Ariich: Teramaze – Delusions of GrandeurCongrats Ariich. You managed to gain just enough of a lead and then pull out the safe picks towards the end to guarantee a high enough score that your closest competitors wouldn’t be able to beat you out even if they sent the best song of the entire roulette
Like, all the suspense of “who would win” was gone the moment I saw you and Tomi both send really safe prog metal picks, but hey, makes my job easier I guess.
Anyways uhh yeah this is more prog metal. I don’t know if it’s quite fair to lump this in with power-prog but it has the same… vibe, to me, even if it’s realistically closer to 00’s Dream Theater than anything.
And it’s rock solid in its sound! The riffs are there, the leads are there, the solos are there, even the vocals and hooks are there, it’s got solid progression and payoff, a good balance of heavy and melodic… and yet I am wholly uninterested, because it’s almost
too perfect in all those regards. It all sounds good but it has absolutely no personality to it. I could get this from any band in this lane.
That sounds really mean but
god is there something ironic about “progressive” metal being so soundalike and recycled in its sounds. This was what all prog metal sounded like in the 2000’s and early 2010’s, and then it all shifted to the djent-prog sound around the middle of the decade, which is where we’re stuck now.
I feel like that’s just, a big part of why I’m so uninterested in the genre when it’s not, like, prog death or prog black metal or whatever. Like, sorry for going on a rant about the state of the prog metal scene in the middle of a writeup for this, admittedly, above-average prog metal tune, but I don’t really have much to say about the song in its unspectacular rock-solidness, and it’s all relevant to the song anyways, so… yeah, uhh. This sure is solid prog metal, I guess.
7.5/10Vmadera: Fit For An Autopsy – The Man That I Was NotMore and more I’m finding that deathcore has a tendency to have some really killer guitar tones, and while that’s great, I… wish they were put to better use. Just in general, not necessarily a critique of this song, which is honestly about as good as the genre gets for me without reaching a Warforged or Slice the Cake level of ambition, honestly.
Like, the riffs have the usual deathcore dull, grey sludginess, but the production is filled out enough that there’s still a sense of scale and grandiosity to the whole ordeal, and even a decent bit of color and melody. And it’s not like, say, Lorna Shore where the sound is cool but is so one-note that none of it stands out past the wall of sound.
The slower riffing at the end doesn’t inspire quite as much in me, admittedly, but the refrain over it kinda balances it out and makes it a pretty cool outro despite that? Nothing about this sound or this song, like, especially catches my interest, it’s more just a really good example of a sound I don’t tend to care for, but hey, that’s
something, man, they’re definitely doing something right!
7.5/10Stadler: Yes – AwakenPretty much all of the (70’s) Yes I know is from Close to the Edge or Fragile so this one’s a… bit, different to my ears, but it does still do a lot of what I like from Yes. Chaotic & wild guitar playing, grand, cinematic scope, and it all just Sounds very good. On that level, this is a pretty good Yes tune!
But then I can’t help but compare it to the Yes I do know, and… hmm. Well, for one, the basslines seem a lot less pronounced? That was like, the biggest thing I always knew Yes for but the bass gets kinda lost in the mix here a lot of the time, which is a shame. And the song overall feels… loose and sloppy?
Like, I’m used to these guys having a very tight energy, even with their more chaotic edge. This feels less like a band working as a unit and more just… stuff happening? And I also don’t think the, like, hooks and melodies are as pronounced as I’d like, this is a lot of good music but most of it just glides over my brain without really sticking.
It does all still sound
good, very good even! But it doesn’t quite
click the same for me, I guess? I definitely enjoy the more uptempo first half more than the slower second half, I can say that for sure. And there’s a ton of cool leads, a lush soundscape, just, a lot of what I like from these guys without quite hitting the same level as your Close to the Edges or Roundabouts, y’know? I do need to check out this band more though, yes yes.
7.5/10Seneca: Circle Takes the Square – A Crater to Cough InWell first of all, congrats on successfully submitting a song off
an album I’ve actually covered on my channel before! It’s been a while since I listened to the album though ‘cause I didn’t end up, like, buying it, so, I’m allowing it.
This has probably benefitted the most from relistens out of every song here ‘cause I wasn’t too hot on it the first listen or two, but then it kinda just, clicked for me. It’s a long, slow build in that first half based around just the one melodic motif, but there’s a lot happening underneath and around it and momentum is building up, so it’s not like, boring or anything.
Then the song really kicks into gear and gets chaotic and mathcore-y almost, and this part was kinda incomprehensible and lacking in, uhh, song-ness to me. A lot of cool noise that all sounded the same. With vocals I… don’t really care for
But the more I listened the more I realized, a LOT of what it does during these parts is actually built around that same motif, just in all sorts of garbled, frantic ways. And I think that’s what makes it work!
And yeah, like, screamo/hardcore of this variety is always gonna be a winning sound for me, especially in a round this packed to the brim with prog, so I’m kinda glad I did come around on this one by the end. Guess I need to go back to this album, again, ‘cause maybe I’d be more into it now than I was the first time around
7.5/10Reaper: The Raconteurs – Thoughts and PrayersThis feels like a weird song to have this high up in this round of all round, but like. It’s just nice
I enjoy listening to it
Like, Jack White making a folksy country-type song in 2019 with… a particularly loaded title – that doesn’t really have much to do with the lyrics themselves, which are admittedly a bit milquetoast on their own, but whatever man!
Mostly the melodies are pleasant, the guitar has a nice rollick to it, and damn that fiddle does go off though. I can call it a fiddle here, it’s definitely fiddling. It’s fine. Don’t worry. I dunno, this is just, such a simple song by this round’s standards and I don’t really have a ton to say about it, but simplicity wins out when it’s just, plain and simply this good, man!
7.5/10Puppies: Others by No One – Dr. Breacher and the Time Travel AnomalySee, you get me and the type of prog I tend to love. This is… so BTBAM it hurts. Or like, Deconstruction at points, almost. You know, weird, intense, wacky prog metal that doesn’t take itself too seriously but still goes hard and has a LOT going on. As far as metal-metal in this round goes it’s the one that hits the hardest out of all the songs this round, even if it’s kiiiiind of an incoherent mess – but hey, at least it’s a colorful, intense incoherent mess!
Like, yeah, I’m definitely gonna need more than four listens to this almost twenty minute song to really take it all in, but the important thing there is that I
want to come back to it and keep listening to it past the end of this round. And it’s not like I haven’t heard any of these sounds before, but it’s like, a case study on “well if you’re not gonna do anything new, the least you could do is a TON of different tried-and-tested things!”
Like, they’re at least willing to take big swings, even if not necessarily all of them work – and for my money, I can’t point to any moments here I actively dislike, just, like, broadly speaking here – and that’s kinda just, what attracts me to music. Either some kind of deep, emotional power… or pure ambition. This is definitely more the latter!
I can’t really point to any moments that, like, particularly stand out here ‘cause, again, twenty minutes is a LOT to take in, but I mostly just appreciate that there’s a lot of, like, actual heaviness to this without ever devolving into monotone chugging or incomprehensible noise. And I like incomprehensible noise sometimes, don’t get me wrong – hello Clarence Clarity – but this is genuinely just 20 minutes of great prog metal, and… yeah, I like that a lot!
8/10TAC: NORD – The Only Way to Reach the SurfaceThis is not quite the best song of the round, but it’s easily the song that’s most up my alley in terms of raw sound. It’s just. Sixteen minutes of progressive post-hardcore/melodic metalcore. I love that sound. I love having sixteen straight minutes of it. I don’t care that it’s kinda shapeless and very “just goes on and on” in terms of structure, I enjoy all its pieces too much to care.
Like, the transient instrumental moments here really stand out, moreso than any other song in this round. The guitars just sound so good, man. And the leads are technical and melodic in all the right ways, the riffs crush, the vocals… are a little weak, okay, that’s the only big criticism I have of this song, and it’s definitely too long, but at the same time, everything that’s on offer here I just, really like, so…
Like, I kinda get out of this what I’ve always wanted from The Fall of Troy, kinda? I’ve listened to their proggier stuff and it’s never quite hit the same, this is a lot closer to what I was looking for. All it really lacks in that department is strong hooks – which, even a big long epic can still have, Celestial Elixir and Swim to the Moon are both right there – but that’s at most a minor gripe when the experience of listening to this one gives me basically everything I want. Just. Good music!
8/10Buddy: Parannoul & Asian Glow – WheelIt’s very funny that this roulette started and ended with you just, absolutely cleaning house. Nearly winning round 1 and then unquestionably winning round 8 with the last proper competitor for “best song of the roulette”. Like, I’ve heard about Parannoul before, at least, but… I did not expect them to sound like
this. Do they usually sound like this?
The song does take a bit of time to really get off the ground, but, well, for one, that buildup is still pretty dang good, and once it does it just, SOARS for ten straight minutes. With some fun twists thrown into the mix on top of it all. The harsher, almost hardcore-esque bits come out of nowhere and I LOVE them.
Only thing I don’t really love about this is that weird fake ending that kiiiinda kills the momentum, but the song bounces back from it pretty handily and by god do the best parts of this just, sound utterly transcendent. Even with the kinda muddy guitar tones, everything comes together to make some absolutely gorgeous, and more importantly, high energy music! Beautifully uptempo. Yeah.
I think these top two are an example of that paradigm where like, NORD is more consistently great and more up my alley, but this just, easily has the higher high points. And a LOT of ‘em, too. like, half the song is handily better than even the best stuff in NORD, so… yeah, this is just really goddamn good. What a way to end off this long, drawn-out roulette, eh?
8.5/10Final Standings:Ariich – 62
Puppies – 60.5
Tomislav – 60.5
TAC – 59.5
Seneca – 58.5
Litho – 58
Buddy – 57.5
King – 57
Lonestar – 56
Stadler – 56
Vmadera – 56
Reaper – 55.5
Faizoff – 55
HOF – 55
Dacul – 54.5
Luke – 54
Alright, time to say the thing.
…any minute now.
…damn, I ran out of space in the post! Oh well, there’s always next time.
Topic: Crow's Overdue Roulette v8 - FINAL RESULTS!!! (Read 46991 times)
