Time left




Saturday, August 24, 2013

SpinTunes #7 Round 4 Review: Felix Frost

Blimp Exhaust
This is easily my favorite song of the bunch as far as lyrics go. I love the story (whether it’s fictional or not I don’t care) and the leading melody is really strong. But this track really lacked the force and fine-tuning that My Nerf Gun and I had. Man that song was good, and I’ve been sort of waiting for your past entries to hit that same level of quality ever since. The vocal track on this song seems narrow and compressed—which I only criticize because the vocals in Nerf Gun were some of the best sounding of this whole competition. The vocals sometimes miss the mark in this recording in terms of hitting the notes and sounding confident as well. Maybe it was the shift to a piano-centric song that lost the oomph for me; but I will say the piano is good. The song craft itself of this song is good though. It could benefit from re-record with a few different approaches to both the musical arrangements and the performances.
 
Edric Haleen
About a minute into this song I thought it was going to be one of the best songs of the competition. And it is very good, but after awhile I sort of felt like it was mainly a lot of shouting and generally similar sounds stretched out for seven minutes. I LOVE the carnival-feel to it and the organ, but I definitely thing it could have had a fuller carousel sound. At any one time, it’s mainly an organ, that bass sound and voices—many of which aren’t perfectly lined up to one another, which can be kind of frustrating to listen to. It left me craving that crazy complex theme park music with counter melodies and maybe even an “oom pa pa” part happening in the background. I do really love that rumbling rhythm/bass sound that holds the piece together though.
The lyrics are great and meaningful, albeit a little preachy. When the song started I was excited to think it might be a song about a fictional attraction of some kind, and then was a little disappointed when I learned it was a commentary on the inequities of life.
 
RC
The clear winner, in my opinion. Another pristine RC classic. This song sounds really professional, particular the acoustic guitar parts. That’s what you excel at, you’ve proven that much this competition. The vocals are good too, although sometimes fall a little short of the higher notes. I think this song also, more than the others, reflected the “feel” or the “mood” of the photo. I would have failed miserably trying to illustrate that dusty, country, worn-down feeling of the picture if I’d tried—but your style fits it perfectly. The back-up vocals are amazing and not too loud or attention grabbing. A great, relaxing song. Makes me nostalgic for a place I’ve never been to!
 
Ominous Ride
I had a really hard time trying to decide if I loved this song or if I didn’t care for it all. The melody is haunting, certainly, but I think I wanted more changes to occur. By the end of the runtime I feel like I’ve heard that strum—strum—strum part a thousand times. It sounds good, but it comes across as a little droning. The vocals are great, very stylized. And I really like the way you structured the lyric stanzas, and the rhyme-scheme was clever and interesting. The chorus part, where more instruments and back-up vocals come in and the song is meant to pick up energy actually seems to lose a little bit of life. That might be a production issue because the acoustic strums are taken out of the side channels and forced into mono. The chorus should never feel weaker than the verses, in my opinion. I like the mood this song sets the most. It’s smoky, sad and a little suspicious.

No comments:

Post a Comment