Alright, you can have some...
Round 4 first impressions[Litho – Mercenary] 1. Sounds like a really cool mixture of aggressive and epic - elements of the vocals are not normally what I go for, but they seem to work well here.
[faizoff – Meshuggah] 2. I can see the appeal of this more than other things I’ve heard from this band, but I’m still not sure it’s my cup of tea.
[TAC – Atropas] 3. This is rather more metalcore than I’d have expected to receive from you, but it also has aspects of genres I associate more with you and the combination seems to work well.
[romdrums – Obsidious] 4. I tend to find this subgenre a little cold, but this might break the mould with some strong choruses.
[Puppies – Lykathea Aflame] 5. Ferocious yet tonally bright - it's a weird combination that will take some getting used to.
[Stadler – Mother Love Bone] 6. I can see the lyrical weight of this, but I was hoping for a little more emotional impact.
[King – Sevendust] 7. Not a genre I generally expect to receive, and if I had to guess who would send it to me, your name definitely would not come to mind.
[HOF – Marathon] 8. As far as neo-prog goes, this is perhaps not as warm as my favourites but it's more riff-driven and there’s a nice crunchiness to it.
[nick_z – Descend] 9. Not sure I hear that much of the influences this band apparently has, but this seems rather fantastic anyway - dark, epic and huge in sound.
[Crow – Gospel] 10. Didn’t love every aspect of this right away but the instrumentation is unusual for the genre and works great, and each song seems to keep getting better as it goes.
[Buddy & Evermind – Rivers of Nihil] 11. Intense, intelligent and interesting - not sure it entirely hits the mark on what I look for in the genre, but the more atmospheric moments sounded good.
[Luoto – Kalmah] 12. Sounds like a strong example of the genre and right up my alley, with a great mix of the slower atmospheric side and the faster, more aggressive (yet always melodic) side.
[luke – Worm] 13. Not sure what to make of this yet, it's fairly harmonically dense - some of it sounded great while other bits were quite sludgy and lo-fi.
[Glasser – Anima Tempo] 14. Doesn’t really deviate from most djenty prog metal, but it sounds good - tight riffing and playing, and solid hooks.
[lonestar – Hanabie] 15. Great energy and intensity, and a fun fusion of two quite distinct styles/tones, although it might have been even better if the two were more balanced.
[Vmadera – Fit for An Autopsy] 16. Good grief this is pretty relentless, and yet there’s probably just enough sense of melody to make it work.
[jingle – Triosphere] 17. Big sound, huge voice and, especially in the last two songs, strong hooks - this seems like a pretty safe bet.
[soupy – Dynazty] 18. Super catchy, pretty epic and just gravelly enough to give it a bit of hard rock punch.
[Elite – Imperial Triumphant] 19. There’s a pretty good chance this will be too weird for me, but there was something strangely compelling about it.
[Sacul – Have A Nice Life] 20. This is pretty bleak - my first thought was that it might be too cold for my tastes, but it does get more engaging once it picks up.
[wolfking – Wolfheart] 21. This sounded like solid death metal but nothing particularly stood out - hopefully I’ll get more sense of it with further listens.
[seneca – Dan Swanö] 22. Well, this feels like a pretty big oversight on my part - the limited amount of clean vocals is kind of surprising for how melodic most of the music is, but it’s a great sound anyway.
[Reaper – The Paper Sons] 23. This is emotive in an alt-prog/post-hardcore kind of way, and there's a slight theatricality to some of it that hits the right notes for me.