ROUND 6 RESULTSCyril
A Novelist
Strangers in the House of Auto-Da-Fe
Acacia Crown
Caveat Lector
Crestfallen
3 pointsHey, it’s not a 4. Don’t say I never did anything for you.
Honestly, I just really don’t get this gargly harsh vocal style at all, it always sounds pretty gross to me. The clean vocals Acacia Crown are actually really good though, I wish they utilized that style more often throughout these songs. Musically it’s all right, but I think it tends a bit too much towards a sort of thin, sonically flat aggression that doesn’t do much for me. The beginning of Caveat Lector with the saxophones is pretty cool though. Crestfallen is also the first song I’ve heard that uses the word ‘genuflect’ in the lyrics, which has gotta be worth something.
wolfking
Pendragon
Indigo
The Freak Show
4 pointsThis is some decent neo-proggy rock with some metal leanings. It’s performed pretty well, as you expecy from prog, but it really takes something exceptional to impress me in the genre these days, and this is just all right. The vocals especially feel pretty uninspired, where they might have elevated the songs if they’d been really good.
It’s definitely not bad, and I don’t mind listening to it, but it’s also not something I ever see myself reaching for of my own accord.
Sacul
öOoOoOoOoOoOo
Fucking Freaky Futile Freddy
Meow Meow Frrru
No Guts = No Masters
Bark City - A Glimpse of Something
I Hope You Sleep Well
Well-Oiled Machine
4 pointsOK, this is some pretty crazy stuff. It’s like if the Diablo Swing Orchestra swallowed a black metal band and did a ton of cocaine. In principle I’m pretty on board with the frenetic craziness of the second-to-second style changes, and there is good stuff around in these songs (the a capella bit in No Guts = No Masters is fantastic), but unfortunately the chipmunk/anime vocal style (that’s the best way I have to describe it) that pops up regularly I actively detest, and the other vocal styles and melodies utilized throughout seem to run from great to lackluster. Most songs here have at least something I really like, but I’m not actually able to enjoy any of them all the way through.
Luoto
Wormwood
Godless Serenade
The Windmill
The Achromatic Road
5 pointsThis is some pretty decent black-ish death-ish metal. It’s a nice listen and there’s nothing I dislike here, but there’s also not much that stands out to me. There doesn’t seem to be much variation in either the vocals or the music, which can make the songs feel a bit monotonous. There are a few interlude-y moments with the clean guitars, and those are actually my favorite bits here.
ariich
Shade Empire
Anti-Life Saviour
Map of Scars
5 pointsI have a similar sort of impression of this as I did to Wormwood. It’s pretty good, clearly well performed, and there’s nothing about it that I dislike, but I also can’t really seem to connect with it at all. The vocals aren’t exactly my style but they work pretty well, the music can get pretty heavy but still has a lot of variation, but none of the individual parts seem to capture my attention much.
I will say though, since I’ve been down on spoken bits generally, British Bible guy actually adds a pretty nice atmosphere to Anti-Life Saviour.
TAC
Burden of Life
Godess of the River
The Makeshift Conqueror, Pt. II
5 pointsThis is some proggy melodeathy metal that, like a few other submissions this round, is pretty all right but doesn’t really appeal to me much beyond that. There are some nice instrumental pyrotechnics, but that stuff often doesn’t work for me these days, the vocals are serviceable and nice enough but not very engaging, and I don’t find the songwriting to be particularly coherent.
One thing I do really like that pulled the score up a bit is the marching beat/anthemic guitar intro to The Makeshift Conqueror. I just wish they’d developed that a bit more, it feels like it gets sort of left behind until the end of the song when it reappears.
Puppies_On_Acid
Type O Negative
Red Water (Christmas Mourning)
Everyone I Love is Dead
Anesthesia
5 pointsI’m kind of vaguely familiar with a few Type O Negative songs, and apart from Everything Dies which I like a lot, my reaction is usually, this is ok, and that’s kind of still where I’m at. Peter Steele has an amazing voice, no doubt, but I’m generally lukewarm on what he does with it. I’ve always found their distorted guitar sound kind of offputting as well. Everyone I Love is Dead is probably the song I enjoy the most here, the vocal melodies and Peter occasionally using a more standard metally grit makes the song pretty engaging, although the ending section doesn’t do much for me. The other two songs are nice enough, but don’t make much of an impression on me, except Peter’s screams at the end of Anesthesia which I do quite like.
Elite
Kamasi Washington
Re Run
Clair de Lune
6 pointsMixed impressions on this submission. Re Run is definitely technically impressive and has some cool parts, but runs a bit too heavily into aimless noodling territory for me to get much out of it. Clair de Lune on the other hand is just soothing and lovely all the way through. There’s something really sublime about the saxophone and trumpet harmonies. There’s some soloing in this one too, but it’s much more restrained and takes up less real estate in the song which ends up working in its favor, at least for me.
Buddyhunter1
Gorillaz
Aries (Feat. Peter Hook and Georgia)
Empire Ants (Feat. Little Dragon)
Magic City
El Mañana
6 pointsI honestly love all of the music here. The synth-driven beat in the second half of Empire Ants, the echoing, shoegazey clean guitars in Aries, the brilliant use of a siren as part of the beat in El Mañana, there’s always a really full, interesting soundscape going on. Unfortunately though, the vocals are just
super super weak. I’m not crazy about most of the melodies, but moreso than that the delivery feels totally flat and uninspired. It’s really a mark of how good I think the music is that this is getting the score it is. Do they have any instrumental albums? I would be all over that.
Tomislav95
The Mayan Factor
Warflower
Aim For the Sky
Beauty and the Beast
6 pointsThe vocalist of this group has a really interesting voice. It’s kind of indie-esque, I guess? It tends to a sort of a nasality that works sometimes and doesn’t othertimes; on Warflower I think it works incredibly well, but on Aim For the Sky I’m pretty ambivalent about him, and Beauty and the Beast is somewhere in the middle, which I guess leads to a middle-of-the-road score, even though there’s some stuff here that I really like.
HOF
The Pearlfishers
Banana Sandwich
One for the Bairns
Steady With You
I Can’t Believe You Met Nancy
When the Highway Ends
7 pointsI wasn’t totally sold on the vocalist when I first listened to this, but he’s grown on me a bit since then. I still don’t think his voice is super strong, but in the more upbeat, harmony-laden sections (which is most of the music here) it works really well. The parts where he’s not multitracked (verses of Steady With You, most of When the Highway Ends) I think his weaknesses are more apparent and I don’t enjoy those bits as much. In terms of the music, pretty much all of the songs have a really rich, energetic warmth to them that compliments the vocals.
romdrums
Mr. Mister
Is It Love
Kyrie
Something Real (Inside Me/Inside You)
The Tube
7 pointsThe two songs from
Welcome to the Real World (Is It Love, Kyrie) have a really cool, anthemic 80s pop rock vibe to them. They’ve got that huge 80s echo on the drums and vocals, a nice mix of guitars and synths, a big catchy choruses. Kyrie especially gets stuck in my head.
The other two are sort of similar, but they sound closer and thinner, and even though the vocalist is still doing a great job in terms of delivery, most of the melodies on these two don’t really do much for me. I’d guess this album (
Go On) was released in the 90s, it has that kind of sound to it, although I could also be completely wrong about that.
Stadler
The Panic Channel
Teahouse of the Spirits
Bloody Mary
Outsider
8 pointsOne of the strange rules I’ve imposed on myself in this roulette is that I don’t look up anything about the artists that are submitted, so I’m not sure when this was released, but to me it sounds like somewhere between the late 90s and the mid 2000s, from the guitar and vocal style. There’s a really nice variety in the songs here too, from the straight forward hard rock of Teahouse of the Spirits, to the grungey Bloody Mary, to the ballad-y Outsider, and they’re all done really well. A lot of this comes down to the strength of the vocalist, I think; he’s got a lot of grit in his tone when he needs it and can really belt, but he’s really strong in the softer moments as well. Really, there’s nothing necessarily groundbreaking here, but it’s all executed incredibly well.
(sorry Loop Hole didn’t end up making it into the listing, but you did pretty well anyway
)
The Walrus
Twilight Force
Dawn of the Dragonstar
Long Live the King
Hydra
Flight of the Sapphire Dragon
8 pointsThis feels a bit more like traditional power metal - as compared to your submission last round - less orchestration and more chugging guitars and straight forward songs, but that’s fine because I like that too. What’s his name (I actually can’t remember his name) continues to do a great job on vocals, both in terms of delivery and the catchy melodies themselves (both as absurdly dramatic as you expect from quality power metal). Musically, this doesn’t separate itself much from most power metal, you’ve still got your keyboard patches and light-speed guitar solos, but when the songwriting is strong it doesn’t have to, and these are all great, fun, catchy songs.
The narration bits are just silly though. But they don’t detract much the songs for the few seconds they show up.
Evermind
Scorpions
The Game of Life
We Will Rise Again
The Best is Yet to Come
Humanity
8 pointsI’m pretty much only familiar with Rock You Like a Hurricane, and Klaus Meine from the one Avantasia song he was on, but this is about what I expected Scorpions to sound like; riffy hard rock/metal with catchy melodies and great vocals. As has been a trend in the top scorers of this roulette though, you don’t have to be an innovator if you’re really good, and these are just really good songs. The power ballady The Best is Yet to Come is a nice bit of variety as well. I don’t actually have too much to say here, I’m just really enjoying this.
STANDINGS
STANDINGS
ariich 44
Tomislav95 44
The Walrus 43
Luoto 43
Buddyhunter1 42
HOF 39
romdrums 39
Sacul 38
Evermind 37
Elite 37
Stadler 36
Cyril 35
Puppies_On_Acid 35
TAC 34
wolfking 33
Send for round 7!
Topic: SN's Homestuck roulette: jpeg hero (final results) (Read 57305 times)
