only does it not really appeal to my tastes in any way, but it seems decisively un-TAC-like, both from what you’ve sent me in the past and from how you tend to rate things in your roulette. I am genuinely confused.
This is the definition of a 5/10 because it evokes nothing in me. I don’t have anything really negative to say about it, but it makes me feel nothing and I don’t have any words of praise for it either. Perfectly average.
Reward:
Train of Naught: Raketkanon – FlorentTheme: NoneFirst Impressions:What is this, post-metal does funk rock? Oh man, and those vocals are rough as heck too. Thank god this is short, I honestly couldn’t see myself sitting through an 8-minute version of this sound 5 times. Well, okay, it has an okay quiet bit in the middle, but. No, those vocals are legit some of the worst I’ve ever heard in rock/metal, dear god. The groove itself is… okay, but not heavy enough to be satisfying and doesn’t sound tight enough to get me headbobbing either. Guitar line at the end is alright too.
The vocals completely ruin what was already a mid-to-low tier song to begin with, dear god. Some bits of this I like but not many.Final Thoughts:Well okay, this grew on me a little bit. The groove, mostly. That’s not a bad groove, actually. Maybe hearing it a few more times helped it grow on me. I won’t say it’s an amazing groove, but it’s a good baseline for a song that could develop into a better, heavier groove.
This song unfortunately doesn’t go that route, it goes the route of adding some of the most annoying vocals I can recall. I genuinely don’t understand the appeal of this style of vocals. I don’t know what else to say, they just sound the closest thing to “objectively bad” something can be. Any moment with vocals is worse off for having them.
The clean break in the middle is a nice moment of reprieve, though it’s not a particularly strong atmosphere, a bit too empty to have much of any impact. And the ending is kinda cool. I think this is the only moment the vocals don’t ruin, I dig that guitar lead and there’s some solid intensity here and the vocals are mostly not present and only indiscernable shrieks when they are.
The song is also pretty short, and when about half of it leaves a negative impact on me through a single element, there’s not much room for it to make a positive impression. Still, this ended up higher than I originally expected it to, though the bottom three this round were all pretty much set in stone from the first listen. But yeah. Sorry man, I just don’t get it.
Reward:
ariich: Scar Symmetry – The Kaleidoscopic GodTheme: NoneFirst Impressions:Honestly, I know of these guys, but exclusively through “guitar hero solo compilations” because these guys had a pretty ridiculous one of those. So I know them for their technicality and not much else. Right off the bat I get mostly melodeath vibes from this though which is I guess not quite what I was expecting? The riffs are okay and the vocals are fine, though for this sound I did prefer what Soilwork I’ve heard, from what you sent me previously, but the energy is at least there in this one. I don’t know if I’m really hearing much about this that particularly stands out though. Yeah, there are prog elements, but those elements are a longer-than-average runtime and shifts between various 4/4 riffs that I’ve basically already heard before in other bands.
I get where you’re coming from for this one but there isn’t much about it that either impresses or stands out to me, it’s “fine” though.Final Thoughts:Every round has to have one song that stands out by being the least memorable of the round, and this round it ended up being this one. Which is interesting, because from a technical standpoint, these guys probably have the most talent, or at least the most instrumental chops, of any band sent. Bu I don’t know, just that there isn’t a ton about this one that does much for me.
The riffs… okay, there’s the one really chuggy, kind of thrash-y one throughout the verses that doesn’t do much for me, the one that’s heavier and meatier behind the chorus that has some solid grooves, there’s a few others that show up less often that are all kinda solid too but not especially memorable.
The vocals, the growls here are fine, I am pretty indifferent on them leaning I guess slightly negative, they’re kind of doofy cookie monster-style low growls. The cleans are okay too, the singer doesn’t sound that great but he’s got a solid melody to work with that makes up for it. Other things… the break in the middle that happens and builds up some atmospheric swell is pretty neat, but it doesn’t quite feel like it builds into anything.
The real highlights of this one are the solo sections, the first shorter solo is a bit buried in the mix but it has a nice riff below it and the solo itself is pretty solid too. The second solo is really where it’s at, there’s just a ton going on here that I dig the hell out of. It kind of mixes a metal solo style with a lot of tones that make me think more of 70’s classic rock and the riffs behind each section of the solo reflect pretty well which influence that passage is pulling from to make for an impressive and propulsive section. It’s been the highlight of the song for me every listen and usually the only part that really catches my attention.
It’s overall… a fine song, but outside of that really good solo section, not much of it really clicks for me in a way that makes me want to return to it. It doesn’t overstay its welcome and it’s moving around enough to not get boring over its runtime, it’s got a solid enough hook and a few repeated motifs that I like, but the overall aesthetic is one that’s really hit or miss for me and I can’t say this is a particularly strong hit, though it’s not a miss either. I’m still going to call it your weakest submission yet but your weakest still isn’t half bad.
I should stress that this is like, the most borderline between two ratings any song has been yet and I’m probably going to judge future round scores against it, though.
Reward:
Evermind: Lost Domain – Rise of IsolashTheme: Female-Fronted Death MetalFirst Impressions:Alright, Evermind back on the harsh vocals bandwagon, that’s how you know it’s gonna be either really good or really terrible. Initial impression is definitely getting some Oceans of Slumber vibes off this, a heavy and dark sound with some pretty powerful vocals, though it also kind of leans more towards a melodic death metal sound. I’d rather have a female-fronted band in the genre than a male-fronted one, though, from my experience. There’s a bit of a proggy direction to this one too, I’ve kind of just been casually enjoying it without having a ton to really say during my first impression but I think that’s fine.
It’s pretty straightforward for what it is but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t rock or that I don’t dig it a lot, ‘cause it does, and I do.Final Thoughts:The other 7-ish minute death metal track of this round. I’m doing these write-ups back-to-back even if they don’t end up this way in the final rankings, which is probably a bad idea, but it’s also an opportunity to compare both of these and see why one works a little bit better for me than the other.
Well for one, she’s a better singer than anything Scar Symmetry had to offer me. She does sound like the kind of singer who could front a symphonic metal band though so I’m glad this isn’t, uhh, that. She’s not as good as the Scarlet Stories vocalist, though, no moment of this really gives me chills in the way that some stuff on that album does and her highest notes also aren’t as high, though that’s kind of a silly metric to judge based on anyways.
The guitar riffs here are also pretty solid, they balance groove and melody well, both the main riff behind the verses and the chorus are pretty headbob-worthy. I can groove to that. Just like the other song this round, this one also has a break in the middle, though here that serves as a transition into a pretty killer triplet groove and some nice clean/harsh vocal tradeoffs.
The faster section kinda comes and goes pretty quickly before it’s back to the norm but I do like that there’s a triplet guitar line that comes in the background of the buildup that follows, kind of a lingering aftershock of that faster groove. The song basically just rides that buildup from that point onward and while I don’t feel the climax is especially satisfying, it’s still a pretty solid moment.
That’s kind of what I’d say about this one overall. It’s very solid metal. I don’t ever quite fine any moment of it especially powerful, but it’s a nearly 8 minute track that I enjoy front-to-back to a pretty positive extent, though I also definitely am not really emotionally resonating with it or finding it especially hard-hitting either. I can’t really fault it for anything though, it’s just not quite grabbing my interest, but it’s a good song all the same.
Reward:
Bonus:
Topic: Cyril's Roulette v6 (Final Results) (Read 62468 times)
