ROUND 8 RESULTSjingle.boy
Jason Richardson
Sparrow
Ishimura
Breaking Damnation
3 pointsYeah, I’m not big on instrumental metal and I’m not a big fan of djent, so instrumental djent just does nothing for me at all. Even non-djenty instrumental metal tends to send pretty empty and non-melodic, and djent I find tends to eschew most melody in favor of that staccato offbeat riffing, so there’s really just nothing for me to grab onto here. It doesn’t go so far that it becomes annoying to me and it’s well-performed, but I just get almost nothing out of it apart from the occasional idea, like the synthy outro of Ishimura which I did really enjoy.
You said you and I weren’t a match at the start, and the results have more or less born that out
but I appreciate you giving it a shot anyway, and you did send me some stuff I really enjoyed (Spirit of the West who I’d never even heard of, Triumph who I probably would never have checked out on my own, and TSO who frankly I should have listened to more already). You’re always welcome to play in my future roulettes, although after this one you may not want to.
Sacul
Portishead
All Mine
Half Day Closing
Plastic
Deep Water
We Carry On
3 pointsI’ve heard about Portishead for ages as one of the best trip-hop bands, and I’ve been sent around 40 minutes of their music at this point, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what the big deal with this group is. It’s got the trappings of trip-hop, sure, but there’s hardly any melody to be found in these tracks which just leaves them feeling empty, and half the time when there is a melody it’s kind of grating and annoying, Like Plastic or Deep Water. I like the
idea of the overall sound, but without decent songs to fill it in, that sort of super tinny, high-end production just kind of wears on my ears. There’s stuff I like in here, like the driving beat and main building melody of We Carry On or the hyper-processed drums on Plastic, but it’s so buried in stuff I don’t like that it’s not rescuing the songs for me.
I think you’ve always been one of the most up-and-down participants in my roulettes. You often send me stuff that I don’t like at all (please stop sending Boris
), but you also often send amazing stuff I’ve never even heard of. Nils Frahm, Igorrr, Infected Mushroom, Refused, I’ve gotten a lot of great music from you, and there’s a few more from this roulette that’ll join that rank. (Chelsea Wolfe, George Clanton, Viagra Boys)
ariich
LOVEBITES
HOLY WAR
TODAY IS THE DAY
SWAN SONG
4 pointsInstrumentally this is definitely my kind of thing, but vocally it’s just not working for me at all. I’ve never been into that Bruce Dickinson-inspired heavy vibrato wailing style (Iron Maiden isn’t on the banned list because I like them), and she’s pretty much doing that for the entire runtime of every track. I mean props to her for keeping it up, I’m sure that’s not easy, but it’s also just not something I enjoy listening to, and I don’t feel like the melodies are really there to back it up. It’s kind of funny that I’m giving you your lowest score so far for a genre I explicitly told everyone to send, but I swear I’m not doing it intentionally.
It’s great having you back for this roulette after you stomped the last one.
We weren’t totally on the same page last time when it came to heavy stuff, and that’s
sort of continued this time, but I think you found a lot more common ground, and especially on quirky/indie stuff I feel like we are either totally in tune, or you just get exactly what I’m going to be into, and I appreciate how varied your submissions are (even when I give them bad scores
).
King Puppies and the Acid Guppies
Angra
The Temple of Hate
Winds of Destination
Morning Star
5 pointsStylistically this sounds like a mix of prog metal and 90s-style power metal, which unfortunately kind of puts me at odds with it to start with. I’m much more a fan of the modern, hyper melodic Dragonforce-y power metal than the older stuff. I wasn’t a huge fan of Andre Matos in Avantasia so Angra was never really on my radar of stuff to check out, and I assume this is the replacement guy (Edu Falschi?), and he’s not really doing anything for me either. He either sounds kind of thin and weak on the high stuff or goes into that same Bruce Dickinson thing that I don’t care for. It’s a lot of instrumentally varied than most power metal, that’s the prog metal coming through, but for me that justs makes it less focused and interesting. I like my power big and sing-songy, and outside of a few moments I’m not really getting that here. It’s cool hearing Kai Hansen and Hansi Kursch, of course, but Hansen I find more miss than hit and while Hansi always sounds incredible, I don’t find what he’s doing to be very melodically interesting. (Also I swear I heard the Vanden Plas guy in there at one point)
OK I know you’re kind of disappointed with your performance in the latter half of the roulette, but honestly I’ve just been thrilled that you sent me so much stuff that I absolutely loved, after we never completely clicked in my last roulette. For whatever reason, sort of like Rich, we seem to be kind of incompatible on metal stuff, but everywhere else you were cleaning house. Also, where can I get Monica Heldal CDs? Do they exist?
Buddyhunter1
Greet Death
Circles of Hell
Bow
You're Gonna Hate What You've Done
5 pointsI’m really torn on this, honestly. I come so close to being really into this, and then I lose it. I think it’s the ultra fuzzy, plodding distorted guitar parts that do it in for me. When it’s just the clean guitars and the vocals (mainly the lower voiced guy, although the other one isn’t bad), I find the overall atmosphere to be incredibly absorbing. But so much of this is covered up by that fuzzy guitar; it doesn’t have enough punch to bring any sort of aggression to the songs, but it’s also too plodding and kind of dull to do anything for them melodically either. Plus it nearly drowns out the really amazing guitar solo at the end of You’re Gonna Hate etc. So I don’t know. I may end up listening to this more just for a bits I like because I really like them, and maybe I’ll get into the rest of it.
You’ve played in several of my roulettes and I’ve played in at least one of yours, and I feel like I still have no idea what kind of music you listen to.
I think you had the curse of sending me stuff that wouldn’t grow on me until later; both Chapel of Disease and the Parannoul/Asian Glow I’m more into now than I was when I scored them, and I’m interested in checking out death’s dynamic shroud, even if I have to tolerate the annoying stuff because there was a lot of really unique sounds in there. Hopefully you’ll play the next time I do a roulette so I can give you more middling scores.
Stadler
The Cars
Since I Held You
Since You're Gone
Sad Song
Moving in Stereo
All Mixed Up
5 pointsI think there’s maybe just not enough going on here for me. The songs are pretty simple instrumentally, which isn’t bad in itself; I like a lot of really simple stuff (more than people realize, probably, judging by how little quiet indie stuff I was sent), but it’s missing something special to make it stand out. Normally, for me at least, that would be the vocals, and here they’re fine, but they’re not super strong. I do really like the Moody Blues-y choir bits on All Mixed Up, and the synth-heavy chorus on Sad Song does really work for me. I don’t know, I’ve sort of gone back and forth on how much I’m into this. It might grow on me, who knows.
You know, probably as much to your surprise as anyone else’s, you’ve sent me quite a bit of stuff I really like. Often even in the submissions I didn’t love overall, there was at least one track I did (UFO, Fish), and both Genesis and Cheap Trick surprised me by how much I was into them, when I probably would never have checked out either of them if left to my own devices. (And you didn’t even send KISS this time
)
soupytwist
Ad Infinitum
Unstoppable
Animals
My Justice, Your Pain
See You In Hell
6 pointsThis does end up feeling pretty similar to Phantom Elite to me, but the vocal melodies are definitely working for me more here, although they occasionally border on being a bit too… modern metally is the best way I have to describe it, like on My Justice, Your Pain. Definitely not bad, but also doesn’t feel super exciting to me, which hurts the songs a bit because for the most part there’s not too much going on that takes center stage; the guitars just kind of chug in the background, and the symphonic bits are nice but are a bit more of a flourish than a structural element. I guess it’s just not quite standing out enough for me overall, even though she definitely has a fantastic voice.
Soupy, I don’t think we’d ever even interacted before you joined this roulette, so it’s really incredible how well you’ve managed to nail my tastes, or maybe we just have the exact same taste. Even your lower scoring submissions I’ve usually loved one or two tracks from (Seven Spires, The Amazing Devil, Creeper), and then you’ve just had a lot of bullseyes. I don’t know that there’s any artist you sent this round that I won’t check out at least a little bit more, which I don’t know that I can say for anyone else.
TAC
Hwaino
Ashes of the World Tree
Under The Beast's Sun
At The Darkening of Their Heavens
6 pointsThis one is kind of weird, because it’s written like it’s supposed to be atmospheric black metal, with really melodic instrumentation, but then the harsh vocals are way up front in the mix. They’re not particularly good, and without heavy riffy guitar work they’re not delivering a lot of aggression, but the way they’re placed forces you to pay attention to them over the background instrumentation. Which in my view is a real shame, because most of that stuff is really beautiful. There’s the cascading guitars, violins and (maybe?) cello, and actually the brief clean vocal section in Under the Beast’s Sun is fantastic, and a lot of the non-vocal sections, like the spacey beginning of At the Darkening etc. are really great as well. If they’d put the vocals way in the background as a texture rather than up front I think this could have been nearly perfect atmospheric black metal, but the vocals really drag it down
I’m glad you joined this roulette, even though you weren’t given a choice.
We’re rarely on the same page, but you still managed to find some stuff I really enjoyed. Reliqa and especially Meursault weren’t the kind of submissions I expected to get from you, but I was really into them, especially Meursault which is still one of the best submissions I’ve gotten in the whole roulette. The next time you do a roulette I’ll join and send you Steam Powered Giraffe again.
Topic: Shadow Ninja's Homestuck roulette: obama's rap solo (Read 33656 times)
