Nur Ein XX Round Five "Invisible Ink"

[Niveous]

We are approaching the end game.

Title: Invisible Ink

Challenge: Write about a lie and how it was discovered.

Create a new original song from the prompt by June 22 at 11:59 PM Eastern.

Email your song to nurein.sidefight@gmail.com

[grumpymike]

Huh. I wonder if it's a lie written in invisible ink or something.

[Lunkhead]

Keep up the snark and we'll go back to giving out titles and challenges that are totally at odds with each other.

[grumpymike]

Don't threaten me with a good time.

[Caravan Ray]

Huh. I wonder if it's a lie written in invisible ink or something.

I am glad I am no longer involved. Grumpy Mike - keep fighting the good fight. In 5/8 time.

[BoffoYux]

Nur Ein XX Round Five "Invisible Ink"
Monday 6/23 Round 5 - 8:00 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVji950lz5I

[Niveous]

The songs are up.

[furrypedro]

To expand on the explanation in our notes in the lyric thread, mainly for the benefit of those who have not seen the movie Memento (spoiler alert!):

Spoiler

Leonard suffers from short-term memory loss as a result of head trauma suffered when being attacked by 2 assailants, one of whom raped and murdered his wife. Leonard is on a quest for revenge against the assailant and uses tattoos on his body (the "invisible ink" of the title, invisible because they are concealed beneath his shirt) to remember salient facts in his search. He frequently tells a story about another man, Sammy Jankis, who suffered the same memory-loss condition, which caused him to repeatedly administer insulin injections to his wife for her diabetes, causing her to lapse into a coma and die. It is revealed that Leonard was actually the one who killed his wife with insulin injections, and he created the story of Sammy as a way to cope with the guilt. Leonard also created the story of a murderer on whom he could exact revenge, something which he had done repeatedly on various victims after forgetting he had got revenge and thinking he still had to catch the killer.

[glennny]

Congrats Sober! Well done!

[carlo bruno jr]

Congrats to the survivors! I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens in the next two rounds; I'll be following them with a lot of interest. I must emphasize the high level of this edition.

I wanted to share with you all that this Nur Ein XX was super special for me. The XX is a really symbolic anniversary, and I wanted to be there. To do that, I had to dust off my studio after many years of not using it. I'd been focused on other things. I felt like I did well, and it seems the judges agreed, so thanks to them for their votes and reviews. It was kind of exhausting for me, but super satisfying. I'll try to bring Carlo back. Maybe for Nur Ein XXV?

[roymond]

Come back sooner than that, Carlo. Your entries were stellar, it was a joy to hear them!

[Mysteria]

I completely agree with Roymond, Carlo, and encourage you to come back sooner than Nur Ein XXV. I have very much enjoyed your entries and will continue to listen to some of them even after this edition of the Nur Ein concludes.

[Pigfarmer Jr]

Once again I start off by reading the lyric and getting an impression. This is not completely fair to the song since what is written on the page seldom reveals how well it works with music. Take what I say about them with a grain of salt as I don’t fully evaluate them until after I hear the song.

Berkeley Social Scene - I like this chorus. It doesn’t soar but it does rise over the verses very nicely. The piano sounds good. I like the drums quite a bit, not too flashy but works great with the song. This is mixed pretty darn well. That’s a tasty harmony at the end of the bridge. This is a solid song with good performances and a pretty darn good arrangement.
Lyric: I like the rhythm in the lyric on the page quite a bit. I’m not sure how I feel about the twist, how it’s written/relayed.


Carlo Bruno Jr. - A solid effort but not a whole lot is standing out while listening. The arrangement is good but fairly static/unchanging. I like the guitar on the right side but it seems just a hair unbalanced (that’s not to say it’s bad.) The 8th note groove in the drums seems incessant which helps drive the song but starts to feel a bit repetitive after a while. I like the guitars (tone/playing) a lot.
Lyric: The lyric works well enough for me. The reveal is maybe not the most elegantly done but, again, I think it works.


Cavedwellers - I like the doubled vocals but they seem out of sync, here or there. The rhythm is interesting but seems a little bit unsettled in the verses. Maybe the bass is slightly out of time in places? The chorus-y lead is tasty.
Lyric: I like the rhythm in this lyric as well. And I like the revelation here better than some other songs.


The Friends - This sounds very good right from the start. I like the arrangement, the slow build. The production sounds good, this is well crafted. Maybe going into the end is a bit abrupt? That crash cuts out all the sudden and takes me out of it a bit. Turns out the lyric you posted isn’t exactly what you sang.
Lyric: There are a few lines that don’t scan well on the written page. Using “all” twice in one line, “write me for my eyes alone”, for instance. I’m betting they’ll work much better with music. You have a good rhythm but it’s not quite as smooth as some of the others.


Grumpy Mike - Rawk! This reminds me of an old Green Day song but with a singer on a real downer, an almost resigned acceptance rather than angst. But it works so damn well this way. That is to say, I like the guitars, the harder edge to this song. I like the vocals. My only real nit is that when the music drops out the volume of the vocal seems a lot louder than with the music or maybe not as smooth a transition as I’d like. A few notes here and there are louder than others in the vocal, maybe the beginning of the second verse? I think the whoa oh’s could be layered or spread a bit better. When you add the extra vocals on them at the end, I like them a lot more. Still, this is one of the better entries of the challenge, I think.
Lyric: I like the lyric and I like your angle. It’s the most original so far.


Le Tits Now - The vocal sounds good, especially contrasted with the sparse beginning. This has a good arrangement, too, a nice build. The vocals get just a bit lost in the chorus with all the other instruments going all at once. Actually, I think it’s just the active guitar (especially in the right channel) distracting me a bit. I like the layered answering vocals a lot. Not sure there’s a lot here that’s memorable, though.
Lyric: I like that this is specific and that it works when not knowing the source at all. Using “Sammy” does take me out of it a hair but only because I think this would work marvelously without it (in the sense that my imagination could go most anywhere.)


Max Bombast - I’m digging the groove, especially on the chorus. The arrangement is cool. Your vocal is pretty darn good. Actually, all of the performances seem solid or better. But maybe this doesn’t sound glued together quite as well as some of your other entries. And not all of your choices are perfectly to my liking but I think you’ve nailed the songcraft (either in spite of or because of those differences.)
Lyric: Interesting take/angle. “Just because it’s wrong that doesn’t mean it isn’t right” seems contrary to the tercet that follows it, at least on the first read. The black/white line helps a little, I think. Not sure you hit the “how it was discovered” part of the challenge squarely on the head but it works for me.


Sober - I love the slowly evolving arrangement. The vocal goes from being solid to very expressive, a tasteful but compelling performance. Using the steel guitar right there is a nice touch, a good bit of prosody. The vocal gives some dynamic contrast that is sorely needed in a four minute song.
Lyric: Another interesting angle on the prompt. A good rhythm. This one probably had me the most interested in where it was going. This one might be my favorite lyric of the bunch.

[Lunkhead]

Life caught up with me and Erin the last few weeks but I am going to try to get belated, useless, after-the-fact comments out for rounds 5 and 6 anyway.

Berkeley Social Scene
I appreciate the idea of changing up styles. Nice backup vocals. Something seems a little off in the harmony in the second and final choruses. The lyrics are ok, I don't love the "one of my stans" lines, the sudden use of "modern" slang like that felt out of place. I like the guitar solo, the tone and effects on it are good, although I don't love the tapping downward bend ending, it sounds a little pitchy and maybe not a great fit for the song. Nice idea bringing in the synth for the final chorus. Good dramatic ending with the piano flourishes.

Carlo Bruno Jr.
Sounds like there are some tuning issues with or between the lead and rhythm guitars in the intro. Then with the vocal and the rhythm guitar on the right? Maybe it's just that guitar in general. The vocals sound a bit strained at times. The phrasing for me feels a little off kilter at times too. Nice guitar solo. I think the verses needed to maybe have more of a hook to them, they feel long in between the choruses, and then the chorus hook is for me just ok.

Cavedwellers
Mmmmm, Blue Nile. I miss Ethiopian food! I like the story. I really hate to say this, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but, Melvin just doesn't sound great. I'm shocked because I assumed he'd be a total ringer and nail it. I hope he's OK! Maybe the key was just not good for him or something. Unfortunately for me his performance didn't work and it took away from the song a lot. (Also in America we pronounce "lido" as "LEE-doh"...)

The Friends
This starts off frankly a bit corny. It's a little too straight and pop-country-ish for me, I guess I have some genre bias. The instrumentation plus the melodies and some of the lyrics are a little too pat. I like when the energy picks up for the "Everything that you say" part, it gets way more interesting to me there. I think you could have let that play out longer and not abruptly cut it off so soon. Or maybe switched to that sooner or otherwise made that sound a larger portion of the song overall. I think the coda would have worked better if you took longer to get to it.

Grumpy Mike
This is solid pop punk, with some more power pop sounds at times that i like more than the pop punk core. The start of the chorus gives me some Cheap Trick vibes. The way the band drops out going into the chorus sounds a little awkward. The chorus gets maybe a little too deep into the genre, starts to lose me. I know it's appropriate for the pop punk style to have the sort of disaffected delivery for the vocals but I wish there had been some time where you sounded more emotive.

Le Tits Now
Good take and good lyrics. Minor nitpick, but, "incapacity" sounds a bit awkward, maybe "inability" would have sounded smoother there. Anyway, good stuff all around, not a ton to say about it. I guess maybe I wish the treatment on the main vocals was a little different, like they could be a little drier and more prominent, I think.

Max Bombast
I didn't care much but I'm not 100% sure this meets the challenge that well. Telling somebody the things they are saying are not true is maybe not the same as someone discovering a lie? Anyway, per usual very solid work but for me the choruses didn't 100% sound coherent with the other parts of the song, tone wise. Maybe some different transition in/out of the chorus would smooth things over more and make the choruses blend in more with the song.

Sober
More solid work. Very much in the genre, maybe a bit too much for me though. The loud singing for the first lines of the choruses doesn't work for me, I almost want to hear things get softer there rather than more intense, like, quiet falsetto or something, cause the loud singing feels a little melodramatic there. And the line "fire up the stick and poke" is about something the narrator is going privately, so bringing things in and getting intimate seems like a better fit than shouting it out. I like the louder singing in the final verses though, it fits well there for me.