I'm going to change my fl style. For too long I've done play by play reviews, without having as much focus on how I feel about the music. I will still keep both elements, but switch emphasis towards what I think of it, not what's actually happening.

Canvas Solaris is one band I've wanted to hear for a while now.. but I feel like softer music today

[b]No-Man - Together We're Stranger[/b]

Ambient soundscapes sounds like something I might like, as long as it isn't too minimalist, random, or noise based.


The 20 seconds of electronic buzz at the start made me wonder about the possibility of this being a noise based piece, but some very calm synth takes over by playing light melodies. Hammond organ sound takes over after a while playing some simple chords.

It's very calm, and I really like it so far. It reminds me of the ambient parts in Anathema songs, in fact it could easily be them just stripped of the guitar, bass, drums and vocals.

I got a surprise at 2:40, there actually are vocals in here, it's a guy singing sparsely, his voice sounds a bit breathy, with a little bit of a whine. 3:45 brings out some guitar too, softly strummed and sparse again. All is still so calm, and it sounds so much like the intro of Anathema - Emotional Winter.

If you can imagine some really calm music to go with these photos, you've probably got something like this song.
[img]http://www.cenotes.com/fotos/cavediving.jpg[/img]
[img]http://blue-abyss-divers.com/cave1.jpeg[/img]
[img]http://www.diving.lv/public/userimages/Inland%20sea.jpg[/img]

Vocals have long since stopped. Up until 7:20 there's some "lead" guitar - very, very nice, it fits the mood perfectly. The hammond organ chords sound more like high strings now. After that, it's a synth comedown, with some bubbly sounds, and a horn? Just before the track ends there's a power-up, I presume that goes into the next track.

I know plenty of R+M people wouldn't like it because of the lack of activity... but I absolutely love it. It's so nice.. even if the vocals were a little bit whiny, and even if it sounded so much like Anathema, I'd still give it 11/10, or maybe even 11/9.

__________________________
[b]Anathema - Temporary Peace[/b] - soft ambient rock. music goes to about 5:40, waves to to 7:52, after that is bonus track territory

[b]Tension - Fantastic[/b] - nu metal/Mastodon-ish sound - [url]http://www.tensionmusic.com/audio/fantastic.mp3[/url]

[b]TISM (or maybe T.I.S.M.) - The Last Australian Guitar Hero[/b] - alt-pop-comedy, language warning
[b]Weddings Parties Anything - A Tale They Won't Believe[/b] - punkish sea-shanty about cannibalism. 7 mins
[b]Soundgarden - The Day I Tried To Live[/b] - slow hard rock with strange time sigs
[b]Down - Landing On The Mountains Of Meggido[/b] - haunting acoustic southern rock

[size=7]ATTN Bartender:[/size] (and anyone else interested)
[b]{Miocene} - The Fall[/b] - experimental electronic/technical heavy rock/_______ ____
[url]http://www.xtaster.co.uk/mioscene.mp3[/url]

could i pretty please have a yousendit link to the Anathema piece. I dig the ambiance.

no, I don't use/won't be using yousendit, it's way too hard to upload stuff properly from my connection...
should be easy enough to find on the file sharing things.. maybe even google if you're lucky

dibs.

[b]{Miocene} - The Fall [/b]

I have had the pleasure of hearing about half of Cellular Memory and crave more.

Begins with what sounds like it could be a rap beat. Then the cool guitar comes in. Doesn't seem to be quite following the time signature. Sounds cool though. And a synth is swelling. Then vocals with a new, simpler but cool guitar part. Too much delay on the vocals for my taste. Then the song picks up but because of the mixing doesn't really. I know it's supposed to but it doesn't. Then a quiet bit with light drums and mostly vocals. I really like the vocals here. This song reminds me a bit of Gordian Knot... but with vocals. I'm liking the vocals more. A little overly distorted.

There's a cool sort of guitar solo that is just two long held notes. Sounds good though. The vocal production pisses me off. A cooler guitar solo follows a Maynard-esque scream that's mixed too low. Then some cool drum work and some more very Tool sounding stuff. This is all very Tool like but more technical guitar work and too many vocal effects. I really like the dynamic changes.

I have to go but In the end it leaves a much better impression.
8.5/10

Borknagar - The WInterway
DEP - Sugar coated sour

dibs

[b]Borknagar - The Winterway[/b] 7:51

Intro, a fade in synth, or is it guitars tremelo picked?

at 0:12, acoustic guitars come in with strumming, and most probrably a second guitar doing some scaling. The background "synths" continue.

0:42, strummings get louder,

0:44, tom rolls (drums come in).

After that, the song picks up, with distortion, vocals, bass coming in at one time. A background lead can be heard. The clean vocals are quite nice, 1:08, he starts screeching. Much tremelo picking can be heard at the background, while the drums do some tom rolls,

1:33, you can hear the song building up, more bassy trem picking, some licks
1:51, apparently the song did not build up, but the intensity dropped a little to make way for melody. The synths, pianos and guitars really fit together well here, esp 2:12-2:27. The additional tom rolls make it more interesting.

2:27, the clean vocals are back again, and then it starts to screech again.

3:30, the song slows down..

3:38, "rythmn guitar solo", nice riff, before building up to blastbeats and the modern black metal sound.

4:29, acoustic guitars return.

4:42, vocals do the "ooooahh" thing. heh.

riffs and some musical part continues.

5:54, the song changes, and harmonized clean vocals enter. These are better than the previous mentioned. Then it screeches again.

it builds up and at the end, there are various solos and lead parts by the piano/guitar.

the song ends with a clean vocal singing "??? winterway....." and the distortion fading away, and you can hear a heavily chorused feedback.

Don't talk about leads in this song ,they are all over the place, guitar leads, acoustic leads, synth leads, piano leads, random drum rolls.

Only thing the build up can be more drastic and falling more drastic, but borknagar did a good job on this one.

7.5/10

Recommendations
Eternal Tears Of Sorrow - Bride Of The Crimson Sea (symphonic black with elements of power, or you could say a way better CoF)[color=red]strongly recommended[/color]
Dark Lunacy - Fragile Carress (Symphonic Death Metal)
Angel Dust - Bleed (Thrash/power)

Oohhh. Eternal Tears of Sorrow is really good. /not dibs

I would also like to add, for anyone who is interested in doing this, kalmah is ex memebrs of Eternal Tears of Sorrow.

also not dibs

alrighty I'll dibs on the recommended song ;)

Eternal Tears Of Sorrow - Bride Of The Crimson Sea

Starts of with some amazing piano work.
At 0:14 bass and a bit of guitar comes in.
At 0:25 the sound becomes a bit more wild.
But this sounds more like a rock song than as BM song.
Till the vocals come in at 0:55.
I like them, and a 1:20 clean vox ,nice!!!
The piano is still playing underneath.
The overaal sound of the song isn’t very BMlike, just very intense rock.
I love how the guitar plays very emotive (solo-worthy parts) but still vocals on top of that.
2:43 a short interlude.
Very emotive once more.
3:10, a solo, nice, very nice.
4:04 solo ends, and vocals come in, but this sounds very Rammstein like.
4:32 the more growling like vocals, this sounds better IMO.
4:56 keys come back in, and the sog slows down.

At the end, there is some weird fast drumbeats, of which I think is a transition into the next song.

Wow, this was great.
Not the cliché wound I was excpecting, this was… just great

5/5

I see why you were especially recommending this one :)


My picks:

Canvas solaris – when solar winds collide (instrume(n)tal.
I have this song in a yousendit file, somewhere on page 59

Sleepy time gorilla museum – sleep is wrong (avant garde black metal like) (don’t really know)

I’ll upload this one up too if I remember

enjoy

EDIT:

sleepy time gorilla museum:

[url]http://s31.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2MI7H0H80Z1D00Y57MPNCHOSOT[/url]

[b]Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum - Sleep is Wrong[/b]

Six and a half minutes, looks to be average length metal song, nothing epic nor too short. Not what I expected though...which was more or less similar to Arcturus. I was wrong.

Comes in with more or less ambient effects, sounds like wood creaking, some light guitar work in the background and some indecipherable vocals. Everything crescendos in volume, and the vocals are...strange to say the least. Then comes in the guitar line while the bass plays the line the vocals had just been playing. Another shift, more background noises build up over this new bass/drum line. Guitars shift back in shortly after, and then vocals come in to make what I assume is the verse. Then the chorus, assuming the repetition of the title is the chorus.

Shifts out to a sound-byte type clip. Much better vocalist in this section. The key of the music is odd...sounds like some sort of mode, but which I could not say. The music gives sort of a carnival feeling, it's...really really weird. I don't really like the primary vocalist, he seems lacking in a good singing voice and his harsh style of vocals are bleh to me.

Syncopation is a big part of this song, but as much as I think it can be used well in many songs, I think they abuse it here. It makes the whole song choppy and kills any flow it tries to extablish.

Cut out is very sudden, so that I had to replay it several time to make sure I hadn't gotten a bad file, but it seems to be the ending...It's just sudden and abrupt.

Overall, bleh I didn't find much to like about this song, it seemed poorly thought out to me the whole time, just not my style I guess.

Yes - I am Waiting (Soft Progressive Rock, think Division Bell era Floyd)
Project 86 - Pipe Dream (Metal of some type, maybe Nu?)
Mod Flanders Conspiracy - Such is the Wrath of the Thrice Angered Manatee (Hardcore ish)
Blindside - Teddy Bear (Hardcore)
Anatomy of a Ghost - On to Morning stars (Indie/Pop-Punk)

Make a choice and I'll yousendit, I don't feel like doing them all.

Dibs.

You can choose what you like, I don't think I've heard any of them. Except maybe Project 86, so anything but that, please.

Mod Flanders Conspiracy:
[url]http://s32.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3CEH2YJUEVF671WHWUJMMFCOQ9[/url]

Never heard of these guys before. I'm kind of expecting something like melodic hardcore, but that may only be because the word "thrice" is in the title.
[b]The Mod Flanders Conspiracy - Such is the Wrath of the Thrice Angered Manatee[/b] - 5:24

Starts off with what I assume is every band member joining in with a faux-harmonised call of "intro", and then someone (the last guy) yelling something indecipherable in the background. Odd start.

All of that goes away pretty quickly though, and there's just a nice acoustic intro for now. Percussion and bass comes in to back the guitar, along with clean vocals. He's got an odd style of singing, reminds me a little of the one song I know by 36 Crazyfists. Hard to describe exactly how it's weird, but I think you'd understand what I mean if you heard it.

Everything goes more chaotic and distorted for what I assume is the chorus. The vocals are switching back and forth between harsh hardcore yells and clean singing similar to before, with a bit of an echo effect on it. After the chorus, we get another verse I think, but it seems to have retained some of the energy of the chorus, so that it sounds a little pop-punky now. Nice jangly guitar in the background.

Just after the two minute mark we get what I think is a breakdown (I'm notoriously bad at identifying breakdowns, as Subtle can attest). It sounds more just like a bass solo with some percussion in the background, but that's a good thing; I like bass.

"Okay now, here we go" and the vocalist starts scatting, I love it. Extended messing around with the instruments, and then we're back into the song proper, I think. A hardcore chorus, and now a bridge, I think, around the four minute mark. Focus very much now on the clean vocals with that echoing effect, though there are some hardcore vocals buried deep in the background.

Another catchy little bass/drums/vocal freestyling session starts up about 4:45, and then the song finishes on similar "messing around" to before, and a yell from the vocalist.

8/10 That was good, lots of bits I definitely didn't expect.

[b]Pattons;[/b]
[url=http://s19.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2HM48CYVUPULQ0J8U9IZIJRYOG]Faith No More - Star AD[/url]
[url=http://s19.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3FLEEM9MCMWJ30DGFYMAUZ0VX7]Faith No More - Edge of the World[/url]
[url=http://s19.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1017JT7D03EB51APC6CIU69WTA]Mr Bungle - Desert Search For Techno Allah[/url]
[url=http://s19.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3OHSZEZA12YYQ2IS7PQ35JBTDB]John Kaada and Mike Patton - Pitié Pour Mes Larmes[/url]

[b]And[/b];
[url=http://s19.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1HCR6XLON8AS42FUQE4S1ZUVDS]Between the Buried and Me - Mordecai[/url] (death metal/metalcore/emo)

ill do a patton on the only one i didnt hear from that list, the john kaada one.

so dibs for me

Don't expect anything too heavy :) It's really quite experimental. He actually sings though, for close to the first time in a fair few years, and as we know he has a great voice.

John Kaada and Mike Patton - [i]Pitié Pour Mes Larmes[/i]

Starts out quite mellow, but i cant say that i unexpect anything when it comes to patton. Pattons soothing voice quickly follows, with a faltsetto coming in by like the third line. After the verse there is like an ambient bridge which is quite awesome. Some percussion comes in shotrly thereafter, and i get the feeling this song will be quite mellow the whole way through, but no problem at all. The percussion stops and verse 2 begins. It is sung very quietly with some whispering mixed in.

After that comes some good old "ooo oooo oooo" parts, which once they end more percussion comes in, and it starts to sound like video game music, at least to me. Not something too far out from zelda in my opinion. The following verse seems similar to the first verse.

There comes an appearance of a tamborine and a shaker to keep the rhythm during the next verse. This is followed by a "lalala" kinda part, mixed in with a verse, during the la laaas, there is a bass drum and hand cymbal it sounds like, with some windchimes being involved. The song ends after this

overall i give it a 6/10, pattons voice is beyond excellent, as per usual, but the song did not do much for me itself, and bored me a bit. I guarantee if it didnt have awesome patton related vocals, it would have gotten a much lower rating.

For the next group of suggestions:
[URL=http://s4.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=28I3609751EHE0JVHMTGQBNJ8J]Subterranean Masquerade - "Temporary Psychodic State"[/URL] (Avant garde ish, doom ish kinda stuff, side project of Paul from Novembers Doom)
[URL=http://s6.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1RNRJ47WFNSXJ2OBB3TYQGP52S]Peccatum - "in the bodiless heart"[/URL] (Avante garde metal, Ihsahn of Emperors current project)
[URL=http://s32.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2H0CNRVSDZ8E20WHIGJGVU1EZJ]Shaman - "jalla"[/URL] (Folk Metal)

Ill start uploading them to yousendit right now, and edit later with links, unless someone has already done one, or said i dont need to bother anymore.

Edit: Added yousendits.

since this is probably my last time checking the boards for tonight, biggity biggity bump.

dibs

[b]Subterranean Masquerade - Temporary Psychotic State[/b] 7:22

Intro : Sounds like a piece of sound or music inverted backwords.

It keeps playing,and acoustic intro plays.
Clean electric plays lead parts.

A vocalist speaks, and it sounds like circus music at the moment.

0:45, the real song starts. its quite complicated, i can hear piano, violin, acoustic guitar, clean guitar with some gain doing some leads, drums bass and vocals.

1:12, the song progresses to some acoustic strumming. with an acoustic solo.

1:56, returns to sounding like 0:45.

2:44 - weird sounds start playing. like that of a commander keen video game. With some synths or violins doing some stuff at the background.

3:17 - song changes to MDB type slow, with MDB type depressing vocals, with a violin/harmonica/synth? lead parts.

3:48 - finally the distortion comes in. the song is lifted up from here.

4:17, the song builds down again. With acoustic strumming, and whispered vocals

5:11 - song building up, can hear the intensity

5:16, the vocal growls here, and then the distortion and loud symphony comes back, with a tremelo picked lead guitar, and violin most probraby. this is the best part of the song so far. then vocals growl in again,

6:52, the song slows down gradually, and ends with feedback, and the drummer spoils the ending with some double bass rolls, which was pretty creative, opposed to the normal cymbal splashing.

Well,

7/10.

It was a good song, i didn't mind the acoustic, a little jazzy experiments, but definately had to do away with the weird sound effects.

Recommendations
The Ramones - Pet Cemetary (Old Punk)
Virgin Steele - Love is pain (heavy/power metal)
Ephel Duath - Praha (jazz black metal)
Amon Amarth - Releasing Sutur's Fire (Melodic death)

Dibs

[B] Amon Amarth [/B] - Releasing Sutur's Fire

Could only find the stream version of this song, its of very very poor quality but I will try and critique as best I can.

Never really have been a fan of the death metal vocals but figured it was as better time as every to try and get used to them, but as usual I was not impressed.

The song starts very abruptly with very electronic sounding guitars (I’m unsure whether this is due to the poor sound quality or not) It all sounds like a blur. The Singer is screaming not growling so I appreciate it more than the low gutteral scream but still am not a huge fan as I can’t make out his words.

The gutters just seem to blend together throughout the verses and I’m not a huge fan, the riff changes at 2:00 and this is actually a pretty nice riff. The drums sintensify and the beat is continued on the snare. The guitar keeps the same structure of the riff but goes much deeper… I really like this interlude.

There are now pauses just before the guitar solo. The guitarist seems to be very technically accomplished but the beginning is not pleasing to the ear, however this becomes much better as it graduates and it gains structure and melody. It ends on the root note and the singer continues his barrage of screaming All in all a very nice solo.

Back into the verse where the riff seems just to be a blur. Still cannot make out what he is saying. Little change in drum fill at 4:00 minutes and the pace slows and it again sounds good, however the singer does ruin it. The drummer has quite a quick double pedal as well :thumb: It keeps this same riff fading out.

All in all I absolutely adored the instruments in this band, (accept in the verses) both the guitarist and the drummer sounded really good however once again as previously mentioned the vocals turned me off the genre again.

All in al 6/10

(I also must reiterate that poor quality mp3 could be the cause for the verses sounding so poor)

My Recommendations (as usual will edit with links)

Tool – The Patient (Progressive Rock/Metal)
[url]http://s31.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1XQEBKYMLL8U0171ILAAYVIWSQ[/url]

Dream Theater – Honor Thy Father (Metal)
[url]http://s31.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0PVP9RS5I7FIX0CQGZC6EPJZ5[/url]

Mudvayne – Pharmaecopia
[url]http://s31.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1VB366YN860Z21RZU5DZG16OL3[/url]


A Perfect Circle – The Noose
[url]http://s31.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=28D43X6V77UK50NIJNK7GO5I8P[/url]

dibs

on mudvayne, cause I'm a big fan of all the others, and have heard them many times.


my download program isn't working, s be patient, or if you want to , someone else can take dibs.
I'm not really a mudvayne person anyways

its uploaded now bro.

thanks :)

Does stranger have dibs or not?

Mudvayne - Pharmaecopia.

I would classify mudvayne as nu-metal, and full of pred-judices as I am.
I don’t like nu-metal, although these guys get some respect on the boards.
I’ve only heard two mudvayne songs before.

Well first of, for a nu-metal song it’s quite long: 5:34

It starts of with a guitar effect that meshuggah uses too.
After that some heavy bassing and drumming.
It’s quite nice.
At 0:25 the dude starts screaming, a lot of aggression in his voice, I don’t like his voice too much.
And all of the sudden he starts doing clean vocals, they sound a bit whiney IMO.
After that a lot of aggressive screaming again, his vocals become better now, I guess.
2:33 a soft part, with an effect on the vocals.
3:26 I love the bass work, sometimes it sounds as there are two basslines :confused:
And some weird vocal effect again.
After that some screaming.
I do like his singing in the end ‘we’re already dead to this world’
End after that is fades out.

Hhm
Not too bad, I didn’t like the over aggressive vocals, but the instrument parts were great.

4/5

My picks:

Isis – so did we ( atmospheric doom metal?)
[url]http://s14.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2XHC3XAXMDPO00YDXCTP9J3NYP[/url]
Finntroll - Den Hornkrönte Konungen (Rivfaders Tron) (folk metal)
[url]http://s26.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3IBJ9WZ37VFQE1SO14ROVB51FC[/url]
I’ll have a yousendit up in a bit



yup I had dibs, sorry it took me a while :p

bumb-orama

dibs.

[b]Finntroll - Den Hornkrönte Konungen[/b]

I've heard them before and would like to start listening to them because I've heard good things.

Begins with a cool little drum fill. Then a fast key board and guitar bit that is very melodic and fast. Then vocals enter. Very black metal. They are decent. There is a little keyboard solo that is alright, but far short of spectacular. Especially since it comes back again.

I like the drums, who's the drummer for this band?

A fast song. Not a lot happens until about halfway through, then there is a bit with lots of keyboards. I like this section a lot. There is a funny yell in there though, not a scream, a yell. Now into an even faster section that sounds like battle music. It's pretty cool.

Lots and lots of synths here. I can sort of hear the folk but I'd call it keys heavy black metal. The drummer is very good.

8/10

Arch Enemy - Black Earth (melodic death) [url]http://s14.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0YTSFZMSIVYW72TQVJ8ITHNXV7[/url]
Maudlin of the Well - Pondering a Wall (early work by avant garde metal masters) [url]http://s24.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3NCA4QXBX5EJ40H5LHOHHEIK94[/url]
Fantomas - Rosemary's Baby (Experimental Patton project Metal) [url]http://s16.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1K7620IZUETBN1BL2U9U73RRO6[/url]
Carnical in Coal - Yes! We Have Bananas (experimental carnival metal) [url]http://s22.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3IC5KM3YU8VPH2X372NQL8QD0N[/url]

Dibs.