Here are Denise Hudson's rankings, with reviews below.
- SOBER - ’Take the Blame’
- CAVEDWELLERS - My Unlikely Best Friend
- SEE-MAN-SKI - ‘We’re All Shameless’
- ALSO IN BLUE - ‘Here On The Wall’
- MELODY KLEIN - ‘Samantha’s Girl’
- THE DUTCH WIDOWS - ‘Hold Fast His Name’
- PIGFARMER - ‘Such Evil Creatures’
- JEALOUS BROTHER - ‘A Perfectly Good Collision Course’
- EMKAYDEEBEE - ‘Wishful Thinking’
- GOVERNING DYNAMICS - ’Neil, From Toronto’
- JON POROBIL - ‘Bald, Green, Boneless’
- GIRAFFES FOR WINGS - ‘Caribou Crosses the Maskwa’
- GOOD GUY SOJABE - ‘Batman’s Batman’
- RACKWAGON - Au Revoir, Mon Fils’
- DAVID G HARRINGTON - ‘Starship Man in Red’
- BOY ON THE WALL - ‘I’m Scared of my Dad’
- HOT PINK HALO - ‘Mind The Gap’
- VOM VORTON - ‘The Ship’s Cat’
18a. LICHEN THROAT- ‘Skulker’ (SHADOW) - LUCKY WITCH & THE RIGHTEOUS GHOST - ‘The Only Way’
19a. LITTLE BOBBY TABLES - ‘Red Hood Girl’ - REGIS MICHELENA - ‘Maclunkey!”
- NIGHT SKY - ‘Nancy by Gaslight’
21a. THE BREWHOUSE SESSIONS - Cat Rhapsody’ - DENTED BENTO - ‘Things Are Going Well (Pleakley)’
- OMINOUS RIDE - ‘The Ballad of Poor Yorick’
- KEEN OBSERVER - ’Salem 1693’
24a. MENAGE A TUNE - fifteen minutes (SHADOW)
24b. DECLAN IOM - ’The Saga of Snae Bane’ (SHADOW)
Greetings Spintunas. Here I am again with reviews. Thank you so much for this music and I hope these are not filled with scorching typing and grammar-tudinal errors. Ugh.
I learned a lot of fascinating things from this round, I will tell you this. My reviews reflect how all of these incredibly diverse songs catapulted me through this week on a slow descent into madness. I got WAY too emotional and vague about some of these songs. I obsessed about some of you people. I obsessed about some of you people over DINNER. Long pages of reviews AGAIN I had to whittle down.
I got really confused by some of these songs too—and had real trouble framing my head into writing some of the reviews. I feel like I honestly just looked at some of these songs and drooled. So some of your reviews may not make any sense, or some of my sentences may sound like they were written by a person with hourglasses for eyeballs. You can always ask me to clarify and we will sandwich it out together if you like.
In all the entries, people clearly cared. Everyone put forth effort and showed personality—and tried. So I have to remind you and myself again that just because I rank someone ahead or behind a person—does not mean that one song is “superior” to another because such qualifications are meaningless. These are just the opinions of four people with very different opinions that sometimes line up and find commonality upon a few things and those become the “victors” in this particular Contest.
So with that in mind (again), please know that (once again), there will be some people eliminated and this doesn’t mean that your song isn’t valued by me in particular. I noticed them all and listened to them all multiple times and will remember the lot of them even if they are not all my favorites. I can tell you for sure that I do like and am grateful for you all. — Thank you again for your efforts. I very much appreciate them and being asked to judge you here which is an odd and unnatural activity that I still have a hard time believing in and always have.
xx
DEN
SOBER - ’Take the Blame’
I love this! Smart lyrics, and a well-emoted, nicely textured vocal performance. You switch up a snare beat in V2 (the planning verse) and I thought maybe that felt a bit awkward for a hair of a second… but this only happened for a tick. It may have even made your move into the second chorus more satisfying when that beat-2 and 4 pocketed back in again when the chorus arrived—it takes on real movement there and then gets positively scenic when you do that major modal shift—so maybe you planned to wait to deliver a rhythmic payoff as well with accompanying expansion. Anyway, it’s a nuanced storytelling song with fun modal choices in solos, fill passages, and chord progressions; and succinct lyrics give a chilling interpretation to what’s already a pretty fraught story. Also—some of the best use of banjo arpeggiation to create dramatic tension I’ve heard in a long while—simple and damn effective!
CAVEDWELLERS - 'My Unlikely Best Friend'
This is penultimate Cameron. Tempo, key, vocal performance, chord progression, jazzy laid back feel. GUITAR TONE—wonderful (although maybe a bit overbearing in the solo for a Cameron?). Also I wanted more syncopation in the melody because it felt too on the beat at times. That Pre-chorus hook is great though, with those repeated words. And your chorus melody is a perfect landing, even if the pitch is a bit iffy once or twice in the vocal jump. Your delivery is conversational and pattery but does lose its cohesive melody in the verses sometimes. However it doesn’t lose the form of a really good song—so it’s really hard to complain except for the nitpicking which is complaining so this sentence is dumb and this review is now finished.
SEE-MAN-SKI - ‘We’re All Shameless’
In your bio you point out that you are a piano beginner. But you're voicing the chords and shapes. You are accompanying yourself rhythmically and well on your own straight four (changing up when needed) that it’s clear you are utilizing the hell out of your lessons. So it seems any minimalism you bring is an asset. Your arrangement and vocal delivery has such cool musicality and good balance that any absence of piano nuance fades away into a background of good organization. You have a lot of subtlety and sophistication so if you’re a piano beginner—you must not be a songwriting one. Again—vocal performance goes miles. And your structure is great and the way you deal with presentation of interesting subject matter in lyrics that stretch out over the bar in a well chosen rhythmic way—this is great!
ALSO IN BLUE - ‘Here On The Wall’
This is a truly beautiful, heartbreaking song. The story was tough to take and very lonely to think about. You have certainly reflected this in arrangement—the guilty conscience of a mirror that cannot lie...just swishes on and on like inevitable hands on a doomed clock. The saddest chord progression of all time (because of the devastating choice of which chord inversion to play and thusly how the voice leading will go) makes every verse into an emotional wreck and then introduces a tension build of a chorus that seeps back down to REintroduce the next sad statement. Even your vocal motif in the verses lands on notes that resolve to depressing places. And whatever you did to that piano is lovely, it’s heavy and hands deep in-and-around-the-cabinet. This is a whole soundtrack of rolling and smoothly shifting progressions that seems to swim like tears in the eyes and then slip away into aches of regret and wishful thinking. Yes I cried dammit. Love this.
MELODY KLEIN - ‘Samantha’s Girl’
Your thumpy wormsy bass line grew on me over the days. But I also love the message in this choice of song and lyric and the way the non-rhymes (especially in verse 1) make that sentiment come home “we exist...” “we’re just unseen” You can hear the pulses and the breaths here, so bringing that vocal out—but doing it in your way—served you well. Your song played out cohesively in a back and forth form. And you do know what words to make sizzle out, that’s for sure. Lyrics are not what you expect when reading still—what I read as sing-songy or swingy and rhymey ends up being pulsey and smokey and not at all like what it appears, so where you choose to put effects and pauses and breaths and your performance...matters. It all begins almost spiritually with your choral styled synth sounds and the whole development is a study in interesting sound design. Trying to review this I realize that reading sweet lyrics that say nice things makes me feel weird and embarrassed. Ugh. I am a monster, as has already been evidenced in my last review.
THE DUTCH WIDOWS - ‘Hold Fast His Name’
I do like this song, but I think more than that I’ve become a fan of your Band. I love your sound, whatever it is you are combining in a studio cauldron to make into your vocal treatment, the way it goes with your guitars, all of it…That said, your song description was also one of the more touching vouchings for backstory I’ve heard and makes me want to read the book. The feel of this had a wistful, adrift sound alongside swishy driving percussion. It did get a bit relentless after a while, but the pattern shift in the tempo did eventually switch and the strong half beats do wave it along. I really like the overlaps in POV’s playing nicely with the time shifts in structure and rhythm. It works along with the content of the song. Sometimes I didn’t feel the emotion in the performance, but I did feel it in the timing and the arrangement. It was well layered, and somehow your distinctive vocal style works both when you’re slickly singing about being Your Band (like in Rd 1) just as well as when you are relaying info about this kind of heartbreaking story (even if you could have sold it more emotively).
PIGFARMER JR. - ‘Such Evil Creatures’
Straightforward Beowulf rock. Really nice breakdown in the middle into the solo. This is a good tune for a monster. Not that you’re a monster. That’s not what I’m saying. I really like the body in your tone and the way that you change the sonic environment in your songs based upon your choice of subject matter. This one seems ancient and hairy around the edges but also boxy a bit. The intervals that you use for the main motif (perfect, open intervals and crunchy chuggy guitar driving along) are good set-piece conceptualization. Also it’s just a really fun listen with gems like that nice changeup on chorus-third repeat and then bringing it back home to that down verse. “Mother Nature is counting on me…” And then the repeated end lines and short stop ending. Mmm tasty.
A little heavy handed and a bit tinny on the vocal processing and the vocal chorus effect sometimes—although using an effect in the first place was a good idea. Maybe something a bit more spacious? I don’t know. All solo decisions and stops were the right move—as was the strong end. This basically rocks but that’s Par For for you.
JEALOUS BROTHER - ‘A Perfectly Good Collision Course’
I really think this is fun. In fact, this is clever, adorable, and produced with a lot of joy in mind. The guitars are upbeat and the lick you use with the little walkdwwn on minor 2nds is cool and ear wormy. You use shaker sounds and percussion in a way that makes me happy. Lyrics so good they don’t even need an explanation. Also you handle your chorus effect on the vocal fairly well, it’s not grossly over-loose goose. This is soooo loud though. Chorus is not particularly catchy but there are some clever lines and fun hooks. It’s weird, because you aren’t CATCHY here, but it'sHOOKY. It’s funny when you learn that there’s a difference—which I didn’t know until just this round. I’m not sure I explained it adequately last time (this is not absolute or Scientific, and also I just Made it Up and am not a Reviewologist). But that bridge! So nice. And that Stephen Tyler’s Daughter’s Dad line. I die!
EMKAYDEEBEE - ‘Wishful Thinking’
This is such a heartbreaking and unfairly sad story. This performance though was a great sell of the material and the lyrics were really well crafted. You controlled your performance emotionally in such a lovely way, and you are so good at building up textures both vocally and instrumentally which is good because you are not working with much orchestration. How you choose to arpeggiate or overlap vocals or do effects like the emotional wobble of your vocal at key times … insert harmonies, or pluck or change to a strum pattern or a different octave—your versatility converts to a vehicle you use to tell a story…It’s good because you are telling a long story with a lot of lyric. In this case, your overlapping vocals felt sort of like this passage of time that was coming up by the end and the gain and loss process was really laid out nicely in the structure and texture.
GOVERNING DYNAMICS - ’Neil, From Toronto’
I listened to this several times thinking it would sink in my rankings and it did the opposite, quite a few places. If I cast myself back to 2010, this is the way it was as well, with the movie, maybe with the way we ended up as human beings—I don’t know. Anyway, this song grew on me and I listened to this several times trying to decide. I love that snakey guitar lick. I actually remembered the guitar lick standing out from among other songs because it just sat in the front of my brain easily. The lyrics are funny. You’re making it, just pulling it off with the rapping, making it just like 80ish% of the time, but that deserves applause—don’t we think? The drums do sound ..interpretive.. and there are a trillion guitars in this, but we like lots of guitars, right? I laughed at the way you inflected "This will not stand. / This aggression against friends of our band.” The end is great. The pauses and commentary and dramatics felt tight. I don’t know why I like this so much, maybe it just appeals to my feelings for every song fight rap fail I’ve ever been review-punished for. Maybe I just WANT you to have pulled it off so I WILL enjoy it. If you prevail it will be because you decided to cool your way through this contest.
JON POROBIL - ‘Bald, Green, Boneless’
This is hilarious and also kinda awww-sad, I think. Morosely, methodical guitar lick and an apologetic, lilting line comes across like a bathroom mirror self-confessional, or an inner thought montage or conversational observational comedy piece—depending on what person-POV will be. I don’t know enough about Futurama to know if T.S. Elliot is ever actually quoted on show—but if you brought in this interesting comparison then that’s a fun and complex cross section of worlds. That’d be like one character inner-thought scene painting ancient literary canon for themself in snappy lyrics that they are singing to themself about their own self-trope. Your transitions could have been a bit tighter, but as this was sort of a piece of musical theater in my view it makes sense that you’d do a more unhinged guy descending into a hazy fantasy-dream state … fading back into your mix all echoey and then belting the dream quite a bit. Again, sweet range, you! Your more intimate into your mic parts were well performed again, and compositionally, I do like the halving of the last verse so you end on “J. Alfred Prufrock has no spine (good performance of that word too ) / but at least he has some bones” NICE pause. Sadly, I find Zapp Brannigan super funny if I remember, so have that slight guilt about it (and I’m not even sloshed!) I am aware this is gross—so I will say, “My captain brokering for peace / means there will be war soon” … this is a great line!
GIRAFFES FOR WINGS - ‘Caribou Crosses the Maskwa’
Right from the start this does one of my favorite things ever that music does—which is something I think of as The Shift. Where you think you are starting on the& of a note or a pickup or something … but then when the melody comes in, it shifts the downbeat or the 1 of a measure over just a beat or so and you get the sonic equivalent of when you pick up what you think is a full glass of water but its empty and your hand shoots up. Usually this is a delightful experience, this discombobulation—but then you take into account the lyrics and how horrifying this is. I’m sure there is a word for “cute but horrifying” but it’s really late while I’m writing this review. Anyway—there are all sorts of delightful noises, but the subject matter of this is really horrible and if I think too deeply on it the whole tiny song is really disturbing. Well done, I think.
GOOD GUY SOJABE - ‘Batman’s Batman’
This is a clever concept to begin with, and the intro gets you into it right away. You’ve really set a scene. It’s got strong instrumental, bass-y statements. Still, there are parts that are clunky and you could have been more subtle during transitions from verse to chorus, sometimes less scrapey. Sometimes the vocals were really smooth, and then they’d go a bit over the top. The performance is nice and passionate—you care about this whole superhero, relationship concept and are In It. Timing-wise, the transitions are always pretty well done and for the most part, I really thought the melody held things together in general, Mostly great effects on the vocals, and as a rule, effective syncopation. This had a lot of drama! I did not know that a Batman was a BAT-MAN. This was an interesting revelation for me, and the lyrics were very informative if rather full of names and cameo. This was very ideal, batmannish music with nice drippy guitars. The delivery of the line about “while {he’s} out getting {your}self killed” is really so entertainingly passionate in a butler-y way.
RACKWAGON - Au Revoir, Mon Fils’
I see you really found a theme you loved and created a lot of intricate production around it. Sometimes, it got a bit repetitive after a bit and I felt like I wanted it to develop a bit more and get some more momentum. But there were a lot of subtle choices begin made and I noticed the time and care you took on the arrangement and care you took in performance. You really crafted your vocal performance in particular and took time on the language. With the chord-progression, I wanted something a bit more tragic and evocative of death and loss for the subject matter. It begun to drag some and would have benefitted from the tempo being increased by about 5-10 clicks, maybe just so. At times because of this, it rode a line between cheesiness and coming across just nicely textured and sensitive. But overall, it was mostly just a really good tribute piece to a great point of view in an excellent series. Because Lupin took place where it did (and I’ve seen the series ) I heard you trying to get at that romantic and spylike cool of the show—but it’s also kind of top hat and monocled, bookish and mustachioed so I suppose this feel worked. I did see the cover art and it went well with the feel of the show. The synths felt nice.
DAVID G HARRINGTON - ‘Starship Man in Red’
I did not know this information about the Star Trek uniform and wonder how many Trekkies in my life did. I really liked your song, I thought it was well produced. That is a really great guitar hook, by the way. I will say that horn sound is great and the guitar lick into the verses is a really nice set up. But the solo that comes up later does go on. And on. Your vocal performance is not as memorable or compelling as the horn hits I am sorry to say, EXCEPT in the choruses … one exception is that sweet hook “but I’d still go , I’d still go.” . That’s what I remember about the song—the hits and the guitar lines, and that. How something about vocal doesn’t go with strength of instrumental and especially that very beefy kick drum. It’s a study in angles and accents. A hook —this is one of those things that when it hits with the audience and feels good—repeat it twice until it becomes a bit. Always repeat a good thing like that. So this is a great and spunky performance.
BOY ON THE WALL - ‘I’m Scared of my Dad’
Brave tackle of subject matter and I have absolutely!! thought this before sitting in MANY a Bible study (back in The Day don’t ask … ), thinking that this story was an exercise in crazy... don’t even get me going on Judah and Tamar or worse—Onan talk about emo boys of the Bible…eyeroll!!). Anyway
Okay. Ahem. Clunky chorus. Great lyrics. REALLY good. “There ain’t a goat in sight.” Lots of this was modern talk for ancient behavior which makes you realize “are we really that different…hmmm” and that’s a good object lesson maybe? Clever and slightly irreverent without being disrespectful (at least to me) writing. REALLY good guitar hook and just a fine fine idea. Weirdly hilarious to put this to a 90s punk, but strangely appropriate. Haven’t really decided if it’s okay that it is a bit derivative because you’re emulating a style so it should be derivative right? I really did laugh at the accent guitar spike accent notes though. The melody is a bit choppy. Great bridge. Great end of bridge and wonderful transition. And overall great. sonic storytelling. Good luck to our descendants … looks like this could get bad is really macabre, man.
HOT PINK HALO - ‘Mind The Gap’
I really love those first slow arpeggios and how you sing out slowly into the space. You’re matching up well in the space and layering well in the sparseness though. Not sure about the sparseness continuing like that. I think I wanted more texture and variety to come in. Besides the strings as an indicator of verse-related change. The performance was very evocative. It was so slow, and so careful that it might have been easy to miss subtlties of breathing and inflection waiting for things to happen in the instrumentation. Leaving things out is sometimes a good idea and sometimes a bad idea. I think that maybe for you this time, it was a neutral to great idea. I think it might have fit your literary choice—suited the personality you project. It’s very simple yet neat, rough edges still clean and nicely designed somehow. I did see a lost person/object/something slipping through a crack and slowly disappearing—a tiny voice in a void. And the understated end was endearing, and sweet. I think I started loving this a bit.
VOM VORTON - ’The Ship’s Cat'
Some of these lyrics and the way you performed them … “One perfect organism recognizes another” “chewing cables” You made a great ending of this too. The whole process and frame of it. You told a great story. Your sound really identifies to me with things I associate as “ sitcom” or “game show” (I think this as a musical director in improv theater world). It’s a kind of sunny, happy, bright flavor. Very open and beepy. This hook feels very much like a 1970s tv commercial or radio theme and I love that sort of thing! I do think that your vocal melody is a little match match with the guitar melody. But this is endearing. And the thought of a cat talking like this is just peaches—with this being the cat from Alien even better! I am one of the few people who hasn’t really watched Alien ... it is too scary. All this is hilarious because this sort of theme is such a contrast to a creepy movie I can’t deal with that happens in weird murky space-darkness with seepy aliens living in our body parts. Ugh. Love this nice song for that. I had to watch it in a living room, while doing something else, with my hands over my face. Hiding behind a cat.
LICHEN THROAT - ’Skulker’ (SHADOW)
This is adorable, and I got kind of attached to this dog during the past week. Actually, my imagination is racing at the concept of an accidental matchmaker dog. I love this a bit too much, honestly. The plodding rhythm is really good for a bulldog. You are really good at featuring your strengths in interesting and unorthodox arrangements. There’s not an endearing tonality in here to be sure—its a hot mess of weird dissonances—but that’s not necessarily a wrongness when you think about “oh maybe what would it be like if a dog were singing a song about attacking a genteel lady in an empire waist dress and stockings ..?" I do wish there were a tighter interplay between rhythm of accompaniment and rhythm of lyric delivery—but maybe what the dog hears and what a dog's body is doing is a discombobulated thing anyhow. To me, there is something endearing about this tune of yours. And these lyrics are weirdly subtle and Bronte-is
LUCKY WITCH AND THE RIGHTEOUS GHOST - ’The Only Way’
Something about your song reminded me of falling slowly off of a truck, in slow motion, off of an overpass, down a cliff, into the ocean, down into a trench, into a sea, into an abyss, and going into a deep deep deep deep sleep. It’s that VOICE. There is something about your voice that is weird and then you combine it with the omnichord and it’s an eyelid operation I haven’t had much listening exposure to—so it's always a bit surprising to me. You are not afraid to brazenly refuse to resolve a chord until you damn well feel like it. I respect this. This is the sort of thing I am here for. I barely remember inception, so this seems really appropriate and also—incredibly appropriate that we are here right now. I should not have waited for this to be the last review I wrote. I think I am asleep. I am probably in the dream. Maybe I am dream. Or you are me. Or this song is the dream. Or there is nothing but the omnichord. It’s time to stop.
LITTLE BOBBY TABLES - ‘Red Hood Girl'
Right away I do love the hand clap backbeat. But the time the chorus hits, it’s been happening a while. I guess I wanted something a little more subtle and moving but I think this was always going to be more sassy than that. Occasional tuning problems and sometimes I feel like you’d do to hold out notes or do more syncopation in a bluesier style like this is. Also your snare sound is a little anemic and the chord progression itself could be beefier. Guitar part too far back in mix to deliver the bite you might be looking for. And it’s sort of a relief when the clap beat is over because it does become the main instrumentation in the song and is taking the sawing sound of the distorted guitar and it starts to jar rather than strut. But this intent did give the mama character a real sinister persona … like she’s shaming her own daughter for being drawn to a wolfish man. Maybe the woodsman is the marrying kind and the wolf is the bad boy that mama is trying to keep little red from …. All because of a sultry little beat, this takes me a bit to unpack from the get go and resultantly I keep forgetting who the minor character is projecting myself into this little tale of red hood district-ness.
REGIS MICHELENA - ‘MACLUNKEY!'
This is nerdy but I’m sure you know this but in the best way. I love that the organ is so catchy—it oddly reminds me of what a red ball jet organ is supposed to sound like (i.e. like Max Rebo band—even though Sy Snootles played in Jaba’s Palace I believe, and not in the Mos Eisley cantina). But if anyone in any galaxy (let alone one far, far away) deserves a song—it’s Greedo. I had no idea about this penultimate bit of Greedo trivia and had aurally interpreted his whole speech completely differently so this was an education! Still--I HARDLY ever thought his story was that of a minor character, and appreciate the detail that you gave and backstory and all the information on changes in his status. Your lyrics are funny and thorough and delivered with humor. But when I get down to it I wished this fun song gave me a bit more out of your vocal production and I wish that there had been a bit more nuance given to the lyrical delivery because the lyrics themselves are pretty funny and in places (like the funny bits where you talk about the “ nd of the line”) it’s pretty comical. I wanted a better mesh with your instrumental tracks in the mix. Nonetheless, this was a fun and cool and I’m glad that this happened.
NIGHT SKY - ’Nancy By Gaslight'
I have to be honest—I don’t know if I appreciate or really dislike the concept of ‘Gaslight' being immortalized in song. I had a hard time writing this review. I like the lazy singsong sway of the tune, but the chorus sort of goes by without much fanfare—and I sort of wanted a bit more from it. I think I didn’t really connect to this song as it went by and it was a bit uneventful for me and the chorus especially needed something else to distinguish itself. I mean, besides the SAXOPHONE.
I wasn’t sure if I loved the saxophone, or if I got sick of it. I have had times where I loved this song and times where I wanted you to tone it down. I know I do really want you to repeat the phrase “except her own mind” as a songwriter, just because of the singsong and improvisatory sounding nature of your verse melody. That was a good and anchoring part of the lyrics. And I will say that I do like the saxophone as part of *A* song and that any given song is likely better WITH saxophone (I will say this about accordions too)…I just don’t know about all through the back end of a song unless you are a jazz soloist at the given point in time … Other than that, I suppose there’s a lot of good that can be said about a whole lot of variety in building layers of saxophone parts upon one another—and you did slowly build up quite a saxophone section by the end of the tune. I did like the way the chords stacked at the beginning—that did add a lot.
THE BREWHOUSE SESSIONS - ‘Cat Rhapsody’ (SHADOW)
Wow. This. is. so. Strange
But these lyrics are winning me over despite being really head tilty HUH? I feel like I should not actually like this song as much as I do because it is about something I really can’t fit my head around—like I’m watching TV way too late at night. Things are not understandable. Like I’m actually trying to reason with cats. Even the track is musically this way—the Cheesy rhymes in the area of Dad jokes and the pattern and lack of Hard not to smile hard at the sunshiney sudden synth accents hits in the “B” verse(?) particularly with the cheesy drop ins “yeah” and “uh huhs” and "that’s rights.” And the oblong way that the lyrics choose to rhyme on disjointed odd phrasing and sometimes also squeeze in to get an extra syllable in … this is discombobulating around this weirdly Napoleon Dynamite-ish bus stop keyboard toothpaste beat. So yeah. This would make a really good article or opinion piece or human (cat) interest piece in Cat Fancy. Or Dentist’s Monthly. It’s cute, and I like cats.
DENTED BENTO - ’Things Are Going Well (Pleakley)'
I like the balance, mostly--better during the verses, it seems to drop in energy and in momentum chorus-side and as vocals change up—stalls. But balance in recording okay. Not knowing the subject matter well, but guessing it well enough—I think the close encounters phrase happens more than it should. The instrumentation is interesting, but the structure gets a bit clunky even though everything seems passably status quo recording-wise … Sometimes a lot of synth work can start to overpower the whole. You can start having trouble finding a center to hold on to because themes and movement that might not connect will roam about all over the place or clutter up where a melody or complementing harmony voice should shine. There’s a lot coming at me here—a lot of variables and change. Even in the slower, informative choruses, it sounds a bit like a panic attack at times. But I do hear some panicky content in the lyrics, so I have a feeling this is the nature of the subject matter—kind of a “look, bright shiny things!” sort of story. By the time we get to the bridge things have gone very strangely indeed. Lyrically I don’t really understand, but I watched this cartoon with a small relative once and didn’t understand it then either. Maybe feels a bit frenetic and technicolor to me as a song as well? But I feel like if the chorus moved in a different direction that sounded a bit more like a melody and followed the accompaniment less—also it being very on the beat staccato. It IS very creatively mixed though, exciting and colorful.
OMINOUS RIDE - ’The Ballad of Poor Yorick'
These are nicely poetic lyrics and solidly done for a Shakespeare tribute. Maybe the extended quotation was a bit long on the play button though? After that—I think I wanted a strong beginning statement, and I think I wanted a bit more beef from the drums, some more presence and drama. But the tempo and the lyricism is put together...I just think I wanted the distortions to come across as less hissy and I wanted a percussion hit with a huge kick drum at a chorus arrival so that I’d get a stronger feeling of it being inmaybe a swingy 6/8 and not such a twangy arpeggio rock ballad sort of guitar (like House of the Rising Son). It does drag on a smidge. But something tinny about it in the sonic space, like there’s not enough bottom even though the texture is layered and seems thick enough. I do like the idea of this and feel like it is lute-esque and pastoral. The chord progression is well chosen and easy to listen to. It feels like it fits the idea of a tune tributing the period, so overall the tone of the song creates a pretty convincing environment.
KEEN OBSERVER - ’Salem 1693'
Your band is aptly named, because this whole choice of story line … these are FAIR points. Now I’m mad about the cat! I wasn’t sure about the tone and pacing and the mysterious mode and clean arrangement—it seemed to contrasting to your low and growly vocal delivery. I almost wish you’d matched your vocal a bit more to the style of things like your bass and guitar; and then the story may have floated better. Sometimes it did track—some of your reverbs shone through on soaring lines. But did you mean to cut off the ending? The high hat was similarly distracting for a lengthy amount of time. Even if you toned it down a bit in the mix it would come off better I think. Otherwise, there’s a lot I really liked a lot about this. Its got a lot of character--such a cute little cat-adjacent melody especially in the verses. I do like the "waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting” idea as a chorus ending. That’s clever. I wish the guitar pattern could chill and even more the longer the song progresses and something else could happen during the verse melody because then it could come across even better when you pick up in anger a little bit. I think this tune suffers from a bit of busy. The cat may have felt this way too, poor kitty. But it is a really quirky tune and a cool idea tho.
MENAGE A TUNE - ‘Fifteen Minutes' (SHADOW)
First, as usual, your singing is pretty and pleasant and your verses charming. It’s funny that you wrote a tune to this subject because this very thing in R&J has been annoying me for quite some time. So dumb! Also good you found some antiquated-sounding music although I felt it was a bit flouncy and Bridgerton-esque and it might have been good with some mournful lute or something more medieval or baroque/even Bach-like in accompaniment. Or at least, a little bit more dour and regretful selection to reflect this poor guy who is sad he poisoned a couple of kids he should have sent home to the fam. But it’s still good making this effort to find places for backtracks to set lyrics against. I can only really comment on your ability to choose a composer or music that suits your text on that subject—and on the lyrics themselves…and your words have nice enough structure for you to want to be choosy about selection and setting. Repeated lines are always a good idea in songs. Particularly when you are driving home the point of folly in this way.
DECLAN IOM - ’The Saga of Snae Bane’ (SHADOW)
I read your entire well-researched backstory, and it was informative. Mostly what I noticed was many sections, characters … a recurring tolling tubular bell. Some occasional underlying parts which seemed to mark departures for thematic reasons I could only guess at. It was entertaining to see/hear your character voices and your dramatization; and the folklore was very interesting. I felt like I was in the wilds meeting many different legendary creatures, but with little to hold to. I really wanted more to see this staged as a spoken word project with lighting and interspersed with chanting-song-chanting in a more recognizably melodic / song / musically recognizable format rather than something that seemed more literary to me. I really could see this as being extremely suitable to recitation with some kind of accompaniment or soundscape and set design.
JUDGE SHADOWS QUICK
TENMERE
This is so fun! Your vocal is the sauce! This is cool and so metal and I love that glockenspiel sort of sound I heard. The Horn Bridge gave me a pique of interest, that this was something new and entertaining for me.
CYBRONICA
I love how this begins coalescing around your vocal tone like a suspended cymbal. The whole way this plays out is beautifully endearing and there is nothing like the way you push through with good breathing and are the most resonant instrument in the band getting that MEANING across in the words.
ALL THE ROBOTS
I. Have. ALWAYS. wanted someone to write a song about JUST THIS VERY topic. Thank you. This is hilarious. Lyrics killing it.I am dying. That is all.
I learned a lot of fascinating things from this round, I will tell you this. My reviews reflect how all of these incredibly diverse songs catapulted me through this week on a slow descent into madness. I got WAY too emotional and vague about some of these songs. I obsessed about some of you people. I obsessed about some of you people over DINNER. Long pages of reviews AGAIN I had to whittle down.
I got really confused by some of these songs too—and had real trouble framing my head into writing some of the reviews. I feel like I honestly just looked at some of these songs and drooled. So some of your reviews may not make any sense, or some of my sentences may sound like they were written by a person with hourglasses for eyeballs. You can always ask me to clarify and we will sandwich it out together if you like.
In all the entries, people clearly cared. Everyone put forth effort and showed personality—and tried. So I have to remind you and myself again that just because I rank someone ahead or behind a person—does not mean that one song is “superior” to another because such qualifications are meaningless. These are just the opinions of four people with very different opinions that sometimes line up and find commonality upon a few things and those become the “victors” in this particular Contest.
So with that in mind (again), please know that (once again), there will be some people eliminated and this doesn’t mean that your song isn’t valued by me in particular. I noticed them all and listened to them all multiple times and will remember the lot of them even if they are not all my favorites. I can tell you for sure that I do like and am grateful for you all. — Thank you again for your efforts. I very much appreciate them and being asked to judge you here which is an odd and unnatural activity that I still have a hard time believing in and always have.
xx
DEN
SOBER - ’Take the Blame’
I love this! Smart lyrics, and a well-emoted, nicely textured vocal performance. You switch up a snare beat in V2 (the planning verse) and I thought maybe that felt a bit awkward for a hair of a second… but this only happened for a tick. It may have even made your move into the second chorus more satisfying when that beat-2 and 4 pocketed back in again when the chorus arrived—it takes on real movement there and then gets positively scenic when you do that major modal shift—so maybe you planned to wait to deliver a rhythmic payoff as well with accompanying expansion. Anyway, it’s a nuanced storytelling song with fun modal choices in solos, fill passages, and chord progressions; and succinct lyrics give a chilling interpretation to what’s already a pretty fraught story. Also—some of the best use of banjo arpeggiation to create dramatic tension I’ve heard in a long while—simple and damn effective!
CAVEDWELLERS - 'My Unlikely Best Friend'
This is penultimate Cameron. Tempo, key, vocal performance, chord progression, jazzy laid back feel. GUITAR TONE—wonderful (although maybe a bit overbearing in the solo for a Cameron?). Also I wanted more syncopation in the melody because it felt too on the beat at times. That Pre-chorus hook is great though, with those repeated words. And your chorus melody is a perfect landing, even if the pitch is a bit iffy once or twice in the vocal jump. Your delivery is conversational and pattery but does lose its cohesive melody in the verses sometimes. However it doesn’t lose the form of a really good song—so it’s really hard to complain except for the nitpicking which is complaining so this sentence is dumb and this review is now finished.
SEE-MAN-SKI - ‘We’re All Shameless’
In your bio you point out that you are a piano beginner. But you're voicing the chords and shapes. You are accompanying yourself rhythmically and well on your own straight four (changing up when needed) that it’s clear you are utilizing the hell out of your lessons. So it seems any minimalism you bring is an asset. Your arrangement and vocal delivery has such cool musicality and good balance that any absence of piano nuance fades away into a background of good organization. You have a lot of subtlety and sophistication so if you’re a piano beginner—you must not be a songwriting one. Again—vocal performance goes miles. And your structure is great and the way you deal with presentation of interesting subject matter in lyrics that stretch out over the bar in a well chosen rhythmic way—this is great!
ALSO IN BLUE - ‘Here On The Wall’
This is a truly beautiful, heartbreaking song. The story was tough to take and very lonely to think about. You have certainly reflected this in arrangement—the guilty conscience of a mirror that cannot lie...just swishes on and on like inevitable hands on a doomed clock. The saddest chord progression of all time (because of the devastating choice of which chord inversion to play and thusly how the voice leading will go) makes every verse into an emotional wreck and then introduces a tension build of a chorus that seeps back down to REintroduce the next sad statement. Even your vocal motif in the verses lands on notes that resolve to depressing places. And whatever you did to that piano is lovely, it’s heavy and hands deep in-and-around-the-cabinet. This is a whole soundtrack of rolling and smoothly shifting progressions that seems to swim like tears in the eyes and then slip away into aches of regret and wishful thinking. Yes I cried dammit. Love this.
MELODY KLEIN - ‘Samantha’s Girl’
Your thumpy wormsy bass line grew on me over the days. But I also love the message in this choice of song and lyric and the way the non-rhymes (especially in verse 1) make that sentiment come home “we exist...” “we’re just unseen” You can hear the pulses and the breaths here, so bringing that vocal out—but doing it in your way—served you well. Your song played out cohesively in a back and forth form. And you do know what words to make sizzle out, that’s for sure. Lyrics are not what you expect when reading still—what I read as sing-songy or swingy and rhymey ends up being pulsey and smokey and not at all like what it appears, so where you choose to put effects and pauses and breaths and your performance...matters. It all begins almost spiritually with your choral styled synth sounds and the whole development is a study in interesting sound design. Trying to review this I realize that reading sweet lyrics that say nice things makes me feel weird and embarrassed. Ugh. I am a monster, as has already been evidenced in my last review.
THE DUTCH WIDOWS - ‘Hold Fast His Name’
I do like this song, but I think more than that I’ve become a fan of your Band. I love your sound, whatever it is you are combining in a studio cauldron to make into your vocal treatment, the way it goes with your guitars, all of it…That said, your song description was also one of the more touching vouchings for backstory I’ve heard and makes me want to read the book. The feel of this had a wistful, adrift sound alongside swishy driving percussion. It did get a bit relentless after a while, but the pattern shift in the tempo did eventually switch and the strong half beats do wave it along. I really like the overlaps in POV’s playing nicely with the time shifts in structure and rhythm. It works along with the content of the song. Sometimes I didn’t feel the emotion in the performance, but I did feel it in the timing and the arrangement. It was well layered, and somehow your distinctive vocal style works both when you’re slickly singing about being Your Band (like in Rd 1) just as well as when you are relaying info about this kind of heartbreaking story (even if you could have sold it more emotively).
PIGFARMER JR. - ‘Such Evil Creatures’
Straightforward Beowulf rock. Really nice breakdown in the middle into the solo. This is a good tune for a monster. Not that you’re a monster. That’s not what I’m saying. I really like the body in your tone and the way that you change the sonic environment in your songs based upon your choice of subject matter. This one seems ancient and hairy around the edges but also boxy a bit. The intervals that you use for the main motif (perfect, open intervals and crunchy chuggy guitar driving along) are good set-piece conceptualization. Also it’s just a really fun listen with gems like that nice changeup on chorus-third repeat and then bringing it back home to that down verse. “Mother Nature is counting on me…” And then the repeated end lines and short stop ending. Mmm tasty.
JEALOUS BROTHER - ‘A Perfectly Good Collision Course’
I really think this is fun. In fact, this is clever, adorable, and produced with a lot of joy in mind. The guitars are upbeat and the lick you use with the little walkdwwn on minor 2nds is cool and ear wormy. You use shaker sounds and percussion in a way that makes me happy. Lyrics so good they don’t even need an explanation. Also you handle your chorus effect on the vocal fairly well, it’s not grossly over-loose goose. This is soooo loud though. Chorus is not particularly catchy but there are some clever lines and fun hooks. It’s weird, because you aren’t CATCHY here, but it'sHOOKY. It’s funny when you learn that there’s a difference—which I didn’t know until just this round. I’m not sure I explained it adequately last time (this is not absolute or Scientific, and also I just Made it Up and am not a Reviewologist). But that bridge! So nice. And that Stephen Tyler’s Daughter’s Dad line. I die!
EMKAYDEEBEE - ‘Wishful Thinking’
This is such a heartbreaking and unfairly sad story. This performance though was a great sell of the material and the lyrics were really well crafted. You controlled your performance emotionally in such a lovely way, and you are so good at building up textures both vocally and instrumentally which is good because you are not working with much orchestration. How you choose to arpeggiate or overlap vocals or do effects like the emotional wobble of your vocal at key times … insert harmonies, or pluck or change to a strum pattern or a different octave—your versatility converts to a vehicle you use to tell a story…It’s good because you are telling a long story with a lot of lyric. In this case, your overlapping vocals felt sort of like this passage of time that was coming up by the end and the gain and loss process was really laid out nicely in the structure and texture.
GOVERNING DYNAMICS - ’Neil, From Toronto’
I listened to this several times thinking it would sink in my rankings and it did the opposite, quite a few places. If I cast myself back to 2010, this is the way it was as well, with the movie, maybe with the way we ended up as human beings—I don’t know. Anyway, this song grew on me and I listened to this several times trying to decide. I love that snakey guitar lick. I actually remembered the guitar lick standing out from among other songs because it just sat in the front of my brain easily. The lyrics are funny. You’re making it, just pulling it off with the rapping, making it just like 80ish% of the time, but that deserves applause—don’t we think? The drums do sound ..interpretive.. and there are a trillion guitars in this, but we like lots of guitars, right? I laughed at the way you inflected "This will not stand. / This aggression against friends of our band.” The end is great. The pauses and commentary and dramatics felt tight. I don’t know why I like this so much, maybe it just appeals to my feelings for every song fight rap fail I’ve ever been review-punished for. Maybe I just WANT you to have pulled it off so I WILL enjoy it. If you prevail it will be because you decided to cool your way through this contest.
JON POROBIL - ‘Bald, Green, Boneless’
This is hilarious and also kinda awww-sad, I think. Morosely, methodical guitar lick and an apologetic, lilting line comes across like a bathroom mirror self-confessional, or an inner thought montage or conversational observational comedy piece—depending on what person-POV will be. I don’t know enough about Futurama to know if T.S. Elliot is ever actually quoted on show—but if you brought in this interesting comparison then that’s a fun and complex cross section of worlds. That’d be like one character inner-thought scene painting ancient literary canon for themself in snappy lyrics that they are singing to themself about their own self-trope. Your transitions could have been a bit tighter, but as this was sort of a piece of musical theater in my view it makes sense that you’d do a more unhinged guy descending into a hazy fantasy-dream state … fading back into your mix all echoey and then belting the dream quite a bit. Again, sweet range, you! Your more intimate into your mic parts were well performed again, and compositionally, I do like the halving of the last verse so you end on “J. Alfred Prufrock has no spine (good performance of that word too ) / but at least he has some bones” NICE pause. Sadly, I find Zapp Brannigan super funny if I remember, so have that slight guilt about it (and I’m not even sloshed!) I am aware this is gross—so I will say, “My captain brokering for peace / means there will be war soon” … this is a great line!
GIRAFFES FOR WINGS - ‘Caribou Crosses the Maskwa’
Right from the start this does one of my favorite things ever that music does—which is something I think of as The Shift. Where you think you are starting on the& of a note or a pickup or something … but then when the melody comes in, it shifts the downbeat or the 1 of a measure over just a beat or so and you get the sonic equivalent of when you pick up what you think is a full glass of water but its empty and your hand shoots up. Usually this is a delightful experience, this discombobulation—but then you take into account the lyrics and how horrifying this is. I’m sure there is a word for “cute but horrifying” but it’s really late while I’m writing this review. Anyway—there are all sorts of delightful noises, but the subject matter of this is really horrible and if I think too deeply on it the whole tiny song is really disturbing. Well done, I think.
GOOD GUY SOJABE - ‘Batman’s Batman’
This is a clever concept to begin with, and the intro gets you into it right away. You’ve really set a scene. It’s got strong instrumental, bass-y statements. Still, there are parts that are clunky and you could have been more subtle during transitions from verse to chorus, sometimes less scrapey. Sometimes the vocals were really smooth, and then they’d go a bit over the top. The performance is nice and passionate—you care about this whole superhero, relationship concept and are In It. Timing-wise, the transitions are always pretty well done and for the most part, I really thought the melody held things together in general, Mostly great effects on the vocals, and as a rule, effective syncopation. This had a lot of drama! I did not know that a Batman was a BAT-MAN. This was an interesting revelation for me, and the lyrics were very informative if rather full of names and cameo. This was very ideal, batmannish music with nice drippy guitars. The delivery of the line about “while {he’s} out getting {your}self killed” is really so entertainingly passionate in a butler-y way.
RACKWAGON - Au Revoir, Mon Fils’
I see you really found a theme you loved and created a lot of intricate production around it. Sometimes, it got a bit repetitive after a bit and I felt like I wanted it to develop a bit more and get some more momentum. But there were a lot of subtle choices begin made and I noticed the time and care you took on the arrangement and care you took in performance. You really crafted your vocal performance in particular and took time on the language. With the chord-progression, I wanted something a bit more tragic and evocative of death and loss for the subject matter. It begun to drag some and would have benefitted from the tempo being increased by about 5-10 clicks, maybe just so. At times because of this, it rode a line between cheesiness and coming across just nicely textured and sensitive. But overall, it was mostly just a really good tribute piece to a great point of view in an excellent series. Because Lupin took place where it did (and I’ve seen the series ) I heard you trying to get at that romantic and spylike cool of the show—but it’s also kind of top hat and monocled, bookish and mustachioed so I suppose this feel worked. I did see the cover art and it went well with the feel of the show. The synths felt nice.
DAVID G HARRINGTON - ‘Starship Man in Red’
I did not know this information about the Star Trek uniform and wonder how many Trekkies in my life did. I really liked your song, I thought it was well produced. That is a really great guitar hook, by the way. I will say that horn sound is great and the guitar lick into the verses is a really nice set up. But the solo that comes up later does go on. And on. Your vocal performance is not as memorable or compelling as the horn hits I am sorry to say, EXCEPT in the choruses … one exception is that sweet hook “but I’d still go , I’d still go.” . That’s what I remember about the song—the hits and the guitar lines, and that. How something about vocal doesn’t go with strength of instrumental and especially that very beefy kick drum. It’s a study in angles and accents. A hook —this is one of those things that when it hits with the audience and feels good—repeat it twice until it becomes a bit. Always repeat a good thing like that. So this is a great and spunky performance.
BOY ON THE WALL - ‘I’m Scared of my Dad’
Brave tackle of subject matter and I have absolutely!! thought this before sitting in MANY a Bible study (back in The Day don’t ask … ), thinking that this story was an exercise in crazy... don’t even get me going on Judah and Tamar or worse—Onan talk about emo boys of the Bible…eyeroll!!). Anyway
Okay. Ahem. Clunky chorus. Great lyrics. REALLY good. “There ain’t a goat in sight.” Lots of this was modern talk for ancient behavior which makes you realize “are we really that different…hmmm” and that’s a good object lesson maybe? Clever and slightly irreverent without being disrespectful (at least to me) writing. REALLY good guitar hook and just a fine fine idea. Weirdly hilarious to put this to a 90s punk, but strangely appropriate. Haven’t really decided if it’s okay that it is a bit derivative because you’re emulating a style so it should be derivative right? I really did laugh at the accent guitar spike accent notes though. The melody is a bit choppy. Great bridge. Great end of bridge and wonderful transition. And overall great. sonic storytelling. Good luck to our descendants … looks like this could get bad is really macabre, man.
HOT PINK HALO - ‘Mind The Gap’
I really love those first slow arpeggios and how you sing out slowly into the space. You’re matching up well in the space and layering well in the sparseness though. Not sure about the sparseness continuing like that. I think I wanted more texture and variety to come in. Besides the strings as an indicator of verse-related change. The performance was very evocative. It was so slow, and so careful that it might have been easy to miss subtlties of breathing and inflection waiting for things to happen in the instrumentation. Leaving things out is sometimes a good idea and sometimes a bad idea. I think that maybe for you this time, it was a neutral to great idea. I think it might have fit your literary choice—suited the personality you project. It’s very simple yet neat, rough edges still clean and nicely designed somehow. I did see a lost person/object/something slipping through a crack and slowly disappearing—a tiny voice in a void. And the understated end was endearing, and sweet. I think I started loving this a bit.
VOM VORTON - ’The Ship’s Cat'
Some of these lyrics and the way you performed them … “One perfect organism recognizes another” “chewing cables” You made a great ending of this too. The whole process and frame of it. You told a great story. Your sound really identifies to me with things I associate as “ sitcom” or “game show” (I think this as a musical director in improv theater world). It’s a kind of sunny, happy, bright flavor. Very open and beepy. This hook feels very much like a 1970s tv commercial or radio theme and I love that sort of thing! I do think that your vocal melody is a little match match with the guitar melody. But this is endearing. And the thought of a cat talking like this is just peaches—with this being the cat from Alien even better! I am one of the few people who hasn’t really watched Alien ... it is too scary. All this is hilarious because this sort of theme is such a contrast to a creepy movie I can’t deal with that happens in weird murky space-darkness with seepy aliens living in our body parts. Ugh. Love this nice song for that. I had to watch it in a living room, while doing something else, with my hands over my face. Hiding behind a cat.
LICHEN THROAT - ’Skulker’ (SHADOW)
This is adorable, and I got kind of attached to this dog during the past week. Actually, my imagination is racing at the concept of an accidental matchmaker dog. I love this a bit too much, honestly. The plodding rhythm is really good for a bulldog. You are really good at featuring your strengths in interesting and unorthodox arrangements. There’s not an endearing tonality in here to be sure—its a hot mess of weird dissonances—but that’s not necessarily a wrongness when you think about “oh maybe what would it be like if a dog were singing a song about attacking a genteel lady in an empire waist dress and stockings ..?" I do wish there were a tighter interplay between rhythm of accompaniment and rhythm of lyric delivery—but maybe what the dog hears and what a dog's body is doing is a discombobulated thing anyhow. To me, there is something endearing about this tune of yours. And these lyrics are weirdly subtle and Bronte-is
LUCKY WITCH AND THE RIGHTEOUS GHOST - ’The Only Way’
Something about your song reminded me of falling slowly off of a truck, in slow motion, off of an overpass, down a cliff, into the ocean, down into a trench, into a sea, into an abyss, and going into a deep deep deep deep sleep. It’s that VOICE. There is something about your voice that is weird and then you combine it with the omnichord and it’s an eyelid operation I haven’t had much listening exposure to—so it's always a bit surprising to me. You are not afraid to brazenly refuse to resolve a chord until you damn well feel like it. I respect this. This is the sort of thing I am here for. I barely remember inception, so this seems really appropriate and also—incredibly appropriate that we are here right now. I should not have waited for this to be the last review I wrote. I think I am asleep. I am probably in the dream. Maybe I am dream. Or you are me. Or this song is the dream. Or there is nothing but the omnichord. It’s time to stop.
LITTLE BOBBY TABLES - ‘Red Hood Girl'
Right away I do love the hand clap backbeat. But the time the chorus hits, it’s been happening a while. I guess I wanted something a little more subtle and moving but I think this was always going to be more sassy than that. Occasional tuning problems and sometimes I feel like you’d do to hold out notes or do more syncopation in a bluesier style like this is. Also your snare sound is a little anemic and the chord progression itself could be beefier. Guitar part too far back in mix to deliver the bite you might be looking for. And it’s sort of a relief when the clap beat is over because it does become the main instrumentation in the song and is taking the sawing sound of the distorted guitar and it starts to jar rather than strut. But this intent did give the mama character a real sinister persona … like she’s shaming her own daughter for being drawn to a wolfish man. Maybe the woodsman is the marrying kind and the wolf is the bad boy that mama is trying to keep little red from …. All because of a sultry little beat, this takes me a bit to unpack from the get go and resultantly I keep forgetting who the minor character is projecting myself into this little tale of red hood district-ness.
REGIS MICHELENA - ‘MACLUNKEY!'
This is nerdy but I’m sure you know this but in the best way. I love that the organ is so catchy—it oddly reminds me of what a red ball jet organ is supposed to sound like (i.e. like Max Rebo band—even though Sy Snootles played in Jaba’s Palace I believe, and not in the Mos Eisley cantina). But if anyone in any galaxy (let alone one far, far away) deserves a song—it’s Greedo. I had no idea about this penultimate bit of Greedo trivia and had aurally interpreted his whole speech completely differently so this was an education! Still--I HARDLY ever thought his story was that of a minor character, and appreciate the detail that you gave and backstory and all the information on changes in his status. Your lyrics are funny and thorough and delivered with humor. But when I get down to it I wished this fun song gave me a bit more out of your vocal production and I wish that there had been a bit more nuance given to the lyrical delivery because the lyrics themselves are pretty funny and in places (like the funny bits where you talk about the “ nd of the line”) it’s pretty comical. I wanted a better mesh with your instrumental tracks in the mix. Nonetheless, this was a fun and cool and I’m glad that this happened.
NIGHT SKY - ’Nancy By Gaslight'
I have to be honest—I don’t know if I appreciate or really dislike the concept of ‘Gaslight' being immortalized in song. I had a hard time writing this review. I like the lazy singsong sway of the tune, but the chorus sort of goes by without much fanfare—and I sort of wanted a bit more from it. I think I didn’t really connect to this song as it went by and it was a bit uneventful for me and the chorus especially needed something else to distinguish itself. I mean, besides the SAXOPHONE.
I wasn’t sure if I loved the saxophone, or if I got sick of it. I have had times where I loved this song and times where I wanted you to tone it down. I know I do really want you to repeat the phrase “except her own mind” as a songwriter, just because of the singsong and improvisatory sounding nature of your verse melody. That was a good and anchoring part of the lyrics. And I will say that I do like the saxophone as part of *A* song and that any given song is likely better WITH saxophone (I will say this about accordions too)…I just don’t know about all through the back end of a song unless you are a jazz soloist at the given point in time … Other than that, I suppose there’s a lot of good that can be said about a whole lot of variety in building layers of saxophone parts upon one another—and you did slowly build up quite a saxophone section by the end of the tune. I did like the way the chords stacked at the beginning—that did add a lot.
THE BREWHOUSE SESSIONS - ‘Cat Rhapsody’ (SHADOW)
Wow. This. is. so. Strange
DENTED BENTO - ’Things Are Going Well (Pleakley)'
I like the balance, mostly--better during the verses, it seems to drop in energy and in momentum chorus-side and as vocals change up—stalls. But balance in recording okay. Not knowing the subject matter well, but guessing it well enough—I think the close encounters phrase happens more than it should. The instrumentation is interesting, but the structure gets a bit clunky even though everything seems passably status quo recording-wise … Sometimes a lot of synth work can start to overpower the whole. You can start having trouble finding a center to hold on to because themes and movement that might not connect will roam about all over the place or clutter up where a melody or complementing harmony voice should shine. There’s a lot coming at me here—a lot of variables and change. Even in the slower, informative choruses, it sounds a bit like a panic attack at times. But I do hear some panicky content in the lyrics, so I have a feeling this is the nature of the subject matter—kind of a “look, bright shiny things!” sort of story. By the time we get to the bridge things have gone very strangely indeed. Lyrically I don’t really understand, but I watched this cartoon with a small relative once and didn’t understand it then either. Maybe feels a bit frenetic and technicolor to me as a song as well? But I feel like if the chorus moved in a different direction that sounded a bit more like a melody and followed the accompaniment less—also it being very on the beat staccato. It IS very creatively mixed though, exciting and colorful.
OMINOUS RIDE - ’The Ballad of Poor Yorick'
These are nicely poetic lyrics and solidly done for a Shakespeare tribute. Maybe the extended quotation was a bit long on the play button though? After that—I think I wanted a strong beginning statement, and I think I wanted a bit more beef from the drums, some more presence and drama. But the tempo and the lyricism is put together...I just think I wanted the distortions to come across as less hissy and I wanted a percussion hit with a huge kick drum at a chorus arrival so that I’d get a stronger feeling of it being inmaybe a swingy 6/8 and not such a twangy arpeggio rock ballad sort of guitar (like House of the Rising Son). It does drag on a smidge. But something tinny about it in the sonic space, like there’s not enough bottom even though the texture is layered and seems thick enough. I do like the idea of this and feel like it is lute-esque and pastoral. The chord progression is well chosen and easy to listen to. It feels like it fits the idea of a tune tributing the period, so overall the tone of the song creates a pretty convincing environment.
KEEN OBSERVER - ’Salem 1693'
Your band is aptly named, because this whole choice of story line … these are FAIR points. Now I’m mad about the cat! I wasn’t sure about the tone and pacing and the mysterious mode and clean arrangement—it seemed to contrasting to your low and growly vocal delivery. I almost wish you’d matched your vocal a bit more to the style of things like your bass and guitar; and then the story may have floated better. Sometimes it did track—some of your reverbs shone through on soaring lines. But did you mean to cut off the ending? The high hat was similarly distracting for a lengthy amount of time. Even if you toned it down a bit in the mix it would come off better I think. Otherwise, there’s a lot I really liked a lot about this. Its got a lot of character--such a cute little cat-adjacent melody especially in the verses. I do like the "waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting” idea as a chorus ending. That’s clever. I wish the guitar pattern could chill and even more the longer the song progresses and something else could happen during the verse melody because then it could come across even better when you pick up in anger a little bit. I think this tune suffers from a bit of busy. The cat may have felt this way too, poor kitty. But it is a really quirky tune and a cool idea tho.
MENAGE A TUNE - ‘Fifteen Minutes' (SHADOW)
First, as usual, your singing is pretty and pleasant and your verses charming. It’s funny that you wrote a tune to this subject because this very thing in R&J has been annoying me for quite some time. So dumb! Also good you found some antiquated-sounding music although I felt it was a bit flouncy and Bridgerton-esque and it might have been good with some mournful lute or something more medieval or baroque/even Bach-like in accompaniment. Or at least, a little bit more dour and regretful selection to reflect this poor guy who is sad he poisoned a couple of kids he should have sent home to the fam. But it’s still good making this effort to find places for backtracks to set lyrics against. I can only really comment on your ability to choose a composer or music that suits your text on that subject—and on the lyrics themselves…and your words have nice enough structure for you to want to be choosy about selection and setting. Repeated lines are always a good idea in songs. Particularly when you are driving home the point of folly in this way.
DECLAN IOM - ’The Saga of Snae Bane’ (SHADOW)
I read your entire well-researched backstory, and it was informative. Mostly what I noticed was many sections, characters … a recurring tolling tubular bell. Some occasional underlying parts which seemed to mark departures for thematic reasons I could only guess at. It was entertaining to see/hear your character voices and your dramatization; and the folklore was very interesting. I felt like I was in the wilds meeting many different legendary creatures, but with little to hold to. I really wanted more to see this staged as a spoken word project with lighting and interspersed with chanting-song-chanting in a more recognizably melodic / song / musically recognizable format rather than something that seemed more literary to me. I really could see this as being extremely suitable to recitation with some kind of accompaniment or soundscape and set design.
JUDGE SHADOWS QUICK
TENMERE
This is so fun! Your vocal is the sauce! This is cool and so metal and I love that glockenspiel sort of sound I heard. The Horn Bridge gave me a pique of interest, that this was something new and entertaining for me.
CYBRONICA
I love how this begins coalescing around your vocal tone like a suspended cymbal. The whole way this plays out is beautifully endearing and there is nothing like the way you push through with good breathing and are the most resonant instrument in the band getting that MEANING across in the words.
ALL THE ROBOTS
I. Have. ALWAYS. wanted someone to write a song about JUST THIS VERY topic. Thank you. This is hilarious. Lyrics killing it.I am dying. That is all.
Thanks for your constructive comments Denise. Really appreciate the effort the judges put into this process
ReplyDelete