FINAL ROUND RESULTS, ranks 8-9--------------------------------------------------------------------------
8th place (joint)
Jingle – Supernatural Teaser Trailer1. The Chronicles Project – Prologue: Our Souls
2. The Chronicles Project – Forever
3. Epysode – File 41807
4. Epysode – Invisible Nations
5. The Chronicles Project – Interlude I: The Confession
6. Epysode – March of the Ghosts
7. Epysode – Now and Forever
8. Epysode – Forgotten Symphony
First impression: Stylistically nothing particularly unusual about it, but it’s highly enjoyable and kind of bombastic. It reminds me of a couple of other artists I rather enjoy.
Final opinion: So yeah the Chronicles Project stuff is definitely reminiscent of Kamelot, not only because of the vocals but also the musical style. And the Epysode songs have hints of them as well, plus the obvious Everygrey influence as you mentioned due to Tom Englund’s role. And the whole multi-singer “metal opera” idea is naturally a little reminiscent of Ayreon too. Anyway, the quality is all pretty high throughout. It’s nicely produced, all very punchy and engaging, and there are lots of strong hooks. And of course the vocal performances are all top-notch. The spoken word bits are maybe a little on the cheesy side, but tolerably so. I still feel it’s all pretty straightforward stylistically – pretty much all of it sounds like a few other bands – so it doesn’t excite me in the same way as some of the prog metal you sent earlier in the roulette, but it doesn’t stop it being enjoyable and bombastic.
The flow is really good as well, helped by the genre and style being identical, and the fact that the two Epysode albums are direct sequels and the Chronicles Project one is similar conceptually too. While I find the spoken word bits fairly cheesy, they do help bridge the songs together and really do make this feel like a convincing teaser for the full albums, which I’ll be checking out for sure.
Music quality score: 8.2
Flow score: 4.1
EP total: 12.3
Roulette total: 70.0I’m so glad I was able to convince you to join this roulette, after your bad luck in the prelim last time and not doing as well as you’d have liked in the one before (although I still thought you did well, I’m still really into some of the music you sent me). Just as with RJ, I really appreciate how you mixed a couple of your personal favourites in with a selection of bands you thought I’d like most, and I think you’re definitely getting better at reading where our tastes overlap. Ending up in 8th place and not higher is simply because the Zeppelin set you back slightly, and everyone upped their game in the last two rounds which made it too difficult to catch back up. But the fact that you were in 3rd place twice shows how much I liked what you were sending me. So next time I do this, you definitely need to play again and keep it up with the good stuff.
You win the award for: Most Submissions Over 20 Minutes
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8th place (joint)
Train – aricii1. Raketkanon – Ricky
2. Mutoid Man – Bridge Burner
3. Mutoid Man – Reptilian Soul
4. Raketkanon – Fons
5. He Is Legend – No Visitors
6. He Is Legend – White Bat
7. Raketkanon – Florent
8. He Is Legend – Mean Shadow
First impression: There’s an enjoyable, intense groove to most of this. There’s an element I’m not yet sure about on its own, but it seems to balance with the rest of the EP.
Final opinion: There’s some damn cool music on here. The bands are linked by their use of heavy grooves, but otherwise they all do something quite different so I’ll take them all in turn. My favourite is Mutoid Man as I love these two songs – I’m not sure why you compared them to Cave In as these songs and the Cave In ones LoCo sent me seem very different (but those were perhaps not representative?). Anyway, this sounds somewhere between post-hardcore and I guess stoner metal, and it’s really slickly done and has such a great energy, particularly in the guitars. Raketkanon is definitely weird – they didn’t disappoint in that regard.

But it mostly works – certainly Ricky is awesome and the other two tracks, while they have moments I’m still not wholly convinced by, are still pretty cool overall. He Is Legend feel the most normal of the three, pretty straightforward stoner metal really, a little proggier perhaps. Really great riffing though, and strong hooks.
The flow is pretty good, in that you’ve done a really good job with the track order to keep it all nicely balanced (i.e. spread the weird Raketkanon stuff out

), and generally the ordering works well to get a little heavier as the EP goes on. The only issue is the fact that these bands all do something a bit different, and so while it flows nicely enough, I’m not quite feeling it as a coherent EP.
Music quality score: 8.4
Flow score: 3.8
EP total: 12.2
Roulette total: 70.0It looked like you might make a good go at reclaiming your crown in the first two rounds, but the Junius was a misstep unfortunately. Still, misstep aside, everything else you sent me was fantastic and it’s been great having you back on such great form. I’ve already checked out the Clarence Clarity album and I love it, but basically everything else is also going on my full-album-listening list for after the roulette. Which is impressive given the variety of styles and sounds you sent me. But what I think really stands out in your submissions is the sheer amount of grooooove. Other than the A.A. Williams which was more delicate (and gorgeous), I think basically everything else was either funky in some way, or heavy music with groove in the riffs.
You win the award for: Most Groovy
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Final rankings:
8= Train = 8.9 + 8.1 + 7.5 + 8.2 + 8.5 + 8.3 + 8.3 + (8.4 + 3.8) = 70.0
8= jingle = 8.1 + 8.7 + 8.0 + 8.1 + 8.6 + 7.8 + 8.4 + (8.2 + 4.1) = 70.0
10. Puppies = 7.8 + 8.2 + 8.5 + 8.4 + 7.8 + 8.3 + 8.4 + (8.3 + 4.2) = 69.9
11. wolfking = 8.2 + 8.2 + 8.0 + 8.9 + 8.2 + 8.2 + 8.1 + (8.1 + 3.8) = 69.7
12= lonestar = 8.4 + 7.9 + 8.0 + 7.8 + 8.2 + 8.5 + 8.5 + (8.0 + 4.1) = 69.4
12= Elite = 8.1 + 8.5 + 7.6 + 8.1 + 8.1 + 8.3 + 7.9 + (8.7 + 4.1) = 69.4
12= Indi = 7.9 + 8.2 + 8.3 + 7.9 + 8.1 + 8.0 + 8.2 + (8.3 + 4.5) = 69.4
15= Nekov = 8.2 + 7.8 + 8.5 + 8.3 + 8.2 + 7.8 + 8.2 + (8.2 + 4.1) = 69.3
15= romdrums = 8.0 + 8.7 + 8.0 + 8.1 + 8.3 + 8.3 + 8.1 + (8.1 + 3.7) = 69.3
17. Sacul = 8.1 + 7.1 + 8.2 + 8.3 + 8.3 + 8.1 + 8.4 + (8.3 + 4.0) = 68.8
18. king = 8.2 + 7.8 + 8.2 + 7.7 + 8.0 + 8.2 + 8.4 + (8.0 + 3.9) = 68.4
19. Tomi = 7.3 + 8.1 + 7.9 + 8.5 + 8.1 + 7.5 + 8.5 + (8.1 + 3.9) = 67.9
20. LordCost = 7.2 + 8.8 + 7.3 + 8.2 + 7.5 + 8.4 + 8.0 + (7.9 + 3.7) = 67.0
21. Lethean = 7.6 + 8.0 + 8.5 + 8.4 + 7.4 + 7.6 + 8.2 + (7.6 + 3.4) = 66.7
22. Stadler = 7.4 + 7.8 + 7.9 + 8.1 + 8.4 + 7.8 + 8.0 + (7.3 + 3.7) = 66.4