This was a very strong fight! Not everything totally clicked for me, but there was quite a lot I liked about every song this time, so deciding on who I'll vote for this time around is tough, no clear cutoff in my mind for who gets a vote so I might have to pick an arbitrary number X and figure out which are the top X songs in my mind. Lots of quality stuff.
Berkeley Social Scene: This is great! Right in my power poppy sweet spot genre-wise and it's really well executed. I love the melody/progression and the dynamic shifts in instrumentation between the sections--lots of nice space left in here, it moves along briskly and there's stuff to keep your interest all the way through in the arrangement, but every second hasn't been crammed chock full of flourishes. The mix and performances sound crisp and lively. The slidy bass intro is cool, distinctive without feeling self-indulgent. Writing-wise, I think the lyrics are serviceable, but don't seem compelling, and "secret unfolding" seems oddly stressed for some reason (I think "un" is held too long so it feels a little unnatural) but the vocal delivery works. The harmonies are nicely done, although I wanted more! Some BVs in the verse, and more/louder in the chorus, would have been lovely. I dig the chiming guitars that come in at the chorus. This is maybe my favorite of the fight.
Evil Grin: I like the writing in this song--"I wanted you to hold me but you only hold me down" is a great lyrical hook, and with the simple words and regretful tone, it sort of feels like it could be a cover of a lost Lucinda Williams track. I like the distorted guitar tone when it's on its own, but my main complaint about this song is that I think it would be much more effective if the fuzzy guitar were dialed back during the vocals--it's pretty constant and it steps on everything else in the mix. Maybe keeping it to some fills between lines or just in the chorus or something would help bring out the vox and other instruments. The rhythm of the guitars mostly follows the vocal in the chorus as far as emphasis, but I would enjoy hearing it more syncopated against that part. Anyway, this is good stuff, one of my favorite Evil Grin songs so far, I think.
gizo vs. the 17,455: Doot doot doot! So, speaking of sparse arrangements... There is barely anything going on here, arrangement-wise, but I love how well that lets you hear your vocals and your accent in that first verse particularly. (re: mic technique, I think your vocals are sounding good, I don't know if that's your mic technique or any different processing you've applied?) I love the story written between the lines, just a few images sketched out in the lyrics and the rest hovering implied in the gaps. Also the orchestral maneuvers at the end are wonderful, the soaring horns sound thrilling and I was so pleased by the little moment of strings, although I wanted it to build up into a huge, "A Day In the Life"-type crescendo. I think the pace works well for me through the first half of this song but I would have probably liked it to pick up just a bit more as it went along (probably didn't need both the pre-transition doots and the post-transition dahs around 1:30? Maybe the drums or vocal melody could change some more at that point? Maybe add some backing vocals or ornamental instrumental things between the main vocal lines in the last chorus?) I really liked this on the whole though.
Glenn Case: (deep breath before launching into huge run-on sentence:) OK so I had read the reviews to date but hadn't listened to everything yet, and I was listening to these in the car (thanks again to fluffy for making me aware of the podcast feed!) and this song came on and I remembered gizo's comment about knowing it was you within two chords, and I was like "oh yes that's Glenn for sure"! It has your usual interesting harmonization choices, clear production and excellent performances, and relaxed groove. The acoustic guitar sounds really good. (Oh and nice solo, mo, I like those parts where you kind of roll fluidly into the beginning of a phrase across notes.) There are some very slight moments of grit or imperfection to your vocals in this song that I think make them sound better than when they're 100% smooth, e.g. "you should know that it's more than just talk," the 2nd "even though I'm fighting" although they are all still on key and technically great.
Hot Pink Halo: This is interestingly chaotic and I kind of like the chaos (vertiginous!) The metallic chorused-out guitars in the beginning have an interesting, otherworldly, silvery feel although I think they could maybe be used a little more sparingly because of how very loud and distinctive they are--every time they come back in to punctuate between vocal lines it really draws your attention. The backing vocals are very nicely done throughout, subtle and smooth. The semi-rapped lead vocal has lots of character, although I think I would prefer it to sound a bit less processed so you can hear that coming through a bit better. The horns at 00:47 kind of feel like they're coming from a totally different song (reminds me of when my bandmate's amp would sometimes pick up bursts of the local Spanish-language radio station during practice), but I think it's a cool effect. The long notes being held from that part onward have an unsettling droney feeling, not sure what chord they're creating but it feels a bit ominous and at odds with the stuff on top (this to me is probably the main thing keeping it from having the alternating riffs and vocals vibe in the Oingo Boingo song you mentioned). This is such a creatively produced song, I think it would be cool to hear the echoing notes with some actual echo effect on them instead of the fairly dry vocals with the words repeated manually. I love the lyrics, very effective sound-wise.
The Kai Steines Band: I love the acoustic intro (which sounds excellent!) shifting into RAWK. I have to say though that for genre bias reasons, I don't particularly like the distorted guitar tone or the vocal style, so it doesn't do that much for me once it all gets going. Genre bias aside, the vocal melody all kind of hangs out around one note and I don't feel like the delivery is quite charismatic enough or the instrumentation textured enough to pull that off, so right now it feels kind of repetitive. The handclap breaks that do break it up a bit are great, though.
Leppakron: Excellent "Pirates of the Caribbean"-type lyrical take on the title, and good execution, too. This is probably my favorite Leppakron song I've heard yet. Everyone in the arrangement is rowing together, so to speak, all the instrumental choices feel deliberate and thought-out. I love the tin whistle solo, and what my ear tells me is a Mixolydian dip to a b7 in the melody (both the instrument and note IDs might very well be wrong but hopefully it's enough to tell you what I'm trying to refer to, at least). It seems like a good length as is, but even so, I kinda sorta wished for slightly more plot detail once they got to Skeleton Key and all the fun started--there are 3 framing verses and only 1 living skeletons verse really! We want more living skeletons!!! (oh and I'm guessing the issue with "disintegrate" mentioned upthread is that since it has that little descending run, it sounds a little like it accents "DIS" rather than "IN", but it didn't bother me personally, I thought the lyrics were good!) I would have liked a longer outro, it does feel to me like it stops sort of abruptly at the end; maybe another solo/instrumental break there would have been nice. But yeah, more living skeletons, please.
Lichen Throat: This is another one where I'm wondering about the story behind it because I feel like I'm missing some important reference. It has seduction and dead babies, there has to be a novel or something this is referring to, right? At least there's less I can actual Google this time, so this week I'm not going to waste a ton of time looking up things like the history of the Brandy Alexander on Wikipedia. These lyrics aren't my favorites of yours, though; they lack that super-visual, almost cinematic quality you have in the ones I like the best. Vocals sound much more on time/on key than the last fight. I like the opening riff with the fake banjo or whatever that is, and there's some good attention to syncopation and interlocking the various instrumental parts together in the arrangement, lots of interesting details. The phrasing of the "no mirror" lines reminded me of "Turning Japanese" ("no sex, no drugs, no wine, no women...") for a split second there! That little flute thing at ~00:52/1:56/3:12 is pretty great and I particularly like the little breakdown at 2:23ish where it comes in again over the bassline and it sounds kind of ominous.
Lily Plus Martin: I really like the acoustic guitar parts and the military snare, and there are some gorgeous melodic moments in here, like the high parts of "I can go..." through the "opens doors" parts. The subtle ebb and flow of the instruments in the arrangement is very well done. I always enjoy both your vocals, but Lily's vocals are soooo shimmeringly sweet and lovely in this tune in particular! But the stacks of vocal harmonies don't feel very tight, which kind of jumps out at you when the rest is so carefully produced. I like the imagery in the lyrics and the idea of destructive love, but they felt kind of clunky to me overall; certain words like "opportunity" or the repeated "remains" lines didn't feel like they flowed very well in the music, and again maybe because this is not a sloppy punk song but a kind of soft and deliberate piece that should feel poetic, so certain things like the phrase "break stuff" or "we don't need no stinking horses" felt unnatural to me in the context of the song, like the dress code was business casual and those lyrics rolled up in jorts.
The Magnetic Letters: I love all your little instrumental flourishes and melodies, there's something in there that reminds me of some 80's classic--"La Isla Bonita" maybe? Or maybe Toto, like someone else mentioned upthread. I also love the off-kilter, nostalgic but kind of disturbing storytelling, and this is maybe the only literal, non-metaphorical skeleton key of the fight, which automatically makes it an interesting take on the title. I do have the same complaint as I think I mentioned last time, which is that the lyrics don't feel terribly musical to me, or tightly related to this particular melody, like it could be any other random musical backing you picked out of a hat and improvised a tune on top of. I enjoyed the performances and general feel, but the meandering composition of the vocal is a bit hard to get over in what's ultimately a lyrically driven song (plus I do agree it's a bit hard to make out the words, although maybe this is partly a psychological perception thing due to the first line containing six proper names so that you're already fumbling to parse them right out of the gate if you're not reading along with the written lyrics).
miscellaneous owl: Yeah I'm not super happy with my mix either, it got really boomy and blown-out in the midrange and I'm well aware it could use a lot of EQ fixes, but I appreciate everyone confirming that, haha. (super boring navel gazing detail about what happened here: I was playing with this new dynamic EQ plugin I downloaded that's supposed to basically sidechain individual track EQs against each other to clear space in the mix, and then I turned it off because it was making the guitars sound like shit and causing a lot of weird pumping effects, but didn't have time to really fix the cascading issues coming from removing it. But I also forgot to re-render the bass track without it, so if you're wondering why the bass has all the clarity of melted ice cream, that's also why--I mean, yes you can hear there's bass there, I think, but I accidentally EQ'd out all the definition of the actual instrument. Oops.) But oh well, still learning and practicing. I feel pretty good about how the arrangement and actual song came out--the image of vertebrae as dots and dashes communicating a story, and the sort of bleepity synth as a callback to Morse Code noises, and the idea of self-defensive protective detritus like shells and umbrellas and guilt and art being left behind long after what makes us warm and alive has gone. I also did my best to play little arpeggios and riffs on the electric and not just hammer on chords on the beat as is my wont.
Moon Baby: I'm not really into this type of production, but you've done a nice job to my ear, it sounds very good and balanced, well polished. Fun textures and catchy melody. I would prefer the vocals to be a little bit less processed (no idea what you're saying), they somehow sound simultaneously quite loud in the mix and incomprehensible. But I'm probably not the right one to judge here because of genre bias, it makes it difficult... @applesandvodka has a lot of detailed advice that's probably much more useful than anything I have to say here. The lyrics, now that I'm looking them up, seem to not have a whole lot to do with the title (but I'll take your word for it that it was written for the fight and not just something previously recorded and thrown into this fight for kicks!)
Paco del Stinko: Hell yeah. I like the kind of rubberbandy sound to those distorted guitars and the rhythm guitar is so much fun. Are those castanets fulfilling the optional challenge? The breakdown is wonderfully dramatic and vocals sound great there. Lyrics are weird and great. I don't have a lot of specific things to say about this, but it's good stuff and one of my favorites of the fight as well.
Phlebia: Ooh, I like that lush retro synth at the start. I have a general bias against autotune/vocoder/other hyperprocessed vocals, but you've made this pretty charming with all the panning and sweeping and the general sweetness of the melody. I like the bubbling synths and the use of the pads to give it more atmosphere. (What does alenon mean?) For genre bias reasons I'm probably not going to have anything super helpful to say here, but this sounded good, nostalgic and enjoyable, made me want to go dancing with my friend Molly. I got distracted in the middle of this review going off and looking up articles about kandi bracelet etiquette btw.
Third Cat: The outro of this track is my favorite part--not sure exactly what's going on musically but it sounds like there are these periodic shifts to major key that feel like sunlight bursting through clouds. Again, I love the mix of acoustic guitar/vox and electronic everything else, a very nice combo. I think the high tambourine or hat or whatever it is is mixed a bit loud; works well in the more intense parts, but in the quieter parts of the mix it kind of takes over. I like the less-buried sound of your vocals in this track, you can hear them a bit better than usual, and I think that's nice. Pretty harmonies/backing vocals. The song itself doesn't feel like it goes a whole lot of places melodically, but it sounds damn good hanging around in the places it does go.
Tim Hinkle: Creepy drums! Like a monster breathing in a sewer. Your vocals are as warm and rich as ever, excellent vocal performance. Good melody--it has a medieval or 60's/70's folk-rock feel to it, along the lines of Jethro Tull, particularly the synth solo, which I really like. The guitars are extremely distracting to me the whole way through--that high, fuzzy tone draws attention to itself--I think they would have worked better clean and mixed a bit lower relative to the vocals. The rhythm parts and general arrangement could use a change-up or two--instrumentally, this kind of chugs along at the exact same pace and level throughout but I could imagine it really ebbing and flowing to match the elegant vocal line better. (I would personally also like to hear how it would sound if it were just a little bit faster.) I don't know what the lyrics mean, but I like the images they evoke, particularly that psychedelic-horror last verse.
Waikikis: Excellent bluesy performance all round! The vocals are particularly strong, but I also really enjoyed the groove and confidence of the keys. I'm not hugely into this kind of music, but I think you did a nice job. The spoken word parts are a bit low in the mix; the song could have benefitted from bringing them up closer to the same level as the sung vocals. The spoken and sung vox sound really disconnected right now, and also I feel like the vocals are either at 1 (spoken) or 100 (sung), there's not a lot of variation in the intensity of your singing; it's technically great, but it's also all warble and belt and vibrato 100% of the time, which is maybe a genre thing, but having a bit more variation in energy levels and delivery could help move the song along nicely. Actually, overall, I would have liked a bit more of a change in the arrangement (it feels very much at the exact same energy level throughout, including in the solo... maybe bringing instruments in and out, switching up the intensity, going to a sparser breakdown).
