Here we are, the final Round 4 results.
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MoraWintersoul
Conception
First impression: Reminds me of a few bands I've been sent, but this one seems a bit less interesting.
Final review: More power metal, eh? I quite like power metal (more on that in my next writeup, kind of), so that’s a genre that I’ll gladly check out more bands in. Conception is definitely good, I would say, but compared to the other stuff I’ve heard in the genre, it’s outclassed. But again, that’s not to say they’re bad or anything. I like their overall sound, though there’s something about it that feels unique… I can’t quite put my finger on it, but maybe it’s that the music sometimes reminds me of 80s pop? The chorus of “Cardinal Sin” is very catchy, and I feel like it wouldn’t feel out of place in a pop song. I don’t mean that in any bad way; I think the chorus sounds good, it just has a poppy feel to it. If I had to say which song was better overall, it probably would be Cardinal Sin. It’s a little more interesting than “Parallel Minds” overall, but that song is pretty good as well. It has that kind of “poppy” feel to it that Cardinal Sin does. But there is definitely some power metal to this band; on repeat listens, I had to check to make sure this was power metal to some extent because I was suddenly unsure if it was power metal or just regular metal. Also, Roy Khan sounds pretty good in these songs, but I think I prefer his performances in Kamelot more. Like I said, Conception is pretty good… I’ve just heard better bands in the genre.
Parallel Minds - 7.75/10
Cardinal Sin - 7.75/10
Roulette score: 7.8
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425
Blind Guardian
First impression: "Grandiose" is easily the best way to describe this.
Final review: Symphonic metal is a genre I’ve been enjoying quite a bit in this roulette. This band makes me see that genre in a different light. With most symphonic metal, I see that as metal mixed with significant elements of orchestral music. Blind Guardian, however, feels more like symphonic, orchestral music mixed with metal elements. Well, Wikipedia says they’re power metal, but my point still stands, yes? With the symphonic elements at the forefront, combined with the intensity and overall scale of these songs, it feels very grandiose. A sense of grandeur is something I really enjoy in music, and these symphonic genres are an easy place to look for that sort of thing. And sometimes they get close to overdoing it, but they never really do overdo it with the exciting, grandiose aspect. I quite enjoy the two songs from Blind Guardian, and as much as I’d like to talk about them in more detail… I feel like I kind of already have described them well, at least for the most part. That’s not to say there isn’t anything more to the music than symphonic grandeur, because there is. The symphonic grandeur is just the primary aspect of the music, and furthermore there’s just so much packed into these songs, and I feel like all the parts and elements of each song all work together really well when taken as a whole. I think this will grow on me even more than it already has. I’ll be checking out more from these guys, and don’t be surprised if I end up praising them very highly in the future.
Wheel of Time - 8.75/10
And Then There Was Silence - 8.75/10
Roulette score: 8.8
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Sacul
Portishead
First impression: Rather unusual, though that might just be a result of me not really listening to this kind of genre.
Final review: Portishead is probably the most unique artist of this whole roulette, though that might just be because it’s one of the few artists that aren’t rock or metal. I believe Sacul mentioned that this music is of the “trip-hop” genre, which… I don’t really know what that classifies as, because I doubt I’ve heard any other trip-hop in my life to really figure out the defining traits of the genre. So to describe some of the objective qualities of Portishead: it’s quite slow-paced, it’s electronic, there’s occasionally a slightly jazzy aesthetic to it, and it has a rather dark atmosphere. The singer sounds nice overall, though there are a couple odd moments with her. “Roads” is probably my favorite song here. It has a slow start, but the atmosphere is quite nice, and there’s a section where some string instruments (unsure if real or just keyboard effects) pop up, and the song gets this even better atmosphere. And I think that’s Portishead’s strongest attribute: The atmosphere in their songs. While I will say that I’ve found nothing amazing here, in a lot of ways it’s very well-made. “Glory Box” has a somewhat similar vibe to it, though it goes for this warped and kind of “sleazy” sound, if that makes any sense. It sounds good, though. “The Rip” is a quiet, almost minimalistic song. It sounds very nice, and honestly I would probably enjoy this song even more if it were twice its length. It’s simple, but it’s very pleasant to listen to, and has a certain magic to it. I wouldn’t mind getting more submissions of an electronic genre; after all, I quite liked Chroma Key and Anamanaguchi as well. And I can say I liked Portishead as well. They’re certainly an interesting artist to check out.
Glory Box - 7.75/10
Roads - 8.25/10
All Mine - 7.75/10
The Rip - 8.25/10
Roulette score: 8.0
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Elite
Ulver
First impression: I don't even know how to describe this one, but let's just say I have some good things to say about it.
Final review: This is another artist that’s rather unique among the roulette submissions I’ve gotten. Ulver feels like an artist that does just about everything. There’s some metal songs, and some electronic songs here. And according to Elite, they do even more genres, like art rock and modern classical. Overall, I think the diversity of genres works pretty well here; there’s not a single song here I think isn’t well-made, and each one of these is pretty different. “Proverbs of Hell, Plates 7-10” is one of the more metal tracks. It starts out with this spoken word intro that’s kinda creepy, but once the song really gets going, it turns into this industrial metal genre. The vocalist here isn’t anyone I recognize, but I’ve heard someone that sounds just like him from some other band my dad used to listen to… Anyway, it sounds pretty good, though the more robotic-sounding vocals sound kinda weird at the same time. It’s my least favorite of the bunch, but still a very interesting listen. Moving from my least favorite to my favorite, that song is “The Future Sound of Music”. On my first listen through the Round 4 artists, this was my favorite song of the whole round. But then I listened to another song some more and that one became my favorite song of the entire roulette. But this is still one of the best. It’s an ambient, electronic instrumental that combines a bunch of electronic sounds with a very beautiful piano melody. I think it’s trying to convey that music of the future will become all digitized (and will probably neutralize your brain), but honestly, if this song is what the sound of music in the future is like, I’m all for it! “It is not Sound” is another electronic song, though it’s a lot more energetic than The Future Sound of Music. I don’t even know how to describe “Rolling Stone” in terms of its genre, but it’s a very good song with a nice chorus. I already like Ulver based on these four songs, but I’ve gotta check out more just to see what else they’re capable of. It seems like there’s a huge amount of variety to uncover with just this one artist.
Proverbs of Hell, Plates 7-10 - 7.75/10
The Future Sound of Music - 9.5/10
It is not Sound - 8/10
Rolling Stone - 8.25/10
Roulette score: 8.4
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Evermind
Ayreon
First impression: 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100001 (“I like this!”)
Final review: Ayreon is a project I’ve heard a lot about, especially the album The Human Equation in particular. I didn’t get any songs from that album in this submission, but let’s just say I’m gonna be giving The Human Equation a listen… because the stuff I’ve heard so far is great. It’s proggy, it’s symphonic, and it’s made in the style of a rock opera. I love The Astonishing, so in theory this was already a band I was going to like. But now I’ll go into detail on how I did end up liking them. “The Day That The World Breaks Down” is an exciting and very ambitious epic. There’s a lot of vocalists I recognize (mostly thanks to this roulette!), and they all contribute well to the song (even if the singer Michael Mills’ vocals sound a little weird). James LaBrie is an expected but pleasant addition. Tommy Kaverik and Floor Jansen are there, too, that’s pretty cool. Tobias Sammet is pretty cool, too, I really like his voice. I recognize Russell Allen from that one Symphony X song I heard that one time… Tommy Rogers?! You got Tommy Rogers in this thing? Instant 10/10. I don’t care what the review score below this writeup says, this song’s a 10/10. I haven’t even talked about the song musically; it’s really great. It’s very dramatic-sounding (and suitably so), and there’s also this great blues part a little over halfway through. The delivery of the lyrics can be slightly awkward on occasion (“I mean, it should’ve been OB-VI-OOOUS”), but that’s just a result of the lyrics only being dialogue from the characters in the story, so it ultimately doesn’t bother me. So yeah, that’s a great song. I also quite enjoy “Valley on the Queens”. I’m not sure what the general consensus on this song is, but I think it’s a really nice ballad. And then there’s “Into the Black Hole”, which took some time to grow on me, but it’s one of those songs that can easily be defined as epic. My favorite part is easily the part right after the “Halo of Darkness” chorus. So dramatic, and very fitting of a song about a black hole. I’ve gotta listen to more from Ayreon, they have that sense of drama and grandeur that Nightwish has, and I really like it.
The Day That The World Breaks Down - 9/10
Valley of the Queens - 8.5/10
Waking Dreams - 8.25/10
Into the Black Hole - 8.75/10
Roulette score: 8.6
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romdrums / twosuitsluke
Mastodon
First impression: I like this, and I have a feeling that it's gonna really click with me at some point.
Final review: No point in hiding it any longer, this is that one band that has taken up a lot of my time for Round 4, because Mastodon is just so good. Over the years, I have heard about how great this band was, but I never considered listening to them… Well, good thing the period of my life in which I didn’t listen to Mastodon has now ended. I could talk about every song that was submitted, but we might be here for a while, so I’ll stick to the highlights as usual. “Blood and Thunder” is awesome, and it encapsulates what Mastodon is all about: Really good and well-made heavy metal. Despite its length being less than four minutes, this song is something I can only describe as epic. The chorus, which is simply the chanting of “White whale! Holy grail!” will never not be awesome. “Steambreather” has some softer vocals compared to songs like Blood and Thunder, but they sound great and have a lot of power to them in their own way. I’ve gotta talk about my favorite song now, though: “The Wolf Is Loose”. This song doesn’t even do anything particularly special, it’s just three-and-a-half minutes of intense heavy metal. But it is so satisfying to listen to, and it’s just a song I enjoy so much. Without a doubt one of the best songs I’ve been sent in this whole roulette. To talk about one more song, I’ve gotta mention “The Czar”. This is quite different from most of the other Mastodon songs I’ve heard, in that it’s an epic (in both grandeur and length!) but is also a little mellow and, for the most part, isn’t all fast-paced and intense. There’s a vocal style here that feels like it shouldn’t sound that good, but it does sound good. Probably because Mastodon is Mastodon and they are only capable of doing good things. The vocals sound especially great at around 7:43. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the drummer, Brann Dailor, is amazing. I haven’t heard a drummer this talented since… probably Blake Richardson from Between the Buried and Me. All the members are great, but Brann is so great that I had to bring up how great he is. This is, as of right now, the best band I’ve discovered in this roulette. Not since Haken have I given a band a listen and came out thinking, “Where have you been my whole life?” And this is the first artist I’ve been sent in this roulette that I can say this: If for some reason you haven’t heard anything from Mastodon, please do yourself a favor and listen to them. They’re simply amazing.
Blood and Thunder - 9.5/10
Steambreather - 9/10
Quintessence - 8.75/10
Ancient Kingdom - 8.75/10
Capillarian Crest - 9.25/10
The Wolf Is Loose - 9.75/10
The Czar - 9.25/10
Jaguar God - 8.75/10
romdrums’s roulette score: 9.0
twosuitsluke’s roulette score: 9.3
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STANDINGS:
twosuitsluke: 8.6 + 8.6 + 8.9 + 9.3 = 35.4
425: 8.9 + 8.4 + 9.0 + 8.8 = 35.1
Cyril: 8.8 + 9.0 + 8.4 + 8.7 = 34.9
Evermind: 8.6 + 8.6 + 8.3 + 8.6 = 34.1
Buddyhunter1: 8.9 + 8.0 + 8.8 + 8.2 = 33.9
Sacul: 8.2 + 8.6 + 8.3 + 8.0 = 33.1
Lethean: 7.7 + 8.2 + 8.7 + 8.2 = 32.8
kingshmegland: 8.2 + 7.8 + 8.5 + 8.3 = 32.8
romdrums: 8.4 + 8.1 + 7.0 + 9.0 = 32.5
Elite: 8.1 + 7.7 + 8.3 + 8.4 = 32.5
TAC: 7.8 + 8.4 + 8.4 + 7.9 = 32.5
MoraWintersoul: 8.3 + 8.1 + 7.9 + 7.8 = 32.1
jingle.boy: 7.9 + 8.1 + 8.1 + 7.9 = 32.0
Luoto: 8.3 + 7.6 + 7.8 + 8.1 = 31.8
Nekov: 8.2 + 7.4 + 8.5 + 7.6 = 31.7
HOF: 7.6 + 7.6 + 8.3 + 7.4 = 30.9
Puppies_On_Acid: 7.8 + 6.6 + 8.6 + 7.4 = 30.4
Stadler: 6.4 + 8.6 + 7.8 + 7.9 = 30.7
Anguyen92: 7.9 + 7.3 + 7.1 + 7.6 = 29.9
Topic: Revenge319's relatively normal roulette: Love list complete! (FINAL RESULTS) (Read 61738 times)