Very strong fight, nice work everyone! I'm going to be that weirdo who submits reviews without actually being in the fight
Absolutely Credible: Fantastic fade-in and intro, but you lose me with the distorted bassline... looking at the other reviews, I am well aware I'm in the minority here, but I dunno, I just can't get into it and it really distracts me from anything else happening in the song. It kinda reminds me of
Collective Soul and seeing as there's no cat involved, I have some genre bias against it. I like the Casablancas vocals, and I love the guitar riffs that come in around a minute in. In general, I find the instrumental riffs in this song a lot more memorable than the main vocal. I guess nobody ever said the main vocal had to be memorable, just as long as SOMETHING is. So I'm on the fence about it! I think this is really well put together, but I just don't really enjoy the bassline.
Balance Lost: I love this, that main guitar part is SO good, and the change at the chorus is really nice. It doesn't feel as carefully arranged and produced as some of your tracks--my only complaint would be that I wish there were more of an arrangement/energy change at the choruses to go along with the melodic/key shift, it does feel like it kind of stays at the same intensity level the whole time. But this is one of my favorites of the fight overall.
BSS: I love Norman's smoky voice. This is really not my preferred genre, but I think you guys did a really nice job here. It reminds me of Sultans of Swing. The Rhodes is maybe my favorite bit--just the right amount of twinkliness to elevate the arrangement.
Break Broken: Very nice piano playing and singing, and I love the chord progression at the end of the prechorus lines. The lyrics and vocal delivery are really solid--I really love some of your images and phrases--"way below the water in a three-piece suit," "running eyes closed, hoping that my feet don't leave the path," "the breeze of a sword that barely missed." Nitpicks: the long held notes with the "eee" vowels often sound kind of unpleasantly nasal tone-wise, I would have liked a few more little arrangement treats in the background to mix up the textures a bit, and it really sounds like it belongs in a musical, which is not my favorite genre either... but overall I thought this was very good.
Eat it 'n' Mattress: 99% of my reviews so far have been "I have genre bias against this song," but oh man do I mean it this time, I really hate this type of slick, autotune-laden modern production. BUT you've balanced it with surreal, bizarre lyrics, and I'm really into that. I like the deranged bus driver's shining teeth in particular. (Also, you're in Green Bay, what?! You shoulda come to Song Fight Live!) Anyway, this is another maybe-vote struggling hard against my genre bias, I just can't get past the production despite really admiring the concept.
gizo: I love the laid-back, melancholy feel to this, and the cello. That's a really nice keyboard solo part in the middle, love the tone you picked! I do not really like that ever-present flanged synth thing in the background, I found myself constantly distracted by it. I think I would have liked a more organic, acoustic-sounding song on the whole, for this particular song... maybe not just guy-and-uke but maybe somewhere in between? Ocean waves samples could have been nice for a constant rushing noise, instead of the synth, though maybe that's too on-the-nose. The lyrics are pretty; my favorite part is the last part about the dreaming of the house, and the abrupt ending after you've sung "cut a short story shorter." Don't take this the wrong way, though, but to give you some meta-critique, your written descriptions on the forum--wind turbine, wattle bird, coffee and beach walks--seemed far more vivid and interesting to me than the actual song lyrics ended up being. I like it better when a song sounds like only one person could have written it, and these lyrics ended up being kind of generic and slightly cliched (golden light, early bird) in a way where it didn't sound as uniquely
you as I think it could have. The song itself could probably use a bit more dynamic changes in the arrangement or switch-ups in the melody, it did start to feel quite long (haha), but I really enjoyed it on the whole. [NB: I definitely have a song out there with the phrase "golden light" and possibly also one with "early bird" so pot kettle etc but I think my comments still stand]
Glenn Case: This scores pretty high on the yacht rock scale! I have to be in the right mood for that. I think this is nicely performed and arranged as usual, and you have some interesting, inventive chord progressions, but I dunno, I just kind of feel like I'm listening to Steely Dan, and you know how I feel about that.
This kind of falls into the "genre bias" bucket like so many of the other songs in the fight this week (do I just not like any genres, or what?!) The vocal sounds sort of excessively processed for my taste, too, too much tuning or EQ tweaks or something, not sure what it is but it doesn't sound as warm as some of your other vocals do.
glennny: This song rules, I like that swooshy synth intro and the abrupt dive into literary-joke hot club jazz still coupled with cheesy swooshings, it's ridiculous and I'm really into it. (I think I have genre bias in favor of this!) Nice playing, nice mix, I like that solo at 00:48. I'm not sure I'd ever listen to this outside of the Songfight context, but it was a very enjoyable excursion in context, one of my other favorites.
Hot Pink Halo: I love hearing your accent coming through, although the lead vocal feels a bit muffled. I'm not sure I'd really classify this as a rap, but it's at least adjacent
I love the weirdness and inventiveness of the arrangement, and the ideas you're exploring in the lyric (appreciate the "cotton on" pun as well). The chorus is too chaotic for my tastes, though... I understand what you're going for but it's just not very listenable for me.
Jonathan Mann: This is very cute and well crafted, but it just doesn't quite feel like it has lasting value to me... I appreciated it the first time through, but I can't say I would necessarily go back to listen to this. There's nothing to complain about musically, but I guess in the end it just kind of felt like a kid's song, or a novelty song, rather than something that meant anything to you emotionally, even though I'm sure the actual event did mean a lot, so it didn't really connect with me.
Leppakron: Whoever is playing lead guitar needs to chill for a minute, they are just noodling nonstop, in a way that is fun for the person playing and really not fun for the listener, and it is SO distracting from the other stuff going on. It's not nearly as much as in "Hope Against Hope" (which, thank you for posting the chords for that btw, I may or may not get around to that cover one day) but they could maybe at least limit the noodling to just in between the vocal lines or something? Anyway, I like the other stuff going on, although it doesn't feel totally done, it does have a bit of that jam session feel. The chorus is memorable to me, more than many of the other entries. The bouncy staccato parts of the song are my favorite. Parts of this reminded me a little of the Beatles but I can't quite put my finger on which song I'm thinking of. It also reminds me of "Drive" by the Cars, hahaha. (I'm just going to say this about every song of yours now.)
Lily Plus Martin: Great lyrics! Nice singing from both of you (I particularly like that little hoarse vocal catch on the line "God he doesn't see me"). I'm not a fan of the stuttery drums (insert genre bias complaint here) although I do like the glitchy vocal effects, and the radio static thing at the end, and the electric piano sounds nice. I think my main complaint is that the song doesn't really hang together for me as a whole--the lyrics are fine when you read through them, but listening, this feels like a bunch of disconnected parts kind of stuck together instead of an entire song that would make sense as a whole. Like if you played it for your "Lily + Martin MTV Unplugged" album on an acoustic guitar, I feel like it wouldn't quite gel.
The Magnetic Letters: "Herzog Zwei" is a very cool-sounding video game to namedrop. I wish the vocals were a little louder in the mix in general. I like the dive from that pretty intro into the chiptune madness, and this doesn't overstay its welcome. The higher-register synths might be a bit loud compared to the lower-end stuff, it feels a bit shrill, but overall I enjoyed it and I think I would enjoy it even more with a few mix tweaks.
Paco Del Stinko: This is great, I love the jangly guitar pop with those off-kilter flatted notes that keep it sounding like a classic Paco tune. I wish the vocals were mixed a little higher or brighter, something about the lead vocal quality sounds sort of oddly dull in the mix (backing vocals sound good though!) But I really like those Dracula-esque bridge vocals followed by the exuberant shreddy guitar solo. Probably one of my favorite Paco Del Stinko songs that I've heard.
Phillipso: I really like that main bass riff. I wanted to hear the vocals a bit more and the guitars a bit less--there's one on the left that seemed like it was jumping out of the mix at times. Wasn't particularly into the soloing, although it all sounded well performed. I loved the high guitar riff that starts around 3 minutes in, but then I didn't feel to me like the distorted guitar that came in shortly afterwards meshed super well with what the high guitar was doing, they seem like they are maybe playing in slightly different scales or something, and I was kind of sad about that. Overall I think I have a similar complaint for me as the Lily + Martin song, this has a lot of cool parts that I liked on their own, but it doesn't feel like a cohesive song to me.
Phlebia: I like the hypnotic tom groove. I'm on the fence about that medieval chanting stuff, it's atmospheric and all, but it also reminds me of Loreena McKennitt and Enigma and that whole period of the 90s where
Gregorian chants were briefly popular and I feel like I would rather leave that whole weird musical period in the past, even though I like "Return to Innocence." Also, I don't really like Tool, and the more this makes me think about Tool, the less I like it. On the other hand, the spoken word parts remind me of Slint and I love Slint, so I guess that all evens out. I love the banjo! More dark banjo jamz, please. I'm kind of inclined to vote for this on the basis of the banjo alone.
Pigfarmer Jr.: I like the chorus melody a lot, it's a little melancholy in this way that reminds me of Tom Petty. The piano solo is nice, although something in the mix makes it feel like it's not in the same room with everyone else. Good vocals! The lyrics felt pretty generic (see note above to gizo about wanting to hear words that only
you could have written), and some of the rhymes and phrasing felt too simple to me--same length lines, same rhyme sitting at the end of each line with the same length gap between--but they scanned and worked well with the music, I thought, so it works, I just think it could have been more lyrically/metrically complex. Anyway, this is a really nice one! I enjoyed it a lot.
Third Cat: This is lovely, the opening lines are so sad and evocative and direct in a way that really grabs you right off the bat. Nice use of delays and effects as usual, the repeated refrain at the end of the song works really well. I just wish this was longer--this is one of my favorites of this fight as well.
TOSHIRO: Your vocals remind me of Morrissey a bit, they have that crooner quality to them. Maybe they're a bit loud in the mix, though? I loved the alternation in this song between the quiet polite parts and the noisy MBV-style guitar assaults. Some additional layers in the quieter parts might be nice. I liked the melody in the choruses. This felt like it needed another section to me, I was taken by surprise by the ending, but overall I really enjoyed the song, particularly the noisy parts, which made me very happy every time they kicked in. (Another where I have genre bias in your favor, which makes me feel a little better about my huge pile of reviews at the beginning saying "this is good BUT I hate this kind of music")
Vom Vorton: This is lovely, I really love those detuned warbly keys. Also, is that really how you pronounce "Barbara" in England? If so I am SHOOK and I'm not even named Barbara. I really enjoyed this one musically, it was nicely produced and performed as always, and a pleasure to listen to--the lyrics are extremely silly, but the music is warm and pretty and gives you a lot to enjoy beyond the shaggy-dog joke. I will second the 69 Love Songs comparison!