Excellent. When I saw DMM on your list but not DP, I wondered what had gone wrong. I found your writeup for "Smile" and couldn't let that stand. That track is definitely the most out there thing she's done (I love it personally, but can see how it's an acquired taste), but as you've now heard, Aleksandra has many more facets than just the abrasive and harrowing ones. I'd encourage you at some point to check out her solo EP Crossroads, which David also has some involvement with, though more in the background. It's less djenty and metallic, but has so many infectious pop hooks. She also has a lot of guest spots with other bands and some nice covers on Youtube if you want to go even deeper down the rabbit hole. I consider her one of the preeminent vocalists today, and the two of them one of the best musical tandems around. Destiny Potato/Sordid Pink themselves have all kinds of fun alternate versions of songs and such if you explore around besides the two albums, or just ask me later, some of them take some digging to get to.
I appreciate you calling me in on that and getting me to give them another chance. I don't remember writing about Smile anywhere, although I definitely believe I did at some point, so that's some impressive forum sleuthing!
Stadler is eliminated. This is a tough one for me to see, not only because it was on a really strong and really close round, but because I feel like Stadler and I see eye-to-eye on a lot of how we approach music and on what we like about some of our favorite artists (Iron Maiden and Neal Morse most notably). We just haven’t connected as well in my roulettes, for some reason or another. I still really appreciate you playing and introducing me to a wide variety of artists in these three rounds!
Wait, what??? 
Haha.
I think it's harder when we ARE so similar. I tried to really find something that wasn't "Iron Maiden-lite" or something like that, and that runs with risk. It's still fun! Thanks!
And I'll be lurking to make fun of the usual suspects!
I can see that, especially given your desire to take some risks. Always fun to have you along!
Really sorry about another delay, folks! I had plenty of time to listen but not much time to write. Here are the final writeups and the pools for round 4! I certainly intend to hold myself to a far more reasonable timeline for the next several rounds. I think it will be easier working with three groups of four rather than six groups of three.
Pool B:ReaperKK: From Monument to Masses - A Sixth Trumpet / An Ounce of PreventionI have a mixed history with post rock. It’s a type of music that I enjoy listening to when it’s on, but rarely find to be that memorable for me. All the post rock bands I’ve tried have been ones that I’ve enjoyed at the time, but rarely found myself returning to.
I don’t know that this will be any different, but I will say that A Sixth Trumpet is a strong instrumental song. It goes through a lot of interesting and memorable sections and has a pretty good atmosphere.
An Ounce of Prevention is a little more of a mixed bag for me, though still essentially good. There are fewer sections that stand out to me as particularly good, although there are still some strong moments. I also am really not a fan of the sample that completely interrupts the music about five minutes in. Don’t really like the message, but more importantly it just completely takes me out of the song.
twosuitsluke: Rx Bandits - In Her Drawer / Stargazer / Meow! Meow! Space TigerAs the impression notes, this is a style that has mixed results in connecting with me. And I have to say, my first impression here was lukewarm. That said, these songs have grown on me to a pretty significant degree. Stargazer is of particular interest to me, with a pretty strong chorus and some good riffing.
I also like much of the other two songs. The chorus of In Her Drawer and the bridge section of Meow! Meow! Space Tiger are particularly noteworthy moments. Parts of these songs are still less interesting to me, but they’re pretty enjoyable on the whole.
wolfking: Vanishing Point - The Fall / Dead ElysiumThis style of prog metal is a pretty comfortable sound for me, and the question of whether I come away thinking it’s decent or whether I have some more abiding interest is mainly dependent on whether I experience a strong connection with at least some of the songs. That can be just really being struck by the songwriting or vocals, or having something of an emotional connection.
The latter is what happened here with The Fall. Something about the combination of the sound and lyrics of this song connects well with me. I like the sense of commitment to struggle through adversity that this one conveys.
Dead Elysium doesn’t have the same emotional connection for me, but I think it might ultimately be the more interesting of the two from a songwriting perspective, as a somewhat proggier piece. It’s a nice complement to The Fall because it gives me the sense that this band has some interesting variety.
Decision:This is a suspenseful pool because all three participants were tied coming into this round, meaning that last place here is eliminated.
The easiest choice here was to pick Vanishing Point as my favorite submission of the round. These songs were a style I enjoy and really appealed to me as instances of that style.
Choosing second and third is more difficult. I liked both submissions, but did not fall in love with either. Both had their strong moments along with parts that were uninteresting to me. I think Stargazer pushes me to favor of Rx Bandits. That’s my favorite song of the five from these two artists. Though I like A Sixth Trumpet quite a bit as well, Stargazer has made a stronger impression on me. It’s just more memorable to me, personally, which probably comes down to my continue to have limited success with post rock. Both other Rx Bandits songs stand as solid, but not outstanding, to me. An Ounce of Prevention is one that I like most of when I put it on, but that middle sample that cuts the song in two kind of pushes me away.
wolfking/Vanishing Point: 3 points
twosuitsluke/Rx Bandits: 2 points
ReaperKK/From Monuments to Masses: 1 point
Scores:wolfking: 7 points
twosuitsluke: 6 points
ReaperKK: 5 points
Wolfking and Luke advance to Round 4. ReaperKK just misses the cut by a very close decision. Sorry to see you go, Reaper! I really enjoyed the Ola submission and thought your approach of largely sending instrumental music was pretty interesting. Thanks for playing!
Pool F:Cyril: Glass Beach - Bedroom Community / Cold Weather / OrchidsSo maybe these are not strange vocals on the Cyril scale, but I am not really a fan of them. It’s just a really rough, unrefined style that doesn’t connect with me. I think it’s both the actual performance and the way the parts are written: for my tastes, too jagged too often and with too many syllables crammed into a line for no particular reason, particularly on Bedroom Community.
The actual music has some elements I definitely like. The melody itself that repeats a few times in Bedroom Community made a good impression. I like the construction of the guitar parts under the verses in Cold Weather. And the guitar melody on Orchids has a surprisingly epic feel to it. But I think my appreciation of this is more appreciation of particular parts, not a real connection to these songs as a whole.
romdrums: Valis Ablaze - Neon Dreaming / Hollow Heart / States of DecayThis band is definitely playing around with the djent sound palette, which is hit-or-miss for me. When it’s pure djent, I generally find that uninteresting, but there are bands who do interesting things with it, making melodic and emotional music that connects with me.
Valis Ablaze falls into this category. The singer plays a crucial role in making this possible. He gives a really passionate performance singing some big melodies over the djentier parts. I think that makes the djent interesting—having these melodies soar over it, as on Hollow Heart.
The real standout song here, though, is States of Decay, because this starts as a softer piece before errupting into a second half that contains both heavier moments and ethereal-sounding ones.
TAC: Waken Eyes - Palisades / Across the HorizonThe impression almost says it all. These songs are both epic in all the ways I like. Big melodies, a lot of different sections that flow together well, lengthy instrumental/solo sections… it’s all here. This is especially noticeable throughout Palisades, which feels quite grand, but the finale of Across the Horizon is quite good in its own right.
I don’t know, I feel like I don’t have a lot to say for this one, but it checks all the boxes for me in being a strong example of a style of music that I really enjoy. I’m looking forward to spending more time with it.
Decision:This is another one that seems to fall out quite naturally from my views on the three submissions individually. Waken Eyes connected with me really well, checking pretty much every single box, and thus gets first place. Valis Ablaze also made a strong impression, but was more of a double than a home run, so it comes in second. Glass Beach, meanwhile, had its moments, but didn’t really land, so it finishes third.
TAC/Waken Eyes: 3 points
romdrums/Valis Ablze: 2 points
Cyril/Glass Beach: 1 point
Scores:TAC: 8 points
Cyril: 5 points
romdrums: 5 points
TAC advances to round 4. To decide between Cyril and romdrums, we’ll need a tiebreaker, which will be my overall ranking of their six submissions. I’d rank these as follows: CHVRCHES was my favorite submission from either contestant. I think Valis Ablaze comes in at second place, and Toto takes third. I really liked that Toto submission and was sorry I had to put it in last place in the first round. The final three are all close, but honestly Aurora has had a lot more staying power in my mind than I’d anticipated, so I’ll give it fourth place. I think I would probably choose Vylet Pony over Glass Beach because of the strength of Bonnie, but as they’re both Cyril’s submissions, which of them is in fifth and which in sixth doesn’t affect the final outcome:
1. CHVRCHES (Cyril)
2. Valis Ablaze (romdrums)
3. Toto (romdrums)
4. The Intersphere (romdrums)
5. Vylet Pony (Cyril)
6. Glass Beach (Cyril)
That’s an average score of 3 for romdrums and 4 for Cyril, which, as you probably guessed, means that romdrums takes second in Pool F and will advance to the fourth round. Cyril is eliminated. Sorry to see you go; I always enjoy having you in these and find it fascinating what you decide to send me, even if it not all of it works for me. I can understand the frustration of it being hard to predict exactly what is going to work for me; in more electronic styles of music I can really be hit or miss for reasons that might not fully make sense to more involved fans of the genres. Thanks for playing as always!
Round 4 Pools:Now we need to set up a new set of pools for rounds 4-6. The same rules will apply—send fifteen minutes or less of music from a single artist, and you will be ranked relative to other participants in your pool. The difference is that we will have three new pools with four participants each, rather than the three participant pools we've had up to this point. This means that the top scorer of each round will receive 4 points, second place 3, third place 2, and last place 1.
The pools are going to be seeded based on each participant's total score from the first three rounds. Here are those scores for our remaining participants:
kingshmegland: 9
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HOF: 8
LithoJazzoSphere: 8
TAC: 8
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Lethean: 7
senecadawg2: 7
wolfking: 7
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soupytwist: 6
twosuitsluke: 6
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Buddyhunter1: 5
romdrums: 5
Vmadera00: 5
Trying to make these favorable to the top-scoring participant while somewhat fair, and using RNG to choose who goes where when participants have equal scores, I've come up with these new pools:
Pool X:kingshmegland
wolfking
soupytwist
romdrums
Pool Y:HOF
Lethean
senecadawg2
Vmadera00
Pool Z:TAC
LithoJazzoSphere
twosuitsluke
Buddyhunter1
As the top scorer, king has to face off against someone who scored 7, someone who scored 6, and someone who scored 5. Those who scored 8 either have to face someone else who scored 8, along with someone who scored 6 and someone who scored 5, or two people who scored 7 and someone who scored 5. Each group contains a total first pool score of 27.
However, please remember that all scores reset to zero to begin this second set of pools! The advantage of doing well in the first set of rounds is that you get paired with opponents who did not do as well, but you don't keep your point advantage.
Looking forward to seeing what you all have to offer in this new phase!
Topic: 425's Roulette v5: Short break (Read 41755 times)
