Cut To The Chase (Bone Saw Reviews)

[Pigfarmer Jr]

and tell us what you think.

[BoffoYux]

Looks like I'll be doing a Listening Party on Monday night if I get my shit together and fix the audio issues.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXmjwtBWNM

[Lunkhead]

Songs posted.

[Pigfarmer Jr]

6V6 Songs: I like the time signature and the rhythm. The mix is pretty darn muddy, the vox buried. The buzzy high end kind of hurt my ears (but the tinnitus may have something to do with that.) I liked the phrasing and the simple chorus melody which made the chorus work very well for me. The horns were a tasty touch. Ultimately this song is resulted in major ear fatigue. (It probably didn't help that I was on the motorcycle all morning, but I did rest before listening.)

The Overambitious: I like the pace of the vocal, although in a place or two the syllabic stresses are noticeable less smooth. I like that I can hear the vocal very clearly, but I wonder if they couldn't have a bit more depth without losing that clarity. It is hypocritical of me to say this, but at over 4:00 it seems to be just a hair longer than it needed to be. All that being said, I did enjoy listening. I liked the intro sound and sparse arrangement to start. I found myself listening again which must mean I liked it, right?

Nick Soma - I liked the rhythm and musical feel to start, but the vocal is UP in the mix to an extent that it's almost jarring until the chorus hit. I did like that chorus a lot. And the musical backdrop of the verses. Literally just a hair lower (or maybe depth) to the vocal and I like this a ton more. It's still good, though. I listened a second time and I think this might be one of my favorites of yours. You've done a pretty darn good job with it.

WreckdoM - Is songfight an excuse to just play? This sounds like you had fun. And it's funny. The more I listened the more I smiled.

Dark Side Of The Sun - I like the vocal delivery but it's a bit pitchy in a place or two. And the guitars got a bit monotonous after a bit. But I like the melody well enough and the higher register in the vocal suits your voice well. It's not a bad song by any means, but doesn't stand out.

Lichen Throat - What are you using for those hammered strings? You generally have interesting musical arrangements and this song is no different. I like the music quite a bit. While vocals suffer in comparison to the music, I think your phrasing here has improved from some of your previous entries.

Metaluna - RAWK! It's about time someone started bringing the rock. Instrumentals are tough in songfight. But boiling it down to a vote is easier. If I like it enough then I vote for it. And I enjoyed this. You're arrangement works well. The pacing was excellent.

dark side of the son - Is that a banjo? The strings are clashing just enough to make it too cluttered to enjoy (at least for me.) A simple blues is hard to pull off in songfight and I think you came dangerously close, but the muddy mix and the off timing strings fighting each other ultimately cost this song too much.

Vowl Sounds - Traditional folk isn't the easiest to pull off in a songfight. But any song that has me singing along with "bring to me my bone saw and I'll cut off his legs" has got to be a win in my book.

Tuners Union - I like the vocals, the layers work really well for me. It's a bit more laid back than I usually like, but I like it better the more I listen to it.

Pigfarmer Jr (me) - Well, it turned out a bit differently than I intended. I rushed it and it isn't quite what I heard in my head but I'll be honest, I like it.

[vowlvom]

Bonesaw Reviews
Tuners Union - absolutely love this, it's great. Those layered vocals are really unusual and there's an excellent sense of space in the music.

Wreckdom - enjoyed the different vocal approaches and the playful synths, but the slidy theremin-like sound is a bit overused. There's a fun sort of Devo vibe to a lot of this but it didn't quite hold together for me.

Pigfarmer Jr - very much like those military march-styled snare drums and the big fuzzy guitar chords, but the timing seems a little off at times. Generally an enjoyable listen though with some nice touches, the subtle chimes that kick in every now and again are cool.

Nick Soma - wonderfully produced and moodily composed. I rewatched Mulholland Drive for the first time in years on Friday night and I'm getting some Angelo Badalamenti vibes from those dreamy pads. Definitely feels 'cinematic' - really good stuff.

6V6 Songs - love this kind of hushed vocal - reminds me of Yo La Tengo. There's a downbeat emotional feel to this that I really enjoyed. I think that windswept filtered synth noise is a little overbearing at times and the fade-out at the end is a bit sudden, but other than that, I really loved this one.

dark side of the son - this nails that 'drunken bar-band blues' vibe, but the loose performance made it quite a hard listen for me.

Metaluna - stellar riffs but I have a really hard time listening to those machine-gun kicks. Liked the change into the mellower sound at the end, but think I'd have liked this more overall if there had been more shifts in dynamics during the main body of the song.

Vowl Sounds - this is me (and Owl). I bought a jaw harp just for this song! I now plan to use it on absolutely everything. First time I've ever tuned my guitar to DADGAD, also. Good fun.

Dark Side of the Sun - a decent song, think it maybe would have benefited from a more stripped down arrangement as the drums seem a big scattered and I found them a little distracting.

Lichen Throat - the best vocal I've heard from you so far (although it distorts a little at times, perhaps unintentionally?), and I remain charmed by the staccato sampled guitars. You have an interesting sound and I like hearing it!

The Overambitious - excellent, hyper-modern production and confident performance. The vocal doesn't quite match the quality of the instrumental for me, although I really like the quicker half-rapped sections.

Votes: Tuner's Union, Nick Soma, 6V6 Songs, Lichen Throat

[lichenthroat]

6V6 Songs - I really like this, but I'm not sure why. I usually perceive songs like this as rambling and unfocused, but that's not at all the case here. You're evidently working some secret alchemy that is beyond my understanding. Great melodies, great atmosphere. Vote.

dark side of the son - I think I have an anti-blues bias, so feel free to discount my opinion on this song. It appears to be a competently made song of the genre, but it's not a sound that I particularly enjoy.

Dark Side of the Sun - I like the vocal. More variety in the melody and guitar line would be welcome, but there are some very pleasant moments in here. More consistency (and greater density) in the rhythm section might be good.

Lichen Throat (me) - Not that it's good, but I think this may be my best vocal performance. I'm not sure what's going on with the weird distortion; maybe I've reached a limitation of my lousy microphone, but that may be giving me a little too much credit. I'm pretty happy with the instrumental fill bits. I tried to take a lot of inspiration from 10,000 Manics' "Maddox Table," but the final result doesn't seem particularly similar, aside from the lyrical subject matter. Finally, since a couple people have asked, my most of my guitar samples are from http://www.flamestudios.org/free/Soundfonts.

Metaluna - Well performed and recorded, as usual. It doesn't quite hold my interest all the way through, but I really like the section that begins at 2:29.

Nick Soma - I like the weird keyboard effects. The lyrical take is good, but some of the simple rhymes seem to act in opposition to the atmosphere of the subject matter, such as "car/far". On the other hand, the "bleaching lye" line is great. By the way, since your last entry, I downloaded your old SongFight and Nur Ein entires and I've become a huge Nick Soma fan. If there was any justice in this world, you'd be an indie rock superstar. Vote.

The Overambitious - Nice delivery on the fast portion of the vocal. Overall, I'm ambivalent about this song. There's an awful lot of good stuff in here, but the composition doesn't feel particularly purposeful. This song might be well served by building to more of a clear crescendo.

Pigfarmer Jr. - The screaming is appropriately disturbing. This improved a lot on the second listen for me. I'm not digging the chorus, but I like the verses quite a bit. Nice guitar tone. Vote.

Tuner's Union - This would be my favorite Steely Dan song, but I don't really like Steely Dan. This is a very well made song in a genre that I don't enjoy. A lot of people will like this, though, and they should, since it's impressively done.

Vowl Sounds - After one second of hearing this, i knew it would be my favorite of the week. Exquisite vocal performance. Great idea for the lyrics. I like the nineteenth century folk sound. I think the song might have been well served by being either more mournful or more lively, though. (Not necessarily both at once, obviously.) Vote.

WreckdoM - The lyrics are pretty funny. I had difficulty getting into the music, however.

[owl]

6v6: LOVE the synth solos, the round tone of the high (faux musical saw?) theremin-y synth with all the extra little swishy echoey noises in the background makes me feel warm inside. The whole song does, really, once it gets going, although it took me a minute or so to get into it. Great hooky melody. I wasn't really into the lyrics--the chorus felt sort of like a nonsense placeholder and I didn't like that. But overall I loved this one! I listened twice in a row and then I went back to listen again after listening to the others.

Metaluna: Nicely recorded, nicely put together. I'm not too into instrumentals and not too into metal, so it's not really my personal cup of tea, but I think you did a good job with this. I liked the ending part the best (starting around 2:45).

The Overambitious: I think the vocal doesn't seem to fit into the song terribly well, I'm not sure if this is performance or production or both. I liked the sweepy synthesizers! The instrumental production was very cool. "Am I just the accumulation of my fears" is a great line, but mostly I couldn't really make out the lyrics, you should post them in the lyrics thread because I bet there is cool stuff I'm missing. I didn't think there was anything bad about this, but I also just couldn't really engage with it for whatever reason.

Dark Side of the Son: There were some cool moments in the vocal performance here, I like how confident and devil-may-care it sounded. But the song itself felt sort of loose and meandering. I think in a traditional blues song like this I'd want it to either be super technically proficient or very innovative or interesting/weird in some other way, and it didn't really do either in the end for me.

Dark Side of the Sun: I think this started out strong, but like some other commenters, I got distracted by the way the drums seemed to be a bit off tempo from the rest of the song as it continued. The vocal and melody are nicely done, but I would have liked a hookier chorus and more variation in the dynamics, as after listening for a while it sort of felt like it was going nowhere. I think if you worked on this a bit more it would be really cool but it wasn't quite there yet for me.

Pigfarmer Jr.: This is great, it hooks you right away. I like the military drumbeat and the switch into the filtered psychedelic vocals and the little touches of bells. Well written, enough changes to keep you interested as it goes along. I would cut down slightly on the screaming, personally, I like it in the intro but it's distracting later on. One of my favorites of this batch!

Wreckdom: This is entertaining, I like the backwards speech bits, but ultimately I gotta say it's not something I would really want to return to listen to. The mosquito-ish synth is intensely annoying. But I like the sense of it feeling like some kind of odd art project, I was imagining it being played at a wine bar or a mall or something and everyone looking around in confusion and that mental image made me happy.

Tuners Union: Smooooooth! Very well produced, but it does also remind me of Steely Dan (whom I don't like and who are also great at production) right down to the lyrics that seem ironically dark for the style. Super well done, but it just doesn't do it for me personally, probably my genre bias.

Lichen Throat: Nice work! Love love love the lyrics, they're very evocative and the sad snowy city scenes remind me a bit of Simon and Garfunkel. I don't really like the hammering arpeggiated strings when they stay on the same note, but they're cool where they're moving around between notes a bit more. I wonder if shifting this up a couple of steps might suit your voice better? It wasn't terrible by any means, but it seemed like you were bottoming out a lot which made it sound kind of flat.

Vowl Sounds: Me and Vom! I wanted this to sound like something off the "O Brother, Where Art Thou" soundtrack and I think we succeeded in that. Old-timey folk music is not the coolest genre but I have a huge weakness for it, and this was a lot of fun to put together. The jaw harp apparently arrived with Vom just in the nick of time and I'm so happy we didn't have to settle for a sample! I kind of wanted to buy a dulcimer, but ended up being cheap and tuning my ukulele to ADDA to aid in the droney strings sound instead.

Nick Soma: Nicely done, the production is perfect for the mood and the story. The kind of cheery yet dark "beautiful day" bridge is amazing. The lyrics are pretty on-the-nose and I agree with lichenthroat that the rhymes seemed a bit simple, but overall I think it works. Great vocal and melody! I thought this was really good.

[Lunkhead]

Congrats Vowl Sounds!

[vowlvom]

Oh wow! That was a close one. I'd like to thank my jaw harp, which is now officially the most successful instrument I've ever owned.

[owl]

Sweet! That was super close, phew.