ST21.1 Reviews - Micah Sommersmith

Thanks for a great Round 1, everyone! In addition to corralling the judges, tabulating the results, and updating the blog, I try to provide my own reviews of your entries whenever I can. Thanks for waiting the extra week for reviews; I know it has helped the judges manage the load.

I don’t have much to say about this challenge; I thought it was a nice wide-open one that allowed for a lot of interpretation; you all engaged with it in some way or another and it was fun to see the range of takes on it. I’ll remind you that since I’m not a judge, my reviews are unranked and I won’t do a whole lot of comparing this round’s entries to each other.

That said, read on for my reviews!

GFS - Vertical Vision

The ability to present a familiar idea in an unexpected way is a valuable skill for a songwriter. “Things are looking up” is a well-worn phrase; “I’ve got vertical vision”, despite meaning essentially the same thing, is very much not. The alliteration makes it instantly memorable, and when paired with a catchy melody, as it is here, it makes for a great pop hook.

The lyrics of the first verse are a little hazy; the general lyrical scheme throughout the song is “then was bad, now is good” but I’m not sure how Line 2 “I’ve sledgehammered my ego and I’ve fallen on my sword” fits in, especially when followed by Line 3 “I’ve said the lord’s name in vain more times than I can count”. The best I can tell is that the actions in Line 2 are things you’ve done to arrive at the “now (good)” (essentially, giving up the desire to be in control), whereas Line 3 is what you were stuck doing in the “then (bad)” (essentially, expressing frustration and anger over and over again)... but the order of the lines plus the fact that they’re both in the perfect tense (“I’ve…”) makes the relationship between them not immediately clear.

To my ears, the production is nice and crisp, with all the elements playing nicely together. Both lead and backing vocals are delivered with confidence, and the interplay between the various vocal lines is delicious. There are a few spots where instruments appear and disappear without much of a transition (such as at 0:53 in the middle of the second verse, or the reprise of those same lyrics at 1:38).

Overall, a fun, highly listenable piece of pop songcraft. 

Berkeley Social Scene - Atop the Sutro Tower

I know what you’re doing, guys - you can just call it “Rainbows and Robots”, it’s okay!

Anyway, this is a fun, catchy tune. Both lead and backing vocals sounds a bit muffled but otherwise the mix is good to my ears. Great guitars and drumming as usual; you guys know your strengths.

It’s refreshing to hear an optimistic, utopian take on technological advancement… although closing with “Why did we fear a robot uprising? / (don’t know, forgot)” followed by that dissonant guitar bit hints very subtly at a darker side of the story; are the robots somehow keeping the humans in an artificial state of bliss so they don’t notice that they’ve ceded control of their lives? I’m probably just being cynical. My other issue with the lyrics, and it’s a minor one, is that it’s not entirely clear whether the narrator at the top of the building is actually in the future or is imagining the future.

Mandrake - Volume

Solid chorus hook, and fun blippity bloopity sounds throughout. The vocal sounds muffled compared to the crystal-clear instrumentation - possibly a result of what equipment you’ve got, which is understandable - good microphones are expensive, good samples / synth sounds are cheap. In any case, it doesn’t detract too much from the enjoyment of the song.

Solid lyrics, although the line “plays even in my deep sleep” stuck out as awkwardly stressed - “plays eVEN in MY deep sleep”.

Verse one is about loud music, verse two about loud voices… this song is short enough that it feels like it could have a third verse, about, I don’t know, loud footsteps or vehicles or basketball games or something.

Jim Tyrrell - A Hole In The Rain

The atmosphere you create musically in this song is just fantastic, and it suits the lyrics perfectly. For the first few listens, before I studied the lyrics carefully, I thought that “they’re digging a hole in the rain” meant that the rain is the material they are (somehow) digging into, rather than that they’re digging in the ground, and it’s raining. I suspect that this ambiguity was 100% intentional, and it reinforces the seemingly pointless, fruitless, unending nature of the work. You’ve managed to take a common, fairly banal complaint - neverending road construction - and presented it in an unexpected and resonant way. To me, this is a big part of what songwriting at its best is all about. Excellent work.

chewmeupspitmeout - i was just the gravity

It’s no “Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm?”, but even this “little poppy indie tune” has the forlorn and even menacing edge that I expect from your work. The contrast between the abrasive guitars and the ethereal vocals makes for an engaging, though not very relaxing, listen.

Lyrically, the central metaphor of the chorus and first verse is simple and effective (down =  trapped, up = escape), but the second verse complicates it in a way that I don’t think serves the song.

The electric piano at 1:40 sounds very programmed and rigid, and there are some timing issues with the bass when it comes in a few seconds later. And maybe it’s partially an accent/dialect thing, but to my ears putting the stress on the second syllable of “always” in the ending section feels very unnatural.

The Pannacotta Army - Still Coming Up Short

Lovely work here! The lyrics are restrained and straightforward but very well-crafted: peep those multi-syllable rhymes “mind to / outshine you” and “inhibition / admission”!

When the guitar is featured, either alone or forward in the mix, it feels stilted to me, with its relentless one-two-three-one-two-three rhythm. Luckily for most of the song it’s just one piece of a beautiful, lush but never busy arrangement.

iveg - Flames Descend

Both your musical and lyrical choices support the powerful emotional content depicted in this song: musically, you have the shifting time signature, ominous guitar arpeggios, and effects applied to the voice; lyrically, you have the clear multi-sensory images right off the bat (sound, sight, smell, feel) working together to vividly depict the situation. Your vocal delivery is a bit more restrained, but it reaches some emotional peaks in lines like “grab a bag and leave” and the final repeated “flames descend”. Thank you for this song.

Stacking Theory - One More Love Song

Man, I don’t know what to make of this song. Sisyphus’s fate was a punishment, and a never-ending one at that. Your lyrics try to recast the Sisyphean fate as something to be celebrated, when it’s with someone you love… but the relentless grimness of the music undercuts any hope in the lyrics. Your choices all seem to be very intentional, but I’m not sure what they add up to, and I can’t decide if the song is brilliant or a mess. Luckily, I’m not a judge so I don’t have to. 

West Of Vine - Come Up On The Front Porch

This is probably a me problem, but the introduction of this song reminds me so much of Semisonic’s “Closing Time” that I’m jarred by the entrance of the twangy vocal every time. I do think there’s some friction between the polished, clean, pristinely recorded guitars and the looseness of the front-porch-singalong, I’ll-have-another-PBR vocals. Once I can get past that, it’s a fun tune.

The Popped Hearts - You're Getting High, I'm Getting Down

No conflict between the vocals and instrumental here - you’ve nailed the vampire-surf-rock sound, and if it’s your kinda thing, I’m happy for you. I will say that I'm quite familiar with the general situation you describe, and also that "You said Never Meant / You meant Never Said" is a very clever lyric that I'm glad to have heard.

nightingale’s fiddle - Ballad of Susie Ann

The melody flows beautifully, and the lyrics are full of vivid images. The quick textual rhythm means that the lyrics occasionally get cramped - for instance, in “Susie Ann never casts for the soil”, “casts for” has an awful lot of consonants crammed together. And some of the lines are oddly phrased grammatically - e.g. “cursed a sailor as ever has been” and “And though the storm surely will very soon pass”. But overall the lyrics are well crafted.

The “Head up!” refrain provides a welcome contrast to the rapidfire verses, and the subtle harmonic shifts throughout are very cool and make my ears perk up every time. And of course the harp playing is exquisite.

Ominous Ride - Vertigo

I only hear acoustic guitar, a string pad, and vocals (and maybe an electric guitar in the chorus?) - but the guitar playing and especially the vocal layering are such that you get a big, lush sound out of just a few elements. The general vibe puts me in mind of the Moody Blues, which is no bad thing.

Your lyrics display your usual knack for vivid, evocative imagery, along with some neat tricks e.g. the “irrelevant / medicine” rhyme, and the delicious alliteration of “Long lamenting ladders”. I like this song a lot.

Braylee Pierce - Dig Deep

I'm very glad to hear what sounds like a recording of a live performance, as it means a song is getting heard outside of our little circle. I hope it was as well received as that cut-off cheer at the end suggests!

I really dig (heh) the overall two-part form of this song: the first "down" section is relentless, plodding, grim, the chord progression and slow harmonic rhythm suggesting a very slow but inexorable descent; the second "up" section is defiant, hopefully, propulsive. The key change from E minor to D minor is unexpected but feels entirely natural.

Perhaps the first section could be tightened up a bit, but you wring a lot of varied melodic material out of the repeated chord progression, which does a lot to keep my interest. And the extended length means that the turn is all the more satisfying when it finally does arrive.

Brain Weasels - Root To Rise (Overdrive)

A lot to like here: I like the energy, the general idea of the lyrics, the way the main verse lyric circles around like a mantra, and the contrast between the fast and slow sections of the song.

A lot of the lyrics fit awkwardly in the melody, with a few different issues cropping up in different lines: 

- weird stress issues (e.g. “pick the fruit off OF the vine / stretch my body TO new heights / release the tension FROM my life”, three lines in a row where the stress lands unnaturally on a preposition), 

- inconsistent lyrical density (compare “but I'm struggling to maintain vertical movement” and “manifest that i will thrive” - thirteen syllables vs. seven syllables in the same amount of musical material), 

- unnatural word order (e.g. “my intentions too will climb”)

It’s not a ton of fun, but editing line-by-line to make sure each line is clear and flows naturally will do wonders.

Additionally, the phrase “root to rise” is a great lyric hook, but it gets buried in the line “center myself for root to rise” and goes by without making an impression. Perhaps it could be repurposed at the end of the “with my shoulders back” section where it would be more prominent? You’ve already got the rhyme there with the word “high”. Something to consider.

Phlub - Straight to Hell

A song with a narrator like this should inspire some kind of feeling in the listener: should we admire or revile your narrator? Pity him? Laugh at him? I don’t have any opinion on him because he’s just listing things he’s done without any context, either his motivations or the effects of his actions. A lyric like this could be saved by the music, but the music here leaves me cold too; both the instrumental and vocal feel oddly stiff, and it goes on for nearly 5 minutes without doing anything to complicate the narrative - you can listen to any random thirty-second clip of this song and you get the entire experience.

Jeff Walker - Solid Ground

I can get behind a story about a person getting involved in activist action not out of a deeply-felt conviction, but simply out of boredom. But this song gets so wrapped up in Saying Something About Boredom that it forgets to actually tell the story. What exactly is she protesting? And when she's done with this activity (if boredom led her in, it will soon lead her out), what happens to the people who are actually committed to the cause? Or is the claim here that _everyone_ who protests is doing so out of boredom? I want to take this as a fictional story about one fictional person, but the sweeping pronouncements (especially in the bridge) and lack of specifying details make it come off as an indictment of protest in general.

Musically, everything fits together nicely, the instrumental is well done, and your voice is in fine form. The verse melody feels pretty aimless, like you're making it up as you go, but the chorus melody is much more memorable.

The Dutch Widows - Above It All

A restrained, understated vocal delivery and tendency to place vocal tracks fairly deep into the mix might be assumed to be compensations for the inability to write a good vocal melody. Not so for The Dutch Widows! I love the chorus melody, with its ascending initial figure and the motivic repetition of “Are we not gold? Are we not bold?” In general, this song is yet another ably-executed example of the Dutch Widows sound and I’m here for it. Aside from the vocal melody, the musical highlight for me is the simple but just-right “thwack thwack” drum fill into the chorus.

Those vocal choices I mentioned initially do also mean that I can let slide some lyrics that would make my eyebrows climb off my forehead if the vocal was more in front - lines like “we’re polarised not in love” and “Crouch down hold your tongue no sound” have a dubious-at-best relationship to accepted grammatical structure.

Cavedwellers - Z-Axis

Musically, there’s some really great stuff going on throughout this song. I love the AABA form of the verses: you have two lines of a sort of call-and-response between the vocals and the instruments, the third line contrasts in register, melodic shape, and length (and has its own neat little binary form), then you return to the call-and-response thing for the fourth line. Neat!

The pre-chorus is nothing all that memorable, but it does the job of transitioning into the chorus, which provides more melodic tastiness. In the first two lines you do a great job of tying them together melodically while accounting for the rhythmic difference between “increase your Y” and “farther away goodbyes”. I especially like the ascending figure of “holding it over me”.

The bridge is another nice contrast, but the really good stuff comes later with the harmony guitars at 2:20 and the break down at 2:27 that builds back up to a satisfying return of the chorus. My only real complaint about the music is the ending, which is oddly abrupt, like you just decided to stop playing mid-phrase.

Now as for the lyrics… putting aside any personal feelings about whether or not this is a song-length riff on how dumb you think I am for not using the same terminology as you, I find them largely incoherent. Clearly this is about a relationship, and clearly the singer wants their partner to change something about their behavior or outlook, but… what? What does “up” (increasing Z) mean in this context? More energy? Happier? Higher sex drive? “Holding it over me” is usually a bad thing, but in the chorus you seem to want it. “If the pine is too knotty, don’t use that tree” - what does that have to do with anything? And in the bridge, the partner does in fact go up, but it seems that’s not good either (“You’ve been encumbered with your speculation”). And why the ABC pun? A contrast with XYZ? What’s the point?

Bottom line, lyrically: if you’re going to employ an extended metaphor, think it through and make it consistent. Don’t just toss around various related words and hope it adds up to something. 

Hanky Code - The Bends

Here we go - a relationship song employing a central “up and down” metaphor that makes sense and is consistently used! Life is hard and miserable (“down”), then your partner treats you well and makes you happy (“up”). The contrast is so sudden that adapting to it presents its own challenge (“the bends”). Elegant metaphor, easy to understand, perfect for hanging a catchy two-minute pop song on.

I love the vivid but also playful lines like “So fast that it bubbles my brain” and “So fast it fizzies up my heart”; the one lyrical clunker for me is “So fast that gas forms in my veins”, which is both overly clinical and an awkward mouthful to sing with the melody you have.

The melody is catchy and the backing instrumentation, while not anything particularly groundbreaking, keeps the energy up nicely. The guitar solo feels oddly hesitant, with some awkward starts and stops.

Tunes By LJ - Beneath You / Over It

Sparse, carefully chosen lyrics that do a good job of sketching out the situation without wasting time. The chill, laid-back vibe of the music reflects the “over it” idea well. The instrumental middle section is super groovy but overstays its welcome with four repetitions, especially in a song this short, and especially since, with the fuller drums and melodic bass, it’s so unlike the rest of the song (the ending notwithstanding). I think I would like to hear more of that full band sound carry into the following verse (“Blame it on the altitude…”)

Hot Pink Halo - Aim High

When I listen to a Hot Pink Halo song, I expect to be surprised by the unexpected but delightful subject matter: racehorses in space, furtively flirting monks, paint colors singing about ninja turtles, that kind of thing. Unfairly high expectations? Maybe. But this song falls a bit flat for me; lines like “Take a leap”, “Cut the cord”, “What doesn’t bend breaks”, and the title itself are all pretty well-worn phrases that don’t get complicated much by the rest of the lyrics. And it never quite takes the leap musically that the lyrics are encouraging. I don’t mind listening to it, but it doesn’t leave me with much of an impression, unfortunately.

Jealous Brother - Climbing the Fascist Ladder

Nothing wrong with a good old protest song, especially when it’s this catchy. Lyrically, “How far will be your fall” seems like a key line to illustrate why in this case up = bad, but it’s almost a throwaway line. Similarly, “Collapsing beneath the weight of your neglect / A sigh of relief from those you've oppressed” suggests that a reckoning is coming (or already here), but the next line is a repeat of “You’re climbing the fascist ladder”... there’s almost a narrative arc here but it’s not reflected in the structure of the song, which is simply up, up, up, up.

Governing Dynamics - Downfall

I’ve mentioned a few times in various SpinTunes reviews the distinction between “specific” lyrics and “concrete” lyrics. This song tells us nothing specific about its narrator: who they are, where they live, their gender, occupation, age, wealth, health, any life circumstances whatsoever. What it does do is give us a lot of concrete images: chalk and slate, a pale moon, clanging clocks, keys without locks, and the relentless, consistent metaphor of down = bad.

In a way, this song is the anti-“Over the Rainbow”, a song with no specifics about its narrator but plenty of concrete imagery about birds flying, blue skies, troubles melting like lemon drops, and a consistent metaphor of up = good. While that song invites anyone, not just bored farm girls from Kansas, to imagine that a better life is possible, this song here invites anyone to accept the fact that happiness is impossible, despair is inevitable, and you yourself are ultimately the architect of your own defeat.

None of this is to say that this is a bad song! Your voice sounds great, that guitar solo is tasty, and the song builds and swells in a satisfying and engaging way. This may be the best example of this particular kind of Governing Dynamics song that I can remember.

Pigfarmer Jr - Nowhere To Go But Down

A compelling story, with a strong central metaphor in the chorus. I appreciate that we’re not given the resolution of the story by the last verse - we don’t know if the friend will make it out of the emergency room; in fact, we’re not even told for certain that it was the friend in the accident after all. Given the uncertainty of how much blame to assign ourselves for not stopping our friends from going to far, it’s fitting that the narrative have some uncertainty as well.

While the story is compelling, the way the story is told in the verses does feel pretty dry. The lyrics could benefit from including sensory details: describe the stinging taste of the alcohol in your throats, the sight of the friend’s keys glinting on the table, the piercing wail of the siren, the acrid smell of the hospital waiting room… cutting the narrative down to the core moments and then illustrating them with more vivid sensory language would do a lot to make the story hit harder.

Temnere - Into the Darkness

So many great elements to this song: the chugga-chugga guitars, the harmony guitars, your vocal tone on the lead vocal, and the high harmony vocal at extra dramatic moments.

The lyrics are par for the course for this genre; they do the job but don’t give me anything I haven’t already heard (or played). I also wish the vocal melody had more movement to it in the sections before the “down in the darkness” section; in the earlier sections the vocal line mostly only moves with the chord changes which doesn’t make for a super engaging listen.

The extended instrumental also feels a bit too extended; it makes me think perhaps you had planned an extra vocal verse but didn’t get around to writing it.

Eric Novak - Low Road

You start off with a strong opening line (even if the lyric is borrowed!), and the melody smartly goes high on “high” and low on “low”. It’s a good, memorable anchor for the song. The rest of the musical material doesn’t quite live up to the opening; I have a hard time recalling any of the melody when I’m not listening, the musical sections blend into one another without a ton of variation in feel, dynamic, instrumentation, or arrangement, and there are some tuning issues with both the voice and the guitars.

I do like the lyrics quite a bit. It seems to me the narrator is addressing an acquaintance with a better lot in life - wealthier, more opportunities, more talented, whatever the specifics might be - and the narrator isn’t necessarily bitter about it, but wants the acquaintance to know that their (the narrator’s) life is no picnic. The metaphor of traveling through difficult terrain is well-used, and there are a number of well-chosen, vivid images you employ.

Sober - On Penobscot Bay

I love the sentiment of this song, and I want to love the song itself too. But so many choices made throughout the song are baffling to me. Your vocal delivery in the verses, especially lines 1 and 3 of each verse stanza, sounds like you forgot to write a vocal melody and are trying to make something up in the recording booth. The chorus is much better, but I persistently hear “Hearts full like a sailor” due to how you phrase the line break. And when you put the word “fall” on beat 2 instead of beat 1, it means that the word in line 3 of the chorus that gets the most stress is the nothing-word “that”. And why “fall and rise” instead of “rise and fall”, the thing that people actually say?

The instrumental is gorgeous, and there are snatches of lovely melody in the vocal. But as a whole song, it just doesn’t come together for me.

Frédéric Gagné - Slump

I’m impressed with the collection of related words beginning with “sl” that you’ve amassed here; it helps bring the different verses together neatly. I’m not sure what the overall point you’re driving at is; the narrator seems to be saying that poor posture is a political issue akin to being oppressed, and the solution is to organize and protest, which… maybe? But maybe the solution is just to sit up straighter?

The defiance in the chorus is undercut by the final line, which presents yet another “sl” word. It has the feeling of a punchline, but I’m not sure exactly what the joke is. We’re all doomed to poor posture and back problems, no matter how hard we try to resist?

Siebass - It’s Going Down

It’s a solid dance beat, and the rap verse (“We'll be chillin' right here until I need ya”) is fun. I wish the chorus had a catchier melodic hook, I wish your sung vocals in general had less gratuitous pitch sliding (e.g. on the word “move” in the prechorus), and I wish the spoken vocals had less distortion on them so I could actually understand them, especially in the section about taking an elevator to the center of the earth - that’s a cool idea but it’s barely intelligible!

Glennny - Crazy Climber

A reasonably catchy tune, ably performed - my favorite moment is the fun vocal “Ohhh, Crazy Climber” at about 2:00. My issue with the song is that it doesn’t make any effort to say anything interesting about the game; you’re just summarizing the gameplay and listing things that appear in the game, with a few references thrown in to other people climbing things. It probably hits differently if the listener is a fan of the game (I’d never heard of it before hearing this song), but for me the song comes and goes without making much of an impression.

Boffo Yux Dudes - EDL (Entry, Descent and Landing)

3:06 of fun indeed! This song has a great sense of driving, exhilarating energy that’s perfect for the subject matter, and your lyrics flow naturally while also giving the needed details to follow the story and maintaining a consistent rhyme scheme! (The one lyric I’d object to is the awkward word order of “Making sure in the dust we don’t drown”.)

My quibble with the performance: I appreciate both rhythmic precision and expressive dynamics. The electric piano has the former but not the latter, with every eighth note sounding robotically identical, and the vocals often have the latter but not the former, with the unison/harmony vocals often disagreeing slightly on the exact rhythm of the lyrics. It’s not at all enough to ruin the song for me, but it’s worth pointing out.

Bob Barton - American Dream (SHADOW)

Solid melodic hook with the ascending “All you gotta do” figure. Simple, direct lyrics get the job done, but I think some more concrete details would help sell the message. “With the highest incarceration rate” is a statistic; what if instead you gave an example of someone locked up for a small crime? Similar with “Pretty hard to climb up / Out of poverty” - tell me about a specific person in a specific situation rather than keeping it abstract.

Cool chord progression but it seems like it gets uncoupled from the melody somewhere in the second chorus; there are also some spots where you seem to not have enough lyrics for the phrase length. I suspect the song could have used a few more run-throughs before hitting “record”.

Jon Porobil - Frayed Elevator Cable (SHADOW)

The guitar and mandolin sound fantastic, and the song does a great job of building throughout. The emotional content comes through very clearly, but the specifics of the narrative, less so. The couplet “​​A ratty hymnal, motes of dust in stained-glass light / I picture you with wings;  Icarus in flight” is the only clue that someone has died and there’s a funeral, and even that’s pretty oblique. And is the elevator taking you to the funeral itself, or to your hotel room where you’re staying while you’re in town for the funeral? I don’t think of hotels as typically hosting funerals. Maybe they do! But if that’s the case here, I think the listener needs more information about what’s happening.

d667254c-6384-4ff0-8c55-75315906d518 - Rise (SHADOW)

Hmm, the gliss is too far in the background, the “ba-ding-ba-ding-ba-ding” lines too clearly looped, and the drums too in-your-face to really sell the shepherd tone illusion for me.

7278584d-ced3-4d64-80c2-972ab564a757 - Floating Away (SHADOW)

The atmosphere of the music certainly matches the lyrics! This feels like it’s not quite chill enough to just zone out and vibe with, but also not quite involved enough to reward close listening.