ANYWAY here's the rest of the round 5 artists. Turned out a pretty cool round overall!
seneca: Unleash the ArchersOk yeah, their last two albums are really good. I see them as mainly power metal, but with a good dose of more traditional heavy metal and elements of melodic death metal at times. Brittany Slayes has a fantastic voice and definitely gives the songs a lot of energy and charisma, but also there are just a lot of really enjoyable, catchy songs throughout both albums. Big sound, big melodies, big voice, great stuff. I checked out the two previous albums and, other than her voice, it’s almost a different band. There’s all the metal riffing and energy but there’s very little in the way of memorable hooks and they’re generally just not very interesting compositionally. Time Stands Still is weirdly thin sounding as well. I found both quite a chore to get through. Anyway looks like they’ve found their style and skill now so hopefully this means positive things for the future!
soupy: The PiercesUnsurprisingly I started with You & I, being the album you mostly sent me songs from. It’s a great album, pop that’s simultaneously upbeat and a little cynical, with a really nice infusion of folk and soft rock. Lots of great, catchy hooks all over the album. Creation, their last one, is really nice too, maybe not quite as consistent but still with lots of great stuff. The earlier albums are nice, but haven’t really grabbed me other than a handful of songs on each. I like the quirkiness on Thirteen Tales, but not many of the songs are actually very interesting melodically unfortunately. Their first two and much more straightforward and perfectly pleasant, but again only a few songs are very engaging, the rest is all a bit middle of the road.
Stadler: Fleetwood MacWhile you didn't challenge for the title this time, you did a great job of increasing my interest in some classic acts I had limited experience with, and here's another good example. I went with the three albums you sent songs from, being the first three of the rebooted Buckingham/Nicks era, and there's some good stuff here. The self-titled is attractive, though suffers a bit from being a little too understated for my tastes. I could see some songs working great live, but on record they lack energy. Rumours though, I can see why it's their most popular. The energy is ramped and it's full of interesting and enjoyable songs. Great album. Tusk isn't really doing it for me unfortunately - the experimentation is cool I guess, but the album is very long and none of the 20 songs actually interest me much. Because I liked Rumours so much, I thought I'd check out their next highest rated albums on RYM, then
TAC: Dark The SunsSheesh, you really stretched the “light” theme in this round, didn’t you Tim?
As far as the music goes though, no surprise at all that it’s right up my alley. It’s melodic death metal with a gothic vibe, incredibly pretty melodically with a heavy dose of melancholy, and with lovely use of piano that’s very prominent in both the composition and the production. The general style isn’t at all original, but the way they use piano does give it a distinct flavour that’s really nice. Of their five albums, the only one that’s not really working for me is Sleepwalking in a Nightmare - the sound is quite thin and the writing is kind of… awkward? Not sure what was going on with that one. But the two before, and the two they’ve done since coming back are all very solid and really nice stuff.
Vmadera: Angel VivaldiI decided to try out two of the EPs you sent songs from to get a decent sense of his stuff. I hadn’t appreciated the range of influences in his stuff - there’s prog metal for sure, but also some power metal and melodeath as well. Both EPs are good, but I definitely found the same issue I often have with instrumental rock/metal, which is that it feels like it’s lacking something. The title Away With Words (I tried out part 1) is clever, but does kind of fit the vibe that these were written the same as vocal songs, just without the vocals. I don’t mind if the music either involves something exciting compositionally or has catchy hooks melodically, but for the most part neither really applies here. That said, each of the two EPs (I also tried The Speed of Dark) does have one slower track that bucks the trend. Sea of Heartbreak especially, but also . . . . ., they both have a gorgeous sound, lovely chord progressions and, like the rest, some great playing, and the emotional swells provide an engaging focal point that the rest lack.
wolfking: Blessed By A Broken HeartExactly as I expected, Feel the Power is an absolute blast of an album. To go back a bit though, this band have evidently got much better with each album. I ended up giving a partial listen to their debut (on Youtube as it’s not available on Spotify) out of curiosity, as its rating on RYM is incredibly low. Didn’t get far and didn’t feel motivated to listen enough to rate it properly, but it sounded truly awful.
Pedal to the Metal was a big step up and had many of the features of Feel the Power (including the vocalist), though they don’t really fuse together that well. Feel the Power is where they finally found their sound. The fusion of 80s glam metal and metalcore works so well on here - the songs are full of energy and intensity, but they are fun and cheesy and full of some insanely catchy hooks. I read that the singer has returned to the band, so I wonder if they’ll get back to making more music like this!
Topic: ariich's DARK TO LIGHT roulette (v8) - Post-roulette updates (ongoing) (Read 91775 times)