ST26 R2 Reviews - Micah Sommersmith

I don't have to rank these songs, and it's a good thing I don't because as a whole this round is stupid good. Read on for my reviews.

Sunflower Bastard - Replicant

BWAAAAAAAM. This sounds great. The slow build during the questioning where the narrator comes to fully realize the truth is a cool idea, well executed. A small suggestion: There is a tiny pause in your vocals at 2:42 between the glitchy “let me go” and “I always felt human”. I want the vocal to seamlessly transition with no pause, and for some of the glitchiness to continue through that closing chorus, to show the narrator fully accepting but still anguishing in his newly-realized condition.

Hot Pink Halo - 42Ks in your KT-26s

You excel at the kind of lush, slow, contemplative song you gave us last round, but it’s also always fun to hear an uptempo rocker from you! The instrumentation could probably be fleshed out a bit; it feels a bit bare-bones. I love love love how the melismas on “Run” get more and more ornate with each chorus, depicting the runner’s increased stamina and determination as he goes from 3Ks to 6Ks to 42Ks. If he keeps up this exponential improvement, he’ll be running 474Ks by the fourth chorus. Way to go!

The Pannacotta Army - Chime

This is charming and sounds great. You have a great knack for knowing when to introduce new musical elements or change the mood, like when you jump up to a new vocal register at “All those imperfections”, or when the tambourine comes in for the (excellent) melismatic chorus.

Lyrically, nothing leaps out as brilliant but nothing feels out of place either; it’s a simple, lovely sentiment clearly expressed. The “Sorry I wasn’t listening” bit does add a welcome bit of humor. This is a very nice tune!

traumadolls - Who You Are

The drum loop is cool! It’s grimy, it’s nasty, and iit fits the tone of the song. There are some great changes in intensity level throughout. There are also some disorienting moments: In the first chorus it’s awfully hard to predict when “did” is going to shift notes (and that last shift at 1:20 sounds like it’s fully autotune doing the shift). And the breakdown that starts around 3:30 feels more like a petering out of energy than a moment of breathless anticipation as we wait for the final chorus to thunder back. Maybe these moments of disorientation are intentional, given the menacing tone of the song.

Cosmic Ray Corruption - Disappointment

I love the energy, and that stuttery guitar (or synth that is convincingly made to sound like a guitar, I don’t know!) sounds amazing. This song really grew on me over multiple listens. Watch your pitch accuracy on your vocals, especially when you throw in chromatic borrowings: Between 0:30 and 0:40 you sing both a flat 7th (on “truth”) and a raised fourth (on “you”), but since your vocals are a bit off-key throughout, they don’t come off on first listening as chromatic borrowings but instead as really wrong notes. If you nail the pitches in your vocals, it will take this song to the next level.

The lyrics are appropriately direct but also well crafted. I love the couplet “You say you want your son back but instead / You only love the doormat in your head” (and look at that, it’s perfectly iambic too!).

Cheslain - Apostasy

What’s that, two songs in a row about escaping abusive authority figures? Musically though, this couldn’t be more different from Cosmic Ray Corruption’s song. 

In any case, this is gorgeous. The textures and melodies are lovely, and it’s a great moment when you strip everything away for the “I will miss my mother” section. The music does a great job of depicting the dense tangle of emotions as the narrator leaves behind everything they knew, recognizing the need to escape but also the uncertainty and regret.

I wonder about the perspective shift: the song starts in second person (e.g. “before you leave behind / everything you know”) but then shifts to first person for the rest of the song (e.g. “shivers down my spine”, etc.). I suppose the opening can be the narrator trying to reassure themself, but I wonder if it would be more effective to keep everything within the same perspective. It’s an extremely minor note; this song is truly terrific.

Jennifer Lynne and the Dandelion Rebellion - Hope Is

This is a lovely listen! Musically, it feels very familiar, with what sounds to me like a classic I-iv-IV-V or similar progression and 12/8 time. While it might not break a lot of new ground musically, it’s certainly well executed.

The specific imagery of the verses is wonderful, and I like the idea you describe in your song bio of soliciting images from the audience and incorporating them into the lyrics when you perform this live. It’s always my hope that contestants’ songs can have a life beyond the tournament, so it’s gratifying that you are already thinking about sharing this one more widely!

Huge Shark - Faraway

Are you familiar with the singer-songwriter Vienna Teng? Your piano playing and some of your harmonic choices on this song remind me in particular of her album “Waking Hour”, which is very much worth a listen.

I like it when the energy level changes from verse to chorus. More often we expect higher energy in the chorus, but you subvert that expectation here when you bring the energy down for “You’re so far away”, at least in the earlier choruses. It’s good! I like it! The melisma, too, is compelling. Not “catchy” but definitely engaging. And the bridge! (Let’s call it a bridge, I think: the “All along the ragged courses” section.) A change in energy, texture, harmony, etc. that doesn’t feel obligatory but it feels like just the right thing to happen at that moment. Then in the last chorus you start layering vocal lines, with that splashy ride cymbal adding a tasteful layer of interest to the drums.

What I’m trying to say is, I like this song a lot.

Best Dad In Yorkshire - Common Sense

I think you can read these lyrics as purely being about eating too much, or you can read the parts about eating too much a concrete visualization of a more general, emotional core. I’m choosing the latter, if only because I don’t want to try to figure out which lines are about pooping and which ones aren’t.

That aside, this is great. The guitars sound awesome, your voice sounds awesome as usual. The hook is great and I love the single-note piano(?) that chimes in on beat 2 of each measure while the guitars are rocking out.

When your vocals come in for the first verse, they’re very quiet. It’s a mix issue, not a performance issue; I love the change in energy level and texture but I want to hear you!

Stacking Theory - no

Oooooh these lyrics here? I love them. I’m not familiar with the book, so I’ll just assume that all the most brilliant bits are straight from your own mind. I love how the lyrics circle around and contradict themselves, constantly second-guessing. This bit in particular is so good:

but i wasn't ever in that picture

i guess maybe i was just out of frame

looking in at you

looking back at me

but i don't recognise the ocean

i have never seen the sea

The trademark Stacking Theory sense of despair is still there, to be sure, but it’s coupled to a more complex, engaging idea: this sense of the unreliability of memory and the way our understanding of the past is constructed after the fact.

Musically, my only complaint is that the drums are too heavy for the dreamy, hazy atmosphere you've otherwise created.

Berkeley Social Scene - Whatever’s Clever

The band sounds great; the singer is a little buried in the mix. The melismas are certainly ambitious and you mostly pull them off, though they're at the edge of your abilities in terms of both range and agility.

The lyrics are cynical but well-crafted and paint a vivid picture of this relationship. The “never never knew” section toward the end is a lot of fun!

chewmeupspitmeout - Howling at the Moon

I just need to say something. “Misanthrope” and “lycanthrope” seems like a brilliant rhyme… until you realize that “-anthrope” in both words means the same thing, “human”. (Misanthrope = “I hate humanity”; Lycanthrope = “wolf-human”.) To borrow an old comment from Ryan on the Two Jerks One Vote podcast, it’s basically rhyming “newspaper” with “wallpaper”.

Okay, with that out of the way, this is a pretty good song. The guitar work is tasty, and the tempo change for the coda is a great touch to end the song on. Lyrically, it doesn’t grab me as strongly as many other of your songs have; he’s a werewolf; he doesn’t like being a werewolf; he’s gotta stay away from his love so that he doesn’t kill or turn her. Straightforward but so clearly fictional as to not have a whole lot of emotional heft, although the music does support the tone of the lyrics well.

Alright - Nathan Joe Long

Man, that fingerstyle guitar playing at the beginning is so tasty that I’m disappointed when you start strumming. But the sense of gradual build throughout the first verses is terrific (shout out to the bass fill at 1:09 - so good!). Then the chorus hits and it’s completely different but just right. You’ve already submitted some really good songs in the short time you’ve been involved in the contest, but this is the most exciting song I’ve heard from you. It is (ironically, given the mostly acoustic instrumentation) electric. Great stuff.

David Taro - Annie I Think I Love You

A song like this demands nothing less than total commitment, and boy do you commit. The chorus was stuck in my head from the first listen; “stage just” / “outrageous” is surely the most audacious rhyme of the round; and the “Come On Eileen”-style breakdown is simply delicious.

I'm not sure if the guitar solo is ironic or not, but it doesn't work for me. Everything drops out for a clumsy solo that's over almost as soon as it's begun. Then the rest of the band is back as if nothing ever happened. It's an awkward and unsatisfying moment in an otherwise really delightful tune.

The Dreams Corporation - Mother, Please... (short ver)

This is a hard entry to review because this is a “song” competition, not a “soundtrack to a nonexistent video game” contest. You know what you’re doing, you’re doing it for yourself, you do it well, and you’re going to keep on doing it no matter what the judges tell you. As you should.

The Moon Bureau - 501

This one doesn’t overstay its welcome, and you pack enough specific language into the lyrics that it doesn’t suffer from “one-joke novelty song” syndrome. Musically, this feels a little sketchier than I’m used to from the Moon Bureau, and a more lush sonic palette might help me forget that I’m just listening to a song about pants.

The melody of your melismas is quite nice, though what I say about WoV’s H-sounds applies here as well. Pitch-wise, those low notes on “time” and “care” of “Still recall the time” and “Trying not to care” are awfully dodgy as well.

Carrie Spillane - Time Is All We Need

The musical and thematic similarities immediately invite comparison with your Round 1 song. This is lovely too, though I find it lacks the specificity and visual language of “The Shape of Our Goodbye”. On the other hand, the strings are a lot more convincing, and the musical contrast from verse to chorus is excellent.

Brother Baker - You

(I liked this song, but I realized midway through writing the review below that it’s going to seem at first like I didn’t. So just please keep in mind that I did. Anyway…)

Some languages have a feature called “clusivity”, in which there are two different first-person plural pronouns, one of which means “me and you [and possibly others]”, and the other of which means “me and other people, but not you”. English is unfortunately not one of these languages. Unfortunate in this case because the song’s pronoun use took me a while to realize what the song’s actually about. You see, you start off with “We were 17” and spend a lot of the first verse talking about us, us, us. And then the chorus starts talking about you, you, you. Before I started paying closer attention, I thought that the “you” of the choruses was part of the “us” from the first verses - due to the English language’s frustrating lack of clusivity. 

Since I knew that this band is normally a duo but was a solo act for this song, and because the first line is clearly about making music together, I thought that the song was addressed from one brother to the other. Then I started noticing that some details weren’t really adding up, and when I listened closer, things clicked into place. Oh! “You” are the narrator’s future child, and he’s reflecting on his own life and self in the light of your impending birth. Once I realized this, the emotional weight of the song set in and I gained a much deeper appreciation for it.

Anyway, it may be worth changing all the “we” and “us” in the first verses to “I” and “me”. Maybe you’ll feel that that erases your partner from the picture. (I’m thinking that maybe the “we” of “we were 17” is you and your brother, but the “us” of “Nothing could stop us, no one could tame us” is you and your partner… but that might not be right.) But the rest of the song is so clearly about your relationship with your future child. Let that be the focus! It’s okay, you can write other songs about your partner!

(Uh, a retroactive disclaimer [you get one at the front and one at the back of the review, lucky you!] that I’m assuming this song is autobiographical but it very well may not be. If it is, best of luck to you. You’re going to do great and it’s going to be awesome. If it’s not, you’re a damn fine storyteller and that’s something to be proud of too.)

Vom Vorton - Something in the Fog

This feels like a sunny summer jam, and the melisma on “fog” is the catchiest in the round… with no hint in the music of the menace in the lyrics. Since this seems to be a fairly straightforward retelling of a movie I haven’t seen, I’m happy to simply turn my lyric brain off and enjoy it for the music. Tighten up the pitch in your vocals and I’ll be even happier.

West of Vine - Another Kind of Leaving

Lyrically, this is a clear and evocative depiction of the dissolution of a relationship. This song has one of the strongest set of lyrics in the round. Musically, I tend to enjoy the Moon Bureau more, but you save your meatier, more heartfelt (whether autobiographical or not) material for West of Vine, which I can respect.

“There’s a kind of staying that’s just another kind of leaving” is a damn good lyric hook, and I wish it came around again - I hardly ever think a song is too short, but this one feels… not half formed, but maybe 75% formed? In any case, the “I said it many times” section feels like a chorus but we never get to hear it again. The melismas on “by” (then “-bye”) are tasty but the vocal delivery could be a lot tighter. I understand the genre may call for a looser vocal delivery but there’s some noticeable pitchiness, and your inserting H’s inside the sustained syllable feels like a vocal limitation you’re trying to pass off as a stylistic choice.

Jealous Brother - Soundcheckin’

This song is silly and self-aware and, I think, accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. “she's got a DI box, she don't believe in socks” made me laugh out loud. Great stuff.

Ominous Ride - No Grudge

Thank you for turning up the drums! Do you know the band Yeasayer? Your vocals remind me of their debut album All Hour Cymbals. In general I love the way you layer a low, weary vocal with a high, plaintive vocal. From a less skilled singer it could be a disaster, you pull it off and this song is no exception.

The lyrics are grim but very well-done; lots of vivid imagery in the verses contrasting with that dispassionate chorus. Good work!

Star Bear - My Love Is Forever

Nice fakeout in the title. That extra word “gone” completely changes the meaning.Your lyrics are a sensitive depiction of the end of a relationship (not the only one in this round, interestingly!). Nice guitar playing and subtle other instrumental textures, nice melismas too.

At some point, we decided that, especially for male singers, “soulful, tortured sensitivity” meant singing high and soft, which, if the singer isn’t careful, slips easily into “strained and unsupported”, with unfortunate results for pitch accuracy and vocal tone. That’s what’s happening here. I’m curious how this would sound if you reject the cultural narrative about vocal range and take the song lower, like a lot lower. Start by dropping an octave, then bump up a few steps until the low end is within your singable range. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. 

Pigfarmer Jr - I Don’t Know Why

That's some real tasty piano playing! Right off the bat it is attention-grabbing and engaging. And your voice is strong and confident as well. 

There seem to be too conflicting depictions of this relationship in the song. The chorus and much of the verses depict a sense of gratitude and feeling of unworthiness; the narrator needs and relies on his partner, is thankful for her, and is sorry that he is not the partner for her that she is for him.

But then we have these verses:

Then it’s time to go to bed

Just to get up again

We lay down our heads

Still needing a friend

I need her to save me

But I’m too damn proud

We go to sleep lonely

Can’t ask her out loud

This sense of loneliness, dissatisfaction, and failure to connect feels different from the sentiment of the rest of the song. I have a hard time reconciling these two sentiments.

Flintsteel - The Iron Man

I’m gonna be honest - I feel like you’re leaving a lot on the table in terms of the challenge. You certainly have a few tasty melismas, mostly later in the song, but they feel ornamental, even incidental. Meanwhile you hold out “naaaaaaaame” and “maaaaaaaaaaa” on long single notes that I keep expecting to turn into florid melismas but don’t. Ah well, it’s a banger anyway.

miscellaneous owl - Rubbing the Velvet

Well this is lovely and heartbreaking. The floaty vocals and the bubbly synth arpeggios depict the sort of innocent purity your narrator aspires to, while the lyrics are full of vivid metaphors for the kind of person the world is making them.

Putting your most prominent melismas at the beginning of each line of your verses is an unusual choice that really pays off. The vocal melody is instantly memorable, and then the simple setting of  “And I tried…” that opens the chorus is a completely different but equally memorable hook.

My two complaints with this song are: 1) with the word “blows” at about 1:32 and again at 2:42, I want the final consonant to be a lot better synchronized between the vocal layers; and 2) the Casio-sounding drum loop is great in theory to reinforce the feeling of childlike innocence I think you're going for, but in practice it gets hard to listen to playing over the course of the entire song.

Ironbark - Don’t Get Behind Me

I'm not sure how familiar non-Americans are with the satirical newspaper The Onion. It's had plenty of legendary articles throughout the years, but my most common complaint is that they'll have an absolutely brilliant headline and then the article is just the same joke rephrased ten times.

That's sort of how I feel about this song; the joke here is “mild-mannered bloke who sounds like he's constitutionally incapable of raising his voice in anger let alone his fists, is actually a badass who will fuck you up at the slightest provocation”, and we get variations on that joke for three and a half minutes.

It's funniest when it's most specific: “i kicked my father's face off as i flew out of the womb / then wrote my name in urine on his tomb” is unquestionably the lyrical highlight of the song.

the profane bells - She

Very good melisma, very very good. I'm not sure who “she” is, but the opening prayer at the toilet bowl and the pervasive sense of regret and self-loathing suggests that there's lots of alcohol involved in this song somewhere. Maybe “she” is an actual person, the one driving our narrator to drink, or maybe she is the personification of alcohol itself. In any case, there’s lots to chew on in these lyrics.

Speaking of lyrics, I'm starting to pick up on some familiar cadences and phrasing choices you make. Compare these lines from your first entry:

Like who did what to who? Why react with a face like that?

The accusations, the pointed fingers behind your back

… with these lines from this one:

How’d it go? How’d it go? How it always goes

I’m taking the line that it’s peachy and fine as I cannot handle the truth

It may be worth shaking up your line-by-line lyric writing. Have you tried writing strictly iambically, alternating eight and six syllables per line? Who knows, there might be something there…

The vocal seems higher than I'm used to hearing from you, and you sound strained on many of the high notes, e.g. when you sing “why I'm an ass” in the first verse. I hope you aren't doing anything your doctor has cautioned you against!

Stefan Szabo - When It Comes

Sonically, this is impeccable. The lyrics are straightforward and don’t break much new ground, but they get your point across effectively, especially the second verse. “‘Cause every little conversation every handshake every hug / Leaves a part of us behind within the ones that we have touched” - very nice. And the emotional content is so clearly communicated by the vocal performance, the melody, arrangement, and even the warmth of the mix. It all feels cohesive; the elements work together perfectly.

Does it earn its nearly five minutes of straightforward verse-chorus form? I think so, but you may want to think about a 3:30 radio edit with one of the verses cut. In any case, well done.

Paul Dermody - So Insane

I’m a simple man. I hear an AABCCB rhyme scheme and I’m happy. Thank you for that!

This song has something to say and the lyrics say it clearly. I don’t think the relaxed tempo and gentle instrumentation lend themselves to the message of the song, though. I can imagine this song as a punk rock number, though, with drums, electric guitars, a faster tempo, and a snarl in the vocal.

Sober - I’ll Try Again

“A somewhat-rare love song from me, with the obligatory death imagery” could also describe my shadow entry this round but it's a good thing I didn't give you mine; I have no trouble admitting that this song blows mine out of the water.

I think you win “most beguiling melisma” due to the time signature shenanigans; as best I can tell, you have an extra beat at the beginning and an extra beat at the end of “I'll try”. I can stubbornly count 1, 2, 1, 2 through the whole thing and it comes out right but the middle feels off, or I can count 1 on “I'll” and another 1 at the start of “try”, which feels much better… but then I have to add another beat to get back on track after the melisma.

Anyway, one might argue that having to analyze the song this way hinders the listener from engaging with it emotionally, and I may have made that argument about various other songs in the past. But for this song, and for me, it works, and in fact deepens my appreciation for the song… once I figured out what the heck was going on.