CLFPM = composition, lyrics, subjective feeling, performance, mix/production. See my signature for details.
I ran out of time towards the end, so some of the reviews are briefer that I wanted them to be. Sorry. But at least here they finally are.
A Far Off Land -- at this point it'd be unfair to rate this, because I'm half asleep (this is one of the last songs in my playlist for the reviews) and I find it hard to concentrate on the good points. So, a few points: weak vocals that are also buried in the mix. Apart from that, good levels. Arrangement/development works. Good use of reverb. If it appealed to me more I'd definitely have voted for it.
Architects of Desire -- 14/15
C:3 (That's a daring combination of instruments. Works out very well. Interesting song. Good arrangement.) L:* F:3 (I can't really find anything that isn't great about this song.) P:3 (I would complain about the boringly soft vocals, but it actually works pretty well with the pitch correction effect. Intonation seems to be very good... of course pitch correction tends to make it hard to tell.) M:3
Balance Lost -- 10/15
C:2 (Nice. Not deliriously awesome.) L:* F:2 (This is nice, but is it that busy just to be busy?) P:2 (Your vocals are stuck in your throat.) M:2 (Mid to mid-high frequencies are way overdominant. Headachy stuff.)
Barton Stink -- Relentless sub-bass (during verse) is painful. I'm listening on headphones here, and it makes it REALLY hard to listen to the song. Sorry, I can't review this.
Chthonic Youth -- 10/15
C:1 (So is anything actually happening here?) L:1 (This approach bores me.) F:2 (This feels energetic and everything, yet completely forgettable, probably due to the way it's composed.) P:3 (Vocals could use some more energy.) M:3 (Jeebus your mixes are loud! Stop killing my ears! Vocals could use a bit of boosting.)
c.layne -- 13/15
C:3 (Very nice arrangement. In the section with only drums and bass, the random background vocals seemed a little bit out of place. I suppose it fits this kind of song to not do much in it musically -- the overall structure is pretty simple --, but I wouldn't be me if I gave minus points anyway. Nah, kidding. I like it too much.) L:* F:3 (The ambient mood this creates is pretty darn cool.) P:2 (Good on you figuring out that falsetto can be really beefed up by double-tracking it. Actually sounds pretty nice, but I would have wished for some kind of buildup or development in the vocals.) M:3
Cobalt Stomach -- 9/15
C:2 (Slightly boring.) L:0 (Not yours.) F:2 (I like it, but I think it could do what it does better.) P:2 (Vocals are unsteady. Parts of them sound a bit dopey.) M:3 (Vocals could use a slight boost.)
Fortune's Favorite -- 6/15
C:1 (I can't make out much of a composition. There's a sequence of chords and something that might be interpreted as a melody that does not seem to correlate.) L:1 (I'm not one for cryptic lyrics.) F:1 (It doesn't quite sound randomly generated... but it doesn't seem all that far from it.) P:1 (Intonation is horrible. Timbre and resonance are completely average. At least emotions shines through once or twice.) M:2 (Extremely thin vocals sort of clash with the very rich sound of the accompaniment.)
The Interchangeables -- 11/15
C:2 (Pretty generic. Not bad, mind. Just not special. Would have benefited a lot from a bass, I think.) L:3 (These lyrics are almost too clichéd to stomach. Luckily you save it with totally stabbing this kind of song in the back. I can appreciate a good backstabbing.) F:1 (On and on it goes... oh, I wasn't really listening just now, sorry. Oh, it's over already? I missed most of the song, but I don't think I really missed anything.) P:2 (Wobbly vocals. I get the feeling you're trying to tack substance onto falsetto. It works to some extent, but using the full voice tends to work much better.) M:3 (Nothing worth discussing here.)
James Owens -- 11/15
C:3 (Interesting progressions. Nice rhythmic tricks. There is enough compositionally interesting stuff in this for me to forgive the rather simple structure.) L:2 (Yodaing a line just to make it rhyme? Eh. I imagine you were trying to play on the ambiguity of the line "keep all your promises to yourself", but I don't think that works just by shuffling it up a bit. Might have needed some other line to work up to it.) F:2 (I like this in principle, but it misses dynamics... both in the typical sense and in the sense of having a development in how "big" it sounds. "Angels" by Robbie Williams might be a good example.) P:2 (The vocals are wimpy and wobbly. Singing softly can sounds orders of magnitude better, done correctly.) M:2 (Or you could at least have compressed the vocals more strongly. And perhaps slightly boosted the drums levels. Everything but the vocals has tons of reverbs; makes them stick out a bit in what's probably not a good way.)
James Owens second mix -- great embiggenment! That's exactly what I was talking about, and I didn't read any of the other feedback before writing my review. I stick with my comment about wimpy vocals, though, even though it's definitely better now.
Jeff Robertson and the Neo-Candylanders -- 13/15
C:2 (Doesn't really stand out. Good arrangement, enjoyable, slighly forgettable.) L:2 (No complaints about the lyrics, really, but they completely fail to interest me.) F:3 (Very upbeat, very energetic, very sunshiney.) P:3 M:3
King Arthur -- 12/15
C:3 (You do lots of things well. For example, the different elements on the song are different but not enough to sound disconnected. All the small things in the arrangement are there. The song's structure is simple and the composition is nothing to scoff at. Now if only it didn't remind me so much of schlager music...) L:* F:2 (I like the way this sounds, but only briefly, then it gets decidedly unspectacular. I don't know whether it's due to the robotic-sounding drums or, well, it doesn't really matter. The whole backing track has no soul, and I don't really have any clever ideas on how to change that.) P:3 (Vocals are very slightly wobbly, and slightly more so on higher notes.) M:2 (I think you're overdoing the reverb on the vocals here. It pretty much sticks out. Reverb isn't supposed to stick out in this kind of music.)
LML -- /15
C:2 (I can see how this is similar to Lady Gaga. As a song it's decent to listen to, though nothing really happens in either arrangement or structure to keep my interest.) L:* F: P:3 (The vocals have a kind of micro-wobble in them on sustained notes. I don't really like it, but I guess one might construe it as "by design". The filter sweeps on the synths could be less harsh.) M:2 (Vocals need boosting. More compression! They also sound a bit thin, probably due to a sub-par mic. Boosting somewhere around 100-400 Hz might help. Unless you wanted it to sound that thin, in which case I'll say that few songs benefit from having that kind of effect from beginning to end. Also, it might have been fitting to the genre to use aggressive pitch correction to eliminate all humanness from the vocals.)
Lucky Spoon -- spoken vocals buried/clippy/thin. Mix is extremely muddy in what I think is the lower end of the spectrum. At this point I can't really get into the song, which is mostly my fault. I like quite a few things you did there, e.g. the choir-y vocals and a few developments in the melody were pretty cool, too.
Manhattan Glutton -- 13/15
C:3 (Interesting. Bouncy. If the term "fan service" wasn't already used for something else, this would be it. Great arrangement, but I think the choir kind of sound in the chorus could have been much greater had the chords been structured differently. I often experiment a lot with that sort of stuff. For example, to me, G-D-B often sounds much nicer than, for example, B-G-D.) L:3 (I was going to complain about preachiness, but the chorus definitely fixes that. Now this song practically oozes enlightenment.) F:2 (Something feels incomplete about this, but I really, really can't put my finger on it. Perhaps it's just because I'm imagining the last run of the chorus with brass instruments...) P:3 (Sounds to me like "half chest voice". It does have chestiness in it, but not nearly the amount it could have. The vocals are very good, mind, but they could be much awesomer.) M:2 (Piano and vocals obscure each other by dominating roughly the same frequencies. Cutting some of the piano's spectrum away might help. Oh, and boost the lead vocals.)
I just read Ross's review and I suppose he put in words what I couldn't: what seems to be missing is authenticity.
MENBAH! -- 9/15
C:2 (Nice buildup in arrangement. Verses are not very exciting. The chorus is very cool.) L:* F:2 (For me this lacks cohesiveness. At times it sounds sort of loosely taped together. I can dig the overall vibe, though.) P:1 (The drum stuff almost rhythmically fits the rhythm of the other performances. The key word being "almost". Whenever it works it's clever enough. Whenever it doesn't, I just shudder. Lead vocals are not very good. The timing in some of the choral takes is pretty loose, and the lowest take is pretty shaky near the end. Better breath control is likely to fix that. Backup vocals during verses are a bit shaky, too.) M:2 (The choral parts are pretty harsh on the ears, and if I had to guess, I'd say a large part of that is the low MP3 bitrate. The syncopated guitar in the right channel might be feeling a bit lonely. Various drum kit samples don't seem to fit together. The mix gets a bit muddled at the top of the instrumental buildup near the end.)
Mister Mann -- 11/15
C:2 (Does this actually go anywhere? I liked when the bass came in, but then it disappeared again and we were back to the old thing. Yawn. At least it sounds pretty. Ah, there is actual buildup now! But not much of it.) L:* F:2 (I really, really enjoyed it, and then it just dragged on and on.) P:2 (Uneven timing on guitar. You can't really afford to do that when the guitar solos. Boring falsetto-y vocals, though the intonation is pretty damn good. Swallowing noises. Tongue noises. Bass seems to be tuned differently from guitar.) M:3
Montana Fudge with James Peen -- 7/15
C:2 (Decent.) L:0 (Very cute.) F:2 (Nothing grabs me here. Background music.) P:2 (Vocals are jerky.) M:1 (Vocals are buried. Don't use pitch correction if you're not good at using it.)
Ross Durand -- 14/15
C:3 (Pretty interaction between guitars. Great arrangement.) L:2 (You probably already knew what I'd say about these lyrics, so I'll just save myself the typing.
) F:3 (I dig this.) P:3 (I can only really think of one nit: the background "aaa" vocals on "But promises are only as good [...]" are a bit unsteady.) M:3
State Shirt -- 12/15
C:2 (Lots of attention to detail in the arrangement. It all fits together beautifully, except for the crunchy/growly break which totally doesn't work for me.) L:* F:3 (Quite immersive. Great job.) P:3 (Great vocals, but a bit on the nasal side) M:2 (Distorts at high power levels. You can clearly hear it in some of the kicks/snares/crashes near the end.)
Styop Quoons -- listening to that felt like a major waste of time. 6/15
C:0 (Too dissonant for me. Also boring.) L:* F:0 (Too dissonant for me.) P:2 (I don't know what to say about this. About the only thing I can say is that I find the inflection entirely too artificial in some lines.) M:2 (Vocals slightly buried and very buried while they're panned left.)
Therman -- 10/15
C:2 (Not really bad in any way, but I feel a yawn coming up.) L:1 (Things that stick out here for me: accentuation and cadences in the chorus are pretty weird, in a way that doesn't come across as deliberate. Also, the lyrics have a pointillistic quality, only what emerges is not really any clear figure. The tons of not-quite-rhymes are iffy.) F:2 (Eh. It's loud and also loud, and nothing much else happens.) P:3 (Great background vocals.) M:2 (Vocals buried. Some nice guitar stereoification.)
Torrentz -- 13/15
C:3 (Great arrangement. Nice development. The chorus is extremely rememberable.) L:* F:2 (Grooves.) P:3 (Great performing. I could imagine the vocals with a bit more timbre, but that's just the difference between great and extremely awesome.) M:3 (The mix has an "in your face" quality. Very up front... nice. I wouldn't have put all the guitars to the right. Did you, by any chance, try to use delay-based stereo faking, putting the non-delayed signal in the right channel? Tricky to get to work correctly. Vocals are slightly telephony. I think that in the chorus, the master level has pumping artifacts whenever the kick drum appears, especially on the very first kick.)
Ux Mpuzm -- 10/15
C:2 (Dull arrangement. Generally not much going on here. Interesting rhythmic jumps.) L:* F:2 (I keep waiting for something to happen but nothing does.) P:2 (Vocal intonation isn't very good.) M:2 (Plosives. Apart from that, decent levels, though.)
Wages -- 9/15
C:2 (Arrangement and/or playing could benefit from more things happening, if that doesn't sound too flippant. I like the composition, anyway. I think it would benefit much from being more focused... it sort of just flows along here. Try giving it a bit more structure, e.g. more consistently using different guitar patterns in verse vs. chorus, and don't just leave the pauses hanging with nothing whatsoever.) L:2 (Rather cryptic. I mean, I get the basic idea: some person who's promising great things but never fulfills the promises. But you add a lot of embellishment where I just go "what the hell? What's that supposed to mean?") F:2 (It's _okay_. Too many rough edges, especially vocals, for anything more.) P:1 (Some of the vocal phrases sound pretty good. Some sound pretty bad. Didn't you say you never really practiced your vocal takes all that much? Might make sense to change that, both for vocals and guitar (guitar doesn't really sound bad, just amateurish). You wouldn't believe the number of takes I throw away in some of my songs... but it's getting less. All that listening over and over and redoing it is paying off, I think. Or I have just been lowering my standards.) M:2 (The double-tracking (or reverb? Or delay?) sounds pretty phasey. Takes away quite a lot from the overall sound.)
The Weakest Suit -- 10/15
C:2 (I almost always like the songs you write, and you almost always use some stylistic specialities of yours. I'd love to hear more songs from you that are a bit less predictable in overall structure.) L:2 (I'm a hard time saying anything about those lyrics. I like what reads to me as an interesting blend of encouraging and critical, but randomly mixing different languages is a cardinal sin. For some reason it bothers me much less in the verse than in the chorus, probably because it's much harder to fill in the blanks in the chorus.) F:1 (I see what you did there with the "lasers", and it's clever. But I don't see it doing your song any favours.) P:3 (There is definitely more energy in the vocals here. Good going. Probably feels a bit like it sticks in your throat, though, doesn't it? I really regret not being able to share my insights in vocal technique via text. Free vocal lessons for any Song Fighter who ever visits me.) M:2 (False start with clickety-click noises? Boo! Also I think adding chorus effects to vocals should not ever be done for anything but, well, effect. It certainly doesn't make vocals better.)
WTFBBS -- Those vocals are horrible. Some of that is due to the microphone, I guess. Anyway, there is almost no degree of voice acting to be found here. You're stumbling a bit over the vocal rhythms. I can't follow the lyrics due to lack of concentration.
Bingy Swirley -- 10/15
C:2 (The writing doesn't appeal to me. It's not actually bad, but I don't have time to analyze it in depth beyond my impression. Tough luck and all that. Oh, and it sort of outstays its welcome.) L:* F:2 (The song plays and it's hard to not skip forward. Because it just doesn't go anywhere.) P:2 (I almost gave you full marks here. If you find it unfair that I didn't because you went outside your vocal range, you can sue me.) M:2 (Vocals sound way thin. Everything else sounds far away. Not a great combination.)
The Sober Irishman -- 12/15
C:2 (Perhaps this comes with the genre... this is all nice to listen to and it doesn't really drag on and on, but it's not so interesting that I'd want to listen to it again.) L:* F:3 (All in all this is pretty cool. I'm missing something, though... perhaps more variation, or more somethings, in the arrangement. I'm not quite sure.) P:2 (Something bugs me about the combination of background vocals in the chorus... and it's not just the yodely falsetto. Everything else is pretty stellar.) M:3
Suckweasel -- 14/15
C:3 (It got elevated from good to great when the sort-of guitar solo came up, it's just such a great fit.) L:2 (These might have been too emo-y, but in a fairly light song it works quite well.) F:3 (It has just the right length and just the right feel to it. Spoken word ending doesn't work for me.) P:3 (This is pretty great. It could be greater than great with a bit of vocal training. Cool guitar playing.) M:3
Voting for Architects of Desire, c.layne, Jeff Robertson and the Neo-Candylanders, Manhattan Glutton, Ross Durand, Torrentz. Would have voted for Suckweasel.
Oh, and I promise to post a few sample clips shortly so you see what I mean by the heaps of complaints about vocals that I've been including in reviews lately.
