ROUND 5 RESULTS
Evermind
Hypno5e
Night on the Petrified Sea
The Wandering Shadows
4 points
So my first impression of this was that it was all right, and that’s still kinda where I am. There are cool moments throughout, like with the Spanish-style acoustic guitar in Night on the Petrified Sea, and both songs create an interesting atmosphere, but none of the vocal sections are really working for me, and the songs feel like they spend most of their time wandering kind of aimlessly instead of building towards something. I also think there’s too much time spent on the French (some of it also sounds Spanish?) spoken-word sections. I don’t speak any French (or Spanish, clearly, since I can’t tell the difference) so I don’t get any meaning from it, and I don’t feel like the delivery is really that interesting on its own, so it just feels like filler.
Stadler
Our Lady Peace
Starseed
Superman’s Dead
Somewhere Out There
4am
4 points
This has got a sort of 2000s rock/post-grunge sound to it, in terms of the song structures and the vocal melodies. The vocalist reminds me a lot of the guy from The Smashing Pumpkins, actually, which is a bit unfortunate I suppose, since I have a lot of the same problems with him. His timbre and delivery definitely have their moments, like in the beginning of Starseed when he’s going for a more straight-ahead rock grit, or the mid-2000s-mainstream-rock stylings on Somewhere Out There, but most of the rest of the time he’s leaning into that grunge/post-grunge nasality, which is a miss more often than it’s a hit for me. Instrumentally I enjoy a lot of what’s going on here, but as is usually the case the vocals tend to be the make-or-break for me.
Elite
Scarlet Stories
The Gallows Tree: Part II The Price You Paid
In Blood and Limbs and Gore and Clay
Nostalgia in a Closed Mind
4 points
To be honest, I just can’t really get into this that much. Vocalist definitely has a lot of talent, but none of the melodies really work for me, and the songs seem kind of meandering. Musically there are some pretty nice moments, but nothing really stands out much to me either. It’s not a bad listen really, I’m just not getting much out of it.
Puppies_On_Acid
Kiss Kiss
Janet
Machines
Plague 11
Innocent 1 (The Corruption of Self Through the Introduction of Naturally Existing Self Producing Chemicals)
Innocent 2 (A Drop from the Ethereal Swimming Towards the Crescent Moon)
Hate
5 points
So there’s some things about this I really like. The first two songs from the Reality Vs. The Optimist album have a softer post-hardcore sound mixed with pretty unconventional instrumentation that’s quite cool, although there are a few moments where there’s just too much going on at once and it becomes a bit noisy. The other songs from The Meek Shall Inherit What’s Left seem to lean into the noisy part a lot more heavily. They’re also really spastic and frenetic, with the songs changing randomly. I actually like that kind of thing in general, but I don’t care much for the busy/noisy sections when they appear, and then I don’t feel like I get long enough with the more subdued ones to fully enjoy them.
wolfking
Primal Fear
Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove
Evil Spell
Nuclear Fire
Rollercoaster
5 points
So I’ve heard a few Primal Fear songs over the years, and generally enjoyed them, but never enough to check them out much beyond that, and I get pretty much the same impression from these songs. No doubt, Ralf Scheepers is a fantastic vocalist, and listening to him is the highlight here. Outside of that, the songs are just all right. Melodies are usually pretty good, there are some nice solos, but nothing really stands out as exceptional. The best parts really just make me want to go listen to Judas Priest’s Painkiller again. (Speaking of JP, the ‘condemn to hell’ in Evil Spell is definitely a reference to Sentinel, right?)
Cyril
Midnight Odyssey
Against the Moonlight
Those Who Linger At Night
5 points
One of the main issues I have with pure black metal is the ‘recorded using a cellphone in the middle of a forest’ production. This isn’t pure black metal but it seems to be using that same ethos; there are some really lovely sections here, like the middle of Against the Moonlight, but I have to chop through a mile of staticy paper-thin guitar to get to it. I like the beginning of Those Who Linger At Night, although it’s a bit long, and the clean vocals afterwards I think are really cool, but they’re obfuscated by the production again. Mixed feelings overall, I suppose.
romdrums
The Intersphere
Relation in the Unseen
Sleeping God
Out of Phase
The Grand Delusion
Soapbubbles in the Rain
6 points
This reminds me a lot of the band 3, in terms of the heavy-riffing, lightly-proggy music combined with the alt-rock style vocal style. My impression of this group is kind of the same; they’re clearly good musicians, the songs have a nice mix of riff-centric heaviness and more atmospheric moments, the vocals are competent and pretty well performed, but there’s nothing that pushes my impression beyond ‘pretty nice.’ The vocal melodies are good for the most part, but don’t really capture my attention, apart from the chorus to The Grand Delusion which I do really like.
Tomislav95
The Hotelier
Your Deep Rest
Piano Player
Two Deliverances
Soft Animal
6 points
I wasn’t really into this at all on my first listen, but a lot of it’s grown on me since then. Stylewise they seem to be somewhere between indie and post-hardcore, and has been a trend with me in this roulette and post-hardcore-ish stuff, I sometimes find the vocal melodies a bit lacking, like the chorus and ending section of Piano Player, but at other times, like Your Deep Rest, they really hit the sweet spot and work really well for me. Most of this isn’t blowing me away, but it’s still a nice listen overall.
Buddyhunter1
Thy Catafalque
Molekuláris Gépezetek
7 points
I’ve heard about this band here and there, but never listened to them because I thought their name was bad. I still do, actually. How the fuck are you supposed to pronounce that? But anyway, let’s talk about music.
So, what kind of music is this? There’s a lot of black metal influence here, from the relentless drumming to the vocal style to the production, but there’s a lot of weird electronics and other sounds happening as well, and most of the song after the first few minutes until the end is a sort of spacey, stream-of-consciousness trip hoppy progression. A saxophone shows up for a few seconds, and then there’s a flute melody that reminds me of Caprica for some reason, and then suddenly the band goes back to rampaging mode as the harsh vocals and heavy guitars reappear. The clean vocal sections near the beginning of the song I find pretty obnoxious, and I’m not convinced it totally holds together as a coherent song, but the majority of what’s going on here I really like.
Sacul
Swans
The Sound
Lunacy
7 points
I remember reading some description of Swans years ago as being incredibly heavy, and I checked out some of their music, and presumably being disappointed with the lack of heaviness I never went any further with them. I still have no idea what that person was talking about because this isn’t particularly heavy, but it is quite good. They do the typical post-rock slow crescendo on The Sound, but they do it well and the sparse addition of the deep, old-country style vocals works really well, and Lunacy has its own sort of ominous build and eerie vocal harmonies that remind me of Low. I think both songs - particularly The Sound - go on a bit longer than is necessary, but this is still a very enjoyable listen.
TAC
Illyria
Autumn Fades Away
Kenopsia
Winter’s Wedding
8 points
This is a really interesting stylistic mix of a sort of indie/folk, some post-rock, and black metal, and all of the sides of their sound are executed really well. The songs are varied enough that they never became boring, but the transitions between sections feel really natural even when they happen very quickly. The vocals are handled really well too, the cleans as well as both the black-metally shriek and the more death metal-esque growl.
The Walrus
Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody
Ascending to Infinity
Dante’s Inferno
Dark Fate of Atlantis
8 points
This is exactly the level of absurdity I like in my power metal. I never listened to Rhapsody of Fire much because I didn’t care for Fabio’s voice, but this guy is my kind of singer. You can definitely hear the opera influence, but he doesn’t have the really heavy vibrato that put me off of Fabio’s style. He can also deliver catchy melodies and shriek out high notes beautifully, which is a requirement for all power metal singers. The music is just as ridiculously over-the-top and dramatic as the vocals, from symphonics to light speed guitar solos. I think the songs could probably benefit from being a little more focused, but it’s a relatively minor complaint.
ariich
Bizali
Intro
Lucille
Round 3
Everybody Here
Uh-huh
Nothing to Lose
9 points
I wasn’t totally into this at first, I think probably because it’s pretty different from anything else I listen to, but every time I listened through I liked it more. The music is really quirky and funky, from acoustic and clean guitars to synths and I think I heard a ukulele somewhere? And then the vocalist. Damn. She’s the clear star of the show here; she’s got this really dynamic, vaudevillian style that’s always interesting and pushing the song forward. I also get the sense she doesn’t like rich people?? I would have a really hard time picking a favorite out of the songs here, but I agree that Nothing to Lose is absolutely a worthy addition.
Also, whenever I get to the ‘avocado’ part, I always think of ‘try the papaya’ from Empath.
HOF
Tears for Fears
Woman in Chains
Sketches of Pain
Famous Last Words
Goodnight Song
9 points
The 80s have a really distinct style of production, that huge, echoing sound, and I really love that when it’s done well. I’m not totally sure all these songs are from the 80s, but at the very least they sound exactly like the 80s. The instrumentation feels really rich, there are lots of synths, strings, a trumpet somewhere I think, and there’s a ton of variation both between songs and within each song itself. The vocalist has an incredibly smooth voice and an impressive vocal range (if the singer on Goodnight Song is the same as on the other songs? I’m honestly not sure). Woman in Chains is my favorite song here, but they’re all a real pleasure to listen to.
Luoto
White Ward
Stillborn Knowledge
Black Silent Piers
10 points
This is the kind of black (ish, I suppose) metal I love. It’s that enormous wall-of-sound in the heavy parts, but the instruments are still clear in the mix, the vocals are a brutal kind of Ihsahn-style roar, and the riffs hit like fucking sledgehammers. I love how the saxophone is used even in the incredibly heavy parts; it adds a really interesting texture to this kind of music. The calm sections are really nice and they make the heavy sections feel even more brutal when they reappear.
Honestly, I have zero complaints about this. Everything is on fire here.
STANDINGS
ariich 39
Luoto 38
Tomislav95 38
Buddyhunter1 36
The Walrus 35
Sacul 34
Cyril 32
HOF 32
romdrums 32
Elite 31
Puppies_On_Acid 30
TAC 29
Evermind 29
wolfking 29
Stadler 28
Send for round 6!
Topic: SN's Homestuck roulette: jpeg hero (final results) (Read 57316 times)
