ST25.1 Reviews - Micah Sommersmith

What a great batch of songs to start this tournament with! I really enjoyed hearing the various takes on the "Day in the Life" challenge - I was particularly drawn to songs that managed to sketch out a wider timeline in the past or future while keeping the events that were directly portrayed within a single day, as well as - independently of this specific challenge - songs that surprised me, that offered a thoughtful central insight or vivid image, or simply made me smile.

Of course, since I'm not an actual judge, my opinions have no bearing on your performance in the contest, but I offer them anyway. I also gave some listening recommendations; my intention was to include one for every entry, but it quickly became apparent that my time was better spent commenting on your own songs. If you got a listening recommendation, I hope you enjoy it. If you didn't, please know it isn't personal!

Read on for my reviews, in submission order.

Falcon Artist - School Bus Driver

• Overall Impression: A charming sketch with first-draft issues in both the composition and performance.
• What's Working: You've got a great voice, the melody is accessible and pleasant, and your subject matter is clear and consistent.
• What Needs Work:
• Try for consistency in syllable count and line length. "And they always have a sad expression" is jammed together, and then in the next line "on their face" is stretched out. 
• Several rhymes seem like you grabbed the nearest word that would make the rhyme work, e.g. ending two different lines with "you see", which doesn't add anything to the meaning of the song but gets you the rhyme with "me". Similarly, driving the kids to "their place" rather than something more specific.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "I am the school bus driver / And I am as jolly as can be / And when the kids see me pull up to the stop / They are as jolly as me"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The satisfying repetition in the closing section: "I am the school bus driver / I am the school bus driver / That's me / That's me"

Wendy Wiseman Fisher - Where the Pumpkins Lie

• Overall Impression: An unsettling combination of murder ballad and road trip song.
• What's Working: Strong vocal delivery and some good imagery throughout the lyrics.
• What Needs Work:
• We don't get any hint in this song about the narrator's motivations or psychological state, what kind of person the victim was, the circumstances leading up to the killing, etc. I often enjoy some nice ambiguity, but this doesn't even feel like ambiguity, just a lack of information. There may be some hints in some of your description of the landmarks you pass, specifically "Shasta watching like a deformed god" and "Golden Gate shining like a blade". If I squint, I can see these lines as reflecting the narrator's perception that these landmarks are reminding them of, or casting judgment upon, the act of violence they've committed. But that imagery is not used consistently enough for me to be confident that I've arrived at the intended interpretation.
• The chorus has a good melody but it feels twice as long as it needs to be.
• The piano throughout comes across as stiff, inorganic, and overly busy.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "Shasta watching like a deformed god."
• Favorite Musical Moment: When everything cuts out at 3:30 for the final build.

chewmeupspitmeout - Deja vu, Deja me

• Overall Impression: A slight but engaging rocker with some mix issues.
• What's Working:
• The guitar riff is instantly catchy, and the distortion tone is delicious.
• The twist at the end, that the narrator is happy to stay in the time loop because it means spending every day with their love interest, is delightful.
• What Needs Work:
• The aggressive guitar and the creamy lead vocal seem to belong in different songs.
• The drums are buried way too low in the mix.
• The first time you introduce the title hook "Deja vu, deja me" turns out to be a red herring because the subsequent times it's sung to an entirely different melody. I'm not sure if you consciously made the choice not to repeat the first hook, but I found it disorienting.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "Move through the day / Like a marionette / A skipping record / I'm a rewound cassette"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The riff!

Hot Pink Halo - Move Mountains

• Overall Impression: An affecting, atmospheric lament.
• What's Working: I love the sparse texture; the synth pad is tasteful and the piano is lovely. The use of harmony vocals is excellent.
• What Needs Work: The lead vocal melody does not stick in my head between listens; it feels loose and at times arbitrary.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "I'm not asking much / Just please / Move a mountain for me"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The layered vocal harmony on "Can you make them move"
  

Boo Lee Crosser - Exit Signs

• Overall Impression: A disturbing and compelling narrative filled with vivid imagery, undercut by an overly loose delivery.
• What's Working:
• The lyrics tell a story that feels vivid because of the inclusion of specific concrete imagery but also somewhat abstract since we're not given a lot of context. It serves to put the listener inside the story, to somewhat unsettling effect.
• The melody and vocal performance are strong.
• What Needs Work: 
• There are some real timing issues in the instrumental, especially between the strummed instruments (a guitar and mandolin, I think). They're playing similar enough rhythms that it's really noticeable when they're not in agreement.
• During the instrumental section at 1:56, it feels like the song is just spinning its wheels since there is no melodic instrument featured.
• A small thing: I wonder about the perspective shift in the first chorus. At first I thought that maybe the narrator had run over his shooter and that's what lines like "Hold him down" and "Don't let him stand" referred to. Then I realized these lines are from the perspective of other people who have discovered the injured narrator and are trying to help him. This was the only time in the song where I thought something was happening and actually something else was.
• Every time you sing "I'm hemorrhaging" with the accent on the last syllable, I hear "I'm Henry James". 
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "Started moving around / On the concrete of a blood-filled fantasy / And for a moment I felt better / But it was interrupted by my need to breathe"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The minor chord at the end of the verses.

SEE/MAN/SKI - The Hermit

• Overall Impression: A slow-burn character study anchored by a great piano performance and a solid lead vocal; it doesn't aim for any particularly deep insight but makes for a fun listen.
• What's Working:
• Lyrically, you pull off a consistent AAB CCB rhyme scheme in the verses, which I see and appreciate!
• Your vocal delivery for the most part is compelling and confident, and the melismas in the chorus are well done.
• The piano sounds terrific. The main riff is at just the right spot on the simple-complex sliding scale where it's compelling on its own in the intro but it also works as a background to the verse vocal and still fits into the fuller arrangement starting after the first chorus. Then the piano solo before the vocal bridge is a lovely contrast.
• What Needs Work:
• This might just be me being overly fussy, but "I can't quit" implies an action that the narrator keeps doing. But the point of the song is that he doesn't do anything! May I suggest as an alternative, something like "I'm a hermit / That's all there is to it"?
• This is definitely me being overly fussy, but you rhyme "undisturbed" with "unperturbed". The rhyming syllables ("-turbed" and "-turbed") are exactly the same not only on the level of sound but on the level of sense as well: they're both from the exact same Latin root meaning to agitate or upset, and the prefixes "dis-" and "per-" have essentially the same meaning as well as intensifiers. So you're basically rhyming the same word with itself!
• This is not me being overly fussy: you have to find a shorter word to replace "miserable", as its four syllables are absurdly crammed into the line. There isn't room! I'd suggest "alone" but of course that comes up later in the same verse. The right word is out there somewhere!
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "cut the cord to the great outdoors"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The piano riff with its tasteful embellishments that manage to sound a lot like guitar hammer-ons and pull-offs.
• You Should Listen To: "Leave Me Alone" by They Might Be Giants.

☀bucket - Nickels to Roll

• Overall Impression: This rules.
• What's Working: The combination of ever-shifting timbres and textures over a constant relentless pulse perfectly supports the central idea: the specific tasks of the day come and go but the pace of responsibility never lets up.
• What Needs Work: This is a nit-pick, but the eighth note pulse that comes in at 0:09 sounds like the exact same sample played at the exact same velocity over and over again, whereas every other musical element, despite its relentlessness, feels like it was created by a human being. It doesn't bother me when it's just one part of a huge texture, but I wish it sounded a bit more organic on its own.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "I got no time to get old, I got some laundry to fold"
• Favorite Musical Moment: At 1:16 where the instruments come back in for the post-chorus but the lead vocal is still going "...busy busy busy busy..."
• You Should Listen To: "Oske Cherde" by Tuvan throat-singing masters Huun-Huur-Tu.

This Big Old Endless Sky - It Only Felt like a Minute

• Overall Impression: A well-made, high-energy songs that comes and goes without leaving much of an impression.
• What's Working: Sonically this is pretty cool; the guitar tone is great and the high energy thoughout means I never mind listening to it!
• What Needs Work: There's simply not enough here to really grab onto or think about once the song is over. Aside from the "minute" / "in it" rhyme, the lyrics are straightforward and prosaic, without any kind of vivid imagery to pull me in. Similarly, the half-spoken vocal melody doesn't make an impression.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: The "minute" / "in it" rhyme.
• Favorite Musical Moment: The "wake up" section.

The Pannacotta Army - Leaving LA

• Overall Impression: A lush and lovely meditation on starting over.
• What's Working: On the whole, this is really nice to listen to. We've heard this kind of music from you before, but your familiarity with the style means that your execution is almost flawless, and the lyric is thoughtful and engaging.
• What Needs Work:
• The vocal begins with a single word followed by a pretty long pause before the line continues. If I was doing that, I'd try to start with a word that packed some punch... or at least meant something. But you start with the dummy pronoun "there", literally a word with no meaning.
• The second half of the guitar solo sounds like an exercise in quarter notes, with no feeling in it.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "Still miles to go / So I turn up the radio / Watching the scenery change / But every station sounds the same"
• Favorite Musical Moment: 1:40 when the brass does the tasteful little trill that's a step up from the previous tasteful little trill.

gammammannn - Just Walk

• Overall Impression: A paranoid depiction of intrusive thoughts taking over, reinforced by an overwhelming musical texture.
• What's Working: The central idea is a compelling one, with a sense that the lines between the physical reality of the walk and the narrator's inner thoughts become more and more blurred. The theme is well-executed musically, and there are lots of delightful musical flourishes - my favorite might be the descending synth line after "Their name is... GLOOPY".
• What Needs Work: 
• The vocal does get buried under the instrumental layers at times, which I think is probably somewhat intentional but it does make it hard to follow the story.
• The lyrics of the verses feel fairly pedestrian; they do the job of telling the story but it doesn't feel like there was much thought to the question of "Is this the right word or phrasing for this moment?"
• Favorite Lyrical/Musical Moment: I think you kids call it the "drop", though back in my day it was known as a "chorus".
• You Should Listen To: "Canon X" by Conlon Nancarrow.

Huge Shark - Fine

• Overall Impression: A gorgeous meditation on love and the inevitability of its end, whose impact is blunted by an overly busy arrangement.
• What's Working: 
• This is a great take on the challenge - the narrative is anchored in the present but the narrator's mind is constantly looking to the future. And of course the theme is an emotionally compelling one, and you remain focused on it throughout the song.
• You probably already know how I feel about a metrically consistent verse with an ABAB rhyme scheme!
• The melody is simple but effective, with good contrast between a stepwise verse melody and a higher chorus melody that features ascending leaps and sustained notes.
• What Needs Work: 
• The banjo clutters up the texture, and I suspect I'd feel the same way if it was an actual performance on an actual banjo - likewise for the sampled orchestral countermelodies throughout. This is most evident in the contrasting section beginning at 2:18, where the lyrics and melody suggest we're pausing to slow down and reflect, but the banjo just keeps chug-chugging along.
• Similarly, in the closing instrumental section the drums are way too busy, with the snare hitting on every single beat for a good part of it. In general, the song needs space to breathe so that the emotional content comes through. I suspect this would be more impactful as a piece for voice and solo piano, maybe with just a soft string/synth pad and light percussion.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: I will love you anyway: / Breath and rhythm, blood and hum. / How could I let go the light / just for knowing dark will come?"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The stepwise ascending-descending melody of the verses. It's dead simple but there's a reason it's so effective.
• You Should Listen To: "Silhouette" by Katie Dahl, a song that's stylistically quite different from yours but thematically very similar. 

Good Guy Sôjàbé - Justice Never Sleeps

• Overall Impression: A solid track whose grit and attitude are perfectly suited to its subject matter.
• What's Working: Just about every musical and lyrical element are working together here to paint a picture of the main character and his environment. The narrative voice feels like it is coming from within the world of the story (with one exception - see below) and has some great, vivid turns of phrase.
• What Needs Work:
• The last line of the prechorus, "The law", gets swallowed up the drum fill leading into the chorus and then the start of the chorus itself. Not only does it obscure what feels like a key lyric, it simply feels clumsy.
• Your use of the word "Fascist" gives me pause, not because I think it's inaccurate but because it seems like an editorial judgment made from outside the narrative. If you want to explicitly cast judgment (heh) on Dredd and the system he's a part of, I think you need more than a single word to do so. Alternatively, if you want us to draw our own conclusions, I think it's better to leave it out.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "The sunrise casts a fire, but theres ice within his veins"
• Favorite Musical Moment: Not a single moment but the atmosphere of the song as a whole.

The Alleviators - Right By You

• Overall Impression: A gorgeous portrait of a devoted family, with a secret weapon guaranteed to defeat the listener's emotional defenses.
• What's Working:
• The overall sound is lovely; you do a lot with what seems like comparatively few musical elements. The shared vocals throughout are particularly strong and evoke a strong 2010s indie folk vibe, though comparison to a specific artist currently eludes me.
• The verses have such a great combination of concrete imagery (keys, braids, vitamins, etc.) and emotional directness. Even though the experiences are ones that many families will find familiar, you manage to make it all feel so specific to this family.
• The guest vocalist is deployed to great effect, both when she sings on her own and when the other voices return alongside her.
• The rhyme scheme in the verses is so good that I'm mad I've never thought of it before - it's ABAB except the A rhyme is also embedded inside the B rhyme ("trees" / "keys, and" / "sleep" / "season"). Very cool.
• What Needs Work:
• I've heard so many variations of "The years fly by but the days go slow" that it doesn't mean anything for me anymore; the rest of the lyics are so rich with specific descriptions of the specific experiences of this specific family, that this just comes across as the cliché it is.
• The impact of the twin vocal effect is felt most when the two voices (Travis and Beka) are in perfect rhythmic agreement. There are a few spots where they're not and the illusion is destroyed: the word "teeth" at 2:21 sticks out to me, as well as the last line "for his keys, and..." in the coda where you're not quite agreeing on how much to slow down.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: The whole second verse
• Favorite Musical Moment: You knew when you recorded it, I'm sure.
• You Should Listen To: "Harbor" by Vienna Teng.

David Taro - Rosettina

• Overall Impression: An emotional, well-crafted, lyrically unimpeachable character study that suffers a bit from an overly bombastic production.
• What's Working: 
• The lyrics really are excellent - as I mentioned in my preamble to these reviews, you've managed to combine a clear narrative of a single day with the larger narrative of an entire life. You do this by anchoring memories of the past to specific objects or times of day in the present. It's a great technique that 
• '/ the emotional weight of the song.
• The lyrics are great craft-wise as well; there is a clear and consistent rhythmic cadence that comes through both on the page and in the performance.
• Likewise, the melody is expertly crafted for instant catchiness. You use musical contrast to great effect, both within sections (e.g. in the verse, the first half is harmonically simple with a descending melodic figure, while the second half is harmonically more complex with an ascending melodic figure) and from verse to chorus (the verse has a lower-register, rhythmically denser melody while the chorus soars upward with long sustained notes). This was one of the songs in the round where the melody was lodged in my brain after the first listen.
• What Needs Work:
• Lyrically, my only nit-pick is that in some verses the third line has an internal rhyme (e.g. "Aged twenty-one she met a pharmacist’s son") and some don't. I would have loved the consistency of each verse having that bonus rhyme.
• My musical complaints are purely stylistic: The chromatic passing note in the piano riff is clearly intentional given that you include it every time, but it always sounds like a mistake to me. And the big moments of the song, particularly in the later choruses, simply feel too big for this intimate character study of an ordinary life. As the volume increases and the arrangement grows in complexity, it feels more and more like a highly-skilled Elton John / Randy Newman pastiche than a genuine emotional expression.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "She sees how her city keeps changing / While the names on the streets stay the same"
• Favorite Musical Moment: My brain says the twisty chord progression of the second half of the verse, but my heart says the soaring title hook.
• You Should Listen To: "Lovely Agnes" by Sally Rogers, another song celebrating the long life of an ordinary but remarkable woman.

Jealous Brother - A Backpack and Two Sandwiches

• Overall Impression: A toe-tapping travel song with some delightful musical moments and an overstuffed lyrical narrative.
• What's Working:
• The instrumental arrangement and performance are fun and engaging, and they display some formidable chops on the part of the musicians.
• The vocal melody feels timeless, classic, perfectly fit to the genre, and instantly memorable.
• The change in melody and harmony in the vocal coda starting with "Me and Jon and Lou" comes at just the right time to maintain interest and variety, and the "to that shithole" call-and-response figure is delightful.
• What Needs Work:
• There are way too many characters in this story, and it's not clear who's around when. A few that I was confused about:
• Grace: Presumably the narrator's traveling companion? Though you open with "I got on the train in Minnesota", not "We got on the train". Maybe she's just somebody who happened to be on the train, like the dad going to Louisiana. Did Grace get off the train with him? Did she go to the Neil Young concert?
• The stranger at the hotel bar: I think this person is the subject of the next two verses, who traveled from BC, believes in ghosts, and has leg tattoos and a cool haircut? But those might be two different people?
• Peter the guitarist: Where did he come from? Was he also at the hotel bar?
• Some unspecified number of people who went to see Neil Young. Who are they? The strangers from the bar? The narrator and Grace? The narrator and someone else he was traveling with but never mentioned?
• Jon and Lou, the high school classmates: Where did they come from? Did they see Neil Young?????
• Aside from the confusing storytelling, some of the lyrics are simply clumsy, such as:
• Peter's kids "play music professionally", which is the most boring way to say that they play music professionally (compare the earlier and better line "Gonna see his boy play ball"), and "professionally" has too many syllables to fit into the line. To make matters worse, it ends up being rhymed with "Jeff Tweedy" with an atrociously unnatural accent on the last syllable. What's more, to force that "professionally" / "Tweedy" rhyme, you say "They play in the solo band with Jeff Tweedy", which I assume means "They play in Jeff Tweedy's solo band" but it's a weird way to say it; it sounds like "The Solo Band" is the name of a band, which happens to also have Jeff Tweedy in it.
• "Her tattoos ran all the way down her leg", with the stress on "her". Who else's leg would they run all the way down?
• Favorite Lyrical/Musical Moment: "... to that shithole..."

Nathan Joe Long - Remember Monangah

• Overall Impression: A dark, moody history lesson that has some deeply affecting moments but is hampered by its own ambition.
• What's Working:
• The descending acoustic guitar riff is excellent.
• The section sung by the nine-year-old looking forward to her birthday is very well done; the list of simple things she is looking forward to is highly affecting, knowing that she won't see any of it.
• What Needs Work:
• The song feels too long and like it is trying to cover too much territory, trying to fit perspective shifts, time jumps, exposition, and political commentary all in one song. I would encourage you to think about focusing on the part of the song that's most impactful - to me, that's the nine-year-old's section - and seeing if you can pare some of the rest out to set the scene and let us know that she's not going to make it before letting us hear from her.
• In the male vocal, many of the phrases end on a downward leap and it seems like you're guessing at the ending pitch.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "If the old hen lays..." to "... it only takes all day".
• Favorite Musical Moment: The descending guitar riff.

glennny - I Have Until Midnight

• Overall Impression: A hooky but cluttered tale of procrastination with hints of something more emotionally fraught going on.
• What's Working: 
• The guitars sound great throughout, particularly in the intro (love that tone), in response to the vocal in the "It's not big deal" section, and in the "It's 11:11" section.
• I like how the excuses move from external distractions (TV, YouTube, take out dinner) to internal conflict ("the words are dancing on the page / Why can’t I get it over with?".
• What Needs Work:
• It's unclear throughout the song what the actual stakes are, and the song ends abruptly without any feeling of victory or defeat. This may be intentional, but I would like the the song to face the reality of the situation a little more head-on, even if the narrator is afraid to.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "It’s no big deal / I’ll deal with this a little later / I don’t feel right / I need my head on a little bit straighter"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The interlocking guitar lines in the "It's 11:11" section.

Flintsteel - Tau Zero

• Overall Impression: An epic rocker with an intriguing sci-fi premise, from a master operating well within his wheelhouse.
• What's Working: Here's a great take on the challenge. The lyrics do their job to sketch out the scenario, but the real heavy lifting is done by the music. I think this is a particularly engaging example of your familiar style, and the more I listen, the more I find to enjoy.
• What Needs Work:
• I'm not sure you earn the full five minute runtime. I suspect I'd enjoy listening to the 3:30 radio edit more.
• What's going on with the word "reborn" around 2:30? It sounds like the syllable "born" is supposed to be on a three-note descending figure but the third note got AutoTuned to be the same as the second? 
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "cascading endless night / in awe as cosmic might performs / the dance of dark and light / infinite cycle, life and death reborn"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The "we can't go on like this" section where the synth tastefully doubles the vocal line.

Bob Voyg - A day in the life of a Mall Santa

• Overall Impression: A surprisingly compelling character sketch with some delightful musical moments.
• What's Working: 
• We get a peek into the psyche of both the miserable mall Santa and the miserable children stopping to see him; you manage to conjure sympathy for everyone in very few words.
• Contrast between sections is terrific; you change up harmony, texture, melodic rhythm and contour, etc. You keep my interest up throughout the whole song!
• What Needs Work: Honestly, this song is a pretty great version of itself and I'm hard-pressed to point to spots to improve on.
• Favorite Lyrical/Musical Moment: The "they ask for treasure and they ask for peace" section.

Governing Dynamics - Outtahere

• Overall Impression: A solid character study with compelling turns of phrase, well-matched lyrics and music, and the usual Governing Dynamics strengths on display.
• What's Working: 
• Your trademark guitar sound is on display here and sounds great.
• I love how the last line of the verse also functions as the first line of the chorus, pulling us right into the new section. A really neat trick!
• What Needs Work: 
• Some vocal pitchiness throughout, particularly in the "After noon, hope igniting" bridge.
• No need for sleep when I've got no job" is a clumsy and pedestrian line, especially following the preceding lines where you find a much more interesting way to say "I got up early, drank coffee and watched a movie."
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "'So the places you took shelter / Are the shadows you now fear?' / When you say it like that, sure, okay."
• Favorite Musical Moment: The transition from verse to chorus.

OutLyer - HEY ALEXA

• Overall Impression: A chill, well-produced track with a great hook, and thin, sketchy lyrics that don't fulfill the potential of the concept.
• What's Working:
• The concept of a criminal asking Alexa for help getting away with what they've done is a fun one.
• The chill pop production and smooth vocals make for a very nice listen.
• The "Hey Alexa" hook is definitely catchy.
• What Needs Work: 
• The lyrics start off strong, with specific (and innocuous) questions asked of Alexa. Once the trouble starts, though, we lose that specificity - there's no indication of how Alexa actually helped the narrator. What questions did he ask? What information did she provide? (Good places to hide from the police? Ways to dispose of a body? How to get a fake passport fast?)
• The chorus repeats the same lyrics twice, which feels like a missed opportunity to add some more detail to the song.
• The perspective shift is intriguing (Alexa's point of view in the first verse, the human user's point of view afterwards), but I'm not sure what it contributes to the song as a whole.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: The opening verse.
• Favorite Musical Moment: The title hook.

Siebass - We Are the Sum of These

• Overall Impression: An amusing but slight chronicle of a day as a working parent.
• What's Working: The choral interjections do bring a smile, and the patter verses are well-written and formally clean (no weird stress or jammed-in syllables) with some fun images.
• What Needs Work: It's impossible not to compare this to the other songs in this round about the daily grind of being a working parent, and this one suffers for it; the music is repetitive but not compelling enough to reward many subsequent listens, and the lyrics don't present much in the way of deeper insight.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "Crack the burner / boil the water / Tortellini's fun to say / Heat the sauce up / Set the plates / Don't chew your brother's head"
• Favorite Musical Moment: "UP TO PEE"

Huey Long's Big Strong Thick Pink Magnum Opus - Asphalt

• Overall Impression: A dissonant, fragmented depiction of a traumatic event. 
• What's Working:
• The variety of vocal effects testify to your talent and versatility as a singer.
• The non-linear narrative is effective at conveying the confusion and trauma of the event.
• What Needs Work:
• Lots of moments of weird syllable stress, like "hot tar", "your pocket", as well as rhythmic disagreement between the vocals and the instrumental.
• Some lyrics get stretched out unnaturally and some get rushed unnaturally; there's a general lack of consideration for the sound of the words (syllable stress, line length, etc) and how they fit with the melody you're singing.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "You find yourself paralyzed / Though the sidewalk burns your skin"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The instrumental intro.

Möbius Strip Club - Angela

• Overall Impression: A grim tale supported by well-crafted lyrics and a powerhouse vocal performance, but hampered by a clumsy, poorly-mixed accompaniment. 
• What's Working: Great vocals (lead and harmony); given the fairly minimalist accompaniment, the range of expression within the lead vocal performance actually serves to give structure to the song. The lyrics are well-written, with a clear metrical sense and lots of vivid imagery, and of course the title makes for a great hook.
• What Needs Work:
• The guitar playing feels clumsy, like maybe you're playing a lot of barre chords but aren't pressing hard enough to get all the strings to sound properly?
• Louder drums please. Or else don't bother with them at all!
• I keep thinking about the final line "You were mine, and mine alone!" and trying to decide how I feel about it. To me, it introduces an element of paranoid possessiveness on the part of the narrator and even suggests an entirely different reading of the song. Up until that last line, my assumption is that Angela has deliberately drowned, and the note they find on returning to their hotel/beach house/whatever is her suicide note. But the narrator's "mine alone" hints at the prospect of her being with someone else, suggesting that she's actually faked her drowning and fled her family life to be with another lover. (It's entirely possible that this interpretation is only on my mind because here in Wisconsin there was a big news story last year when a man did exactly that - check out the story, it's wild.) Anyway, this possible interpretation has me wondering, "Is the narrator an abusive spouse? Is this possessiveness showing up anywhere else?" I'm scouring the rest of the lyrics and the most I'm coming up with is lines like "We need you with us here and now" and "She’d never dare to disappear / I expect her to be with us here", which suggest to me that the narrator values Angela primarily for her role running the household (note "us" rather than "me"). I still think that suicide is the most plausible explanation, which makes the "mine alone" line a red herring that simply confuses things and that I would suggest revisiting.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "The road is long and unforgiving / The house is deadly quiet too"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The vocal harmony on "where'd you go" at 2:53.

Boffo Yux Dudes - Say Hey!

• Overall Impression: An utterly charming song and a delight to listen to.
• What's Working: This song doesn't take itself too seriously and just aims for fun, which it definitely succeeds at. I'm not sure it's possible to listen to this without a smile on your face. The music is engaging and the lyrics are fun.
• What Needs Work: The mix needs a bit of work; in particular the sampled vocals stick way out.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "'cause when you go 'Hey' / You have something to say!"
• Favorite Musical Moment: "Did you say Heeeeeeeeey!"

Dog Star Pilot - Only Thing

• Overall Impression: A lovely snapshot of a lonely road trip.
• What's Working: Great imagery throughout the lyrics, both describing the motel room and the drive across Nebraska. There's a lovely understated hint at the past that the narrator is trying to leave behind. Musically, the chorus has a great melody that sticks in my head even without any instrumental accompaniment supporting it.
• What Needs Work: Of course this would be great to hear with some kind of instrumental accompaniment, which I think would make the verses feel less wander-y.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "Keeping it together and rolling down the line / Wherever you are right now you’re not on my mind"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The blue note on "drive" in the chorus.

Fluke Wilson - Tommy Bahama Backfire

• Overall Impression: An intriguing and fairly compelling story with some narrative gaps and a poor musical execution. 
• What's Working: 
• I enjoy the nonlinear narrative - like the narrator is explaining how this happened and keeps needing to back up for context. It's a clever way to structure the song.
• There are some fun turns of phrase like "someone send a savior or a hand".
• The melody throughout is pretty good, and the ending hook is super catchy!
• What Needs Work:
• I'm not clear on exactly how this all went down - the guy who the narrator met at the airport was a criminal who was going to meet some other criminals and they would recognize him by his shirt. But he knew that they were going to double-cross him, so he gave his shirt to the sucker of a narrator. But the narrator was hooking up with a girl in a car when the thugs grabbed him. Was that part of the original plan? Was the girl in on it or was she also in the wrong place at the wrong time? If she was in on it, was she working with Original Shirt Guy (to keep the narrator where the other guys would find him) or was she working with the other guys (to seduce and entrap who she thought was Original Shirt Guy)? There's enough plot here for a 90-minute crime thriller but key details are lost when you pack it into a 5-minute song. And that's not even touching on why Original Shirt Guy was in trouble in the first place.
• There are some moments of clumsy syllable stress and two separate instances of rhyming "up" with "up".
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "Put your silver tongue to rest"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The melismatic vocal hook at the end on "You're gonna talk".

Sober - Long Way Round

• Overall Impression: A charming but confusing tale.
• What's Working: You've got a fun chorus with a great closing hook, and the production and performance are up to your usual very high standards.
• What Needs Work: I wish the narrative in the verses made more of an effort to follow the itinerary laid out in the chorus. Instead, you start by detailing your earlier journey to Afghanistan; then for the return journey you describe your second stop, then your first stop, then you abandon naming specific cities altogether. The verses seem more interested in talking about the various types of alcohol available (or unavailable) on the trip. That's all well and good, but there's no hint in the chorus that that's going to be the focus of the verses.
• Favorite Lyrical/Musical Moment: "When you’re a world away every way is the long way round"
• You Should Listen To: "Tillsonburg" by Stompin' Tom Connors.

miscellaneous owl - Don’t Look Back

• Overall Impression: An affecting and effective modern retelling of myth that suffers from a hasty production.
• What's Working:
• The description of the sights along the way of the narrator's descent are vivid and compelling, saying a lot in a few syllables.
• You've done a nice job translating a lot of the specific details of the myth into a modern setting.
• The subdued musical performance and arrangement are well-suited to depicting a narrator still wearing their grief a while after their loss.
• What Needs Work:
• Absent any explicit acknowledgment of an actual supernatural element in the song, it's unclear what the narrator's goal is in taking their guitar onto the subway. Do they really think they're going to find their way to the realm of the dead and win the departed's soul back with a song? Are they purposefully reenacting the myth of Orpheus? (Does the myth of Orpheus exist as a pre-existing story in the world of this song?) On a vibes level, it works great; when I stop and think about it, it leaves me wanting a little clarification.
• I suspect you're plainly aware of what can be improved production-wise.
• Favorite Lyrical Moment: "And I thought that if I wrote a song / That captured what I feel, / I wouldn't have to feel it anymore"
• Favorite Musical Moment: The herky-jerk "Don't. Look. Back." chorus.