Reviewssssss
Sorry I've been so slow getting these done, it's been busy!
Adam Adamant - I like the general sound of the instrumentation here, particularly your guitar, and including that kind of messy falling-apart ending, and your vocal delivery kind of reminds me of David Bowie. Catchy chorus, but didn't quite hold up to repeated listens for me, those lyrics felt a bit too throwaway. Performance-wise, it felt like you never got the rhythm or pitch totally nailed down and were always running to catch up just a bit; the la's and oh's felt kind of flat. I wish the vocal wasn't quite so heavily effected, it was just slightly too much for my ear and I found it a bit distracting. Enjoyable and meets the challenge but something about this felt not quite fully developed to me.
The Alleviators - I was intrigued by trying to figure out where this fit genre-wise, seems like a kind of mix of AOR, country, early-2000s indie, emo...? I like the duet structure but the male vocal performance doesn't hold up well to the female vox--feels off key and off time in various places, not as fluid, and the delivery seems too gravelly in parts to fit in well--it was a bit jarring when the male vox first came in. My husband heard this while I was listening through the first few songs and said he could imagine this being a huge commercial hit with a bit of tweaking to the performances. Aside from a few off harmonies, I love the closing chorus where you're singing together, very epic and joyful feel. The lyrics feel a bit generic overall, but all work in service of the song, but the venom and sugar lines are great and interesting turns of phrase. This is one of the songs that stood out to me and stuck with me after listening to everything, nice work.
Berkeley Social Scene - The guitar intro here makes a nice transition from the Alleviators track, I like it! My biggest issue with this song is the "bunny hop" sections that feel totally out of place and obviously just shoehorned in there in order to do a dual entry with the main songfight--I don't mind abrupt changes necessarily but this felt very forced to me. I do really like the verse and pre-chorus melody and chord progression, particularly that high note in the 3rd line of the verse, but they don't feel particularly upbeat/happy to me. I didn't care for the phaser effect on the "bunny hop" vocals--made them seem extra out of place--and there are some painfully audible tuning artifacts on the lead vocal as well that I found hard to listen to. Lyrically, some of the obviously nonsensical/first-draft lyrics were fine with me but the phrase "13th of Friday" annoyed me every time it came up, what does this mean?? I saw this meme recently about the sentence "More people have been to Paris than I have" that seems like it makes sense at first glance but really doesn't and this phrase made me think of that.
Boffo Yux Dudes - My husband heard this one too and said it reminded him of some tracks on the
Nuggets compilation of underground 60's garage band music. I found this kind of baffling to listen to but also endearing. A couple of degrees of separation from the "ooga chakas" in Blue Swede's "Hooked on a Feeling" (which I love) but doesn't ever quite get to a big, hooky payoff part. The vocals were nicely performed and mixed, but the instrumental felt too much like a canned band-in-a-box demo track to me, especially those big fake drum fills, which felt very distracting. I have no idea what the song has to do with the title, so if we were doing eliminations this round I probably would have scored you a lot lower, but this time around I let it slide as I enjoyed the song's personality and vibe.
Brown Word and the Big Whine - I like that little spoken part at the beginning but I'm not a huge fan of the sung vocal delivery through the rest of the song--works best for me where you have the harmonies going and/or the parts where you play with your delivery and attitude, like your vox flipping up at the end of a line. The drum fills have a similarly distracting quality to BYD's. I like the crunchiness of the guitars and at parts this reminds me of Bikini Kill. My biggest issue with this is that the lyrics feel like they were thrown in there at random; they flow like prose that someone asked you to deliver over music, not like song lyrics. Positive message, so I think you meet the challenge well from that standpoint, but the music again doesn't sound especially happy to me.
Cavedwellers - Love the arrangement, that intro is ear candy. The lyrics are what killed this a bit for me. If I listen without really paying attention I really enjoy the melody, music, and production of this song, but the lyrics just feel so cringey and filky to me and like a bit of a Norse mythology Wikipedia song--"how can we cram ALL these gods in here and make self-consciously clever puns about them?" Like, I get that you're trying to retell the origin story of Friday the 13th, but it mostly comes across as a list of a bunch of characters and facts about them. You do get credit for taking a more original approach than "what if Jason??" like so many of these other tunes (I'm not marking anyone down for other people having the same idea, but it did get old to listen to the umpteenth reference). And they're certainly not generic. But the lyrics just don't work for me overall. "Like his sister Hela / He was a hella blood-lusting fella" couplet just rubbed me the wrong way in more ways than I can even express, and I'm even a person who grew up using "hella" unironically. They don't really meet the challenge of being happy, either, although the music is cheery enough.
Drain Poets - Great opening, love the intro and those first couple of lines really grab you. You lost me a little when you got to the Bitcoin, too aggressively topical without being central to the song itself. I love the chorus aside from the "friggatriskadekaphobia" line which felt forced and jumped out at me on each listen. The rest of the lyrics go together well and I really enjoyed all the weird dog racing references--they flowed well despite their apparent awkwardness. The vocals fall flat in the bridge, but mostly work well for me in the rest. Excellent chorus melody. Honestly, upon writing up my notes, I think I probably under-ranked you (sorry, had to do all the listening and ranking in a hurry this week, but there aren't any eliminations this round at least), I think it was the Bitcoin. Meets the challenge nicely.
Elks of the Economy - I love that chorus melody and I'm a sucker for some vibraslap. Somehow this just felt a bit too washed out for me overall though, not enough dynamic shifts or punch to it, it seemed neither here nor there and ultimately felt kind of boring to me, and longer than its actual runtime even though I find it hard to point to anything wrong in particular (aside from another awkward usage of "friggatriskadekaphobia," but I think you barely get away with it here because of the skillful vocal delivery). Some nice details scattered through there, the little guitar accents, backing vocal swells, and keyboard solo are really tasty. (What is it with the weird sounding tom fills this round, though?) The vocals sounded a bit muffled, some elements of the mix seemed off, which I think hurts this song more because of the genre than if it were a lo-fi G&G number, just feels a bit jarring if it's not quite slick and clean enough production-wise. Meets the challenge, I think!
Glennny - Really nice jazzy guitar here, enjoyed the slidey leads and the bounce of the rest. I like the verse and chorus in isolation but they don't flow together very naturally to me. The ending feels unpleasantly abrupt, like you just fell off the stage or your shift ended and you walked out. I'm on the fence about the lyrics. They sound pretty interesting and flow well enough, but also feel a bit like a Wikipedia song, "how many bad omens can I fit into one tune?" I wish this didn't sound so muffled, I often don't mind that kind of thing but it did kind of affect my enjoyment of the tune or desire for repeat listens this time around. It was another one that ended up feeling longer than it actually was, despite it actually being quite short, I guess it didn't quite feel like you'd fully developed the song yet. Meets the challenge!
Jon Porobil - I'm a big sucker for that type of portamento-laden synth riff. I enjoyed the cheesy production (including the gated reverb on the drums, sorry Caravan Ray), those little touches of bells are lovely, but found the vocals kind of unappealing, there's some kind of slightly uncanny valley feel to them along with some musical theater vibes and it's a weird combo. Too processed-sounding, maybe? I would say they seem overly tuned, but there are also various pitchy moments that make me think they weren't tuned, or not tuned correctly? I think I kind of wished you were either singing higher or lower in your range; it's smooth enough, but something just seems off. The acoustic breakdown is a nice change in dynamics. The vocals in that part I guess were a bit more natural but also sounded a bit distorted to me, especially on the esses. (edit upon preview: probably your aggressive tuning there that you mentioned.) I like your prosody and rhythmic delivery--you do a good job matching lyrics to melody--and the imagery in the lyrics. Meets the challenge!
Lichen Throat - I like the instrumentation here overall, the drums in particular do a lot to carry this along nicely and I like how it gets a bit fuzzy later on, although there are a few programmed-sounding MIDI riffs that kind of take me out of the flow of the song. They just don't feel very natural, I'd love to hear more live performances of the parts, or at the very least "humanize" plugins applied to the MIDI tracks or manually going in and adjusting timing and velocity a bit. The vocals have the same timing and pitch issues I've often mentioned before. I think lyrics are usually your strong suit, but I didn't care for them this time. The couplets, like "alley" and "Sally," often feel like a children's nursery rhyme, and it's the same kind of Wikipedia approach to lyrics that I complained about in a few of the other reviews. The music sounds fairly dark to me, although the lyrics are essentially positive.
The Lowest Bitter - The phrase "tulip wilting in the incel's hand" is maybe my favorite lyric this round. Just *chef's kiss* along with the exuberant schadenfreude showcased in the lyrics that feels like it's actually personal and sincere, compared to many of the songs this round that felt like writing assignments (which they are, but they don't need to sound that way). Lots of good synth twinkles and ebbs and flows, but I guess my main issue was that I could never get the melody aside from the "uh-huh" to stay in my head between listens, even though it was all enjoyable along the way and the arrangement is lovely overall.
Lunkhead - This was just a fun listen, kinda poppy horror-punk in the vein of the Misfits, I really enjoyed the crunchy guitars and the bouncy vocal melody--the pauses on the "good at it" and "get used to it" parts work really well with the overall flow. The lyrics are goofy and light, again not as original as some takes (although who would have known that before submitting?) but it works, and the "fornicating"/"waiting" rhyme made me laugh. Your voice sounds good where it dips down into that deeper register. Meets the challenge nicely.
Mandibles - I couldn't get into this at all--the cheesiness of it kind of reminds me of Randy Newman (not a fan), and the vocals felt excessively shrill and overblown compared to what i think the rather easygoing style of the music would have called for (regardless of my feelings about the cheese). More suited for Ride of the Valkyries than this tune. The idea of all the different horror movie characters in a town together is a more inventive take than one of the completely straight Jason interpretations, but the "mystical, magical, miracle Friday" line just felt too cheesy for me and I wasn't entirely clear why the Friday was significant in the setting of the song. The distorted bridge felt baffling and didn't seem to fit. Didn't care for the laughing at the end, either, it just kind of oozed Theater Kid. This is probably exactly what you're going for, but musical theater type songs will run into severe genre bias on my part.
Moss Palace - Great production, arrangement, and performance, this is probably the strongest entry of the round as far as overall polish. The "december"/"remember" rhyme and overall vibe kind of make me think of Earth, Wind, and Fire. Really enjoyed the groove and swagger of the music, especially those rhythm guitars and backing vocal accents. The breakdown and buildup work really well. This stands out from the pack in terms of genre and general sound. The lyrics felt a bit too vague for me, but they flow well with the music.
Nick Soma - Some realllly awkward lyrics in here ("a fact because so I say," "chaos to be unfurled," "servant indentured" not to mention the way "servant" is delivered as "ser-VANT") but ultimately I still found this quite fun and endearing in the end. The cat of doom probably helped, and I also really liked the melody/chord progression/flow of the "major havoc" line.
Night Sky - I like the sax in theory, but it's too high in the mix in general, especially those bari stabs that end up sounding kind of farty, and goes on too long for my tastes--would have preferred those sax solos to be quite a bit shorter. This stands out in terms of general sound and happy vibes, but I just feel like the execution of the song overall was off, didn't quite seem like everything was grooving together, and it seemingly just kinda ran out of ideas and ended--you didn't really sell it enough. The lyrics are happy enough but seem kind of tossed off and I'm never really a fan of those braggadocious kinds of lyrics where the narrator talks about how great they are.
Stacking Theory - This does not really sound happy to me, more ominous and discordantly post-punk. I found the "happy happy happy" part both annoying and sort of hard to understand as I was listening. I think maybe because it reminds me of that "I know I know I know" part in Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" so I kept parsing this as "I pee I pee I pee" when I was listening without paying attention? I like the general sound and how it eventually gets noisy and then quiet, but it felt like it failed the prompt in terms of mood and the lyrics and chorus melody ultimately just felt kind of lazy, or like they were trying to be subversive but not quite succeeding.
Virgo Power - I found this more compelling than I think I probably should have. Did NOT like the lyrics in the "Fri-yay" line as it feels like something I'd see printed on a plaque in Home Goods or Marshalls, but I enjoyed the other lyrics despite the kind of "list of bad things" nature of them that I've complained about in other reviews--you curated a good, interesting-sounding set of unlucky things, so those parts actually do work for me. The main issue I had is that the arrangement is just too minimalist for me. I like the omnichord, but really I wanted more stuff going on in the mix--this just sounds like it took about 5 minutes to make as a demo and you weren't done with it yet. I think you could do better--if you can play omnichord you can fake up a few more instruments on keyboard, or multitrack some different parts with the omnichord, or just pull everything back so it feels intentional that it's so empty. But I found the melody and chord progression in the chorus a lot more memorable and appealing than in many of the other songs that felt more finished and fully realized, that major to minor movement is cool.
Vom Vorton - My firm favorite of the round--the guitar work is really charming and the synths add some really nice texture and movement. It's catchy and cheerful, and the oddly specific concept works really well with the title and challenge. I'm struggling a bit for criticisms but the emphasis on "July" seemed a bit odd to me, came across more as "JU-ly" than "Ju-LY". I forgot until I was about to post this and was glancing at the other reviews that you mentioned you had played real drums on this, they sound so good! I wouldn't have realized they were played slower and sped up. Very nice!
What is this trash???
but this is one of the best of the round I think. Slidey guitar harmonies are nice and remind me of Clouds Taste Metallic-era Flaming Lips.
and I refuse to fake it in GarageBand. (I have a different "band" for that.) re: arrangement, that's entirely fair. I ad-libbed the "ba ba ba" parts in the bridge and then tried to re-use them (by digitally copying and pasting them) in the last chorus, which was HIGHLY suspect vis-a-vis both pitch (since they weren't being sung over the same accompaniment notes) and timing. Literally did that in the last 2 minutes before submitting, and I regret it now as I think it made the song worse instead of better, but the concept was cute and I could have re-recorded those in a better pitch had I more time. Wish I had given myself at least 1 extra day for tweaks because I am sure I could have made the arrangement better or at least reconsidered my editing/mixing choices. 
