These reviews were written in fits and starts over several days, and reflect changing moods, and possibly mood-altering substances. YMMV. Hope I don't piss anybody off, but remember, don't take it personally. I'm just some jerk on the Internet.
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Add - Pleasantly boppy song with personality. Constructed in a way that sustains interest. I like the manic singing, and the interplay in the minimalist lead solos. Crisp, fresh sound.
Balance Lost - Interesting variations; rich, busy arrangement. The recording feels overdriven, a little crowded in the midrange. Reading the words, I like your take on the title; the anger and aggressiveness come through in the performance, to the extent that the tune allows, but the tune actually feels pretty happy.
Berkeley Social Scene - Clean, open arrangement. Pretty introduction. The chorus is noteworthy for a sound that successfully straddles indie and pop. Nice Fripp-style lead.
Big Matt Hyatt and his Rusty Red Riders - Needs a heckler telling the front man to get on with it. . .
Boffo Yux Dudes - You probably don't remember "I feel like I'm sitting on a time bomb, baby" by the one-hit-wonder Europop group Lake. I do, which gets in the way for me. But your mood is more B-52's (appropriately enough for this title). Enjoying the rude lyrics. The vocal delivery feels appropriate here; in a straighter song, the swooping and imperfectly achieved notes might be an issue. Vocals are high in the mix; the recording would benefit from more presence in the instruments. Good punchy bass line in the chorus. Nice fade.
Caravan Ray - Groovy mood set by the lick, the rhythm, the arrangements. I like your lyrics. "Ten thousand people" wants rich harmonies. Fun tune.
Chiron Return - Parts of this sound like the Elvis Costello-Burt Bacharach collaboration. Impressive and imaginative harmonic developments, good arranging (except for some of the crazy vocals). The production is a bit washed out, not enough spectral range or contrast. Six minutes is more than the material can really carry; the song could be tightened up.
c.layne - Sweet voice. Tuneful song. The chorus starts off very Pink Ployd, but the closing "I'll never let you go" is outstandingly pretty and moving. Tasteful lead work, struggling a bit with the dissonance. The three-note semitone ride-up that appears here and there could have more oomph. Man, that chorus really sells this one.
Codpeace - No shortage of energy from this performer! Great hard-driving punk guitars and drums in a mixup with classic wailing leads, demented vocal enthusiasm.
DJ Ranger Den - An instrumental, but still in the running because it
is an art bomb. The watery impressionism of the piano, punctuated by small, dry percussive sounds, creates a sonic space that defies its own impossibility. What emerges is a dreamlike passage through uncomprehended events. As for what the piano is doing, with its amorphous post-Ravelian swirls, that would be amazing even without the LFO filter.
Flvxxvm Florvm - HEY! I see Russian folk dancers. Another of several instrumentals in this fight; good, high-spirited work, da. Loosely inspired by Falla's Ritual Fire Dance? HEY! Is that Norton and Ralph?
Foobar - Very Lou Reed. The lyrics are clever. The performances are good, although sometimes a misplaced, slightly flakey falsetto disturbs the gritty, purposeful atmosphere. The mix sounds great. Stays interesting. Good song.
Frontalittle Squad - Consistent sound and mood across varied sections. Persuasive rapping, nice groove, engaging chorus. Good job all round.
Glad Baggage - High-energy contribution. The song is not outstanding in any particular way, but fun to listen to. The offbeat scan of "art bomb" and the scratchy bad connections at the end underline the general mood of craziness.
glennny - Nice pun on "bourgeoisie" (wouldn't work up here -- "bourgeois zed"). The music seems to be bolted together in sections for the purpose of carrying the lyrics, which fold back on themselves in self-referential irony. It adds up to an emphatic nod in the direction of postmodern art, which is good. The song itself is not going to be a commercial hit. I think you knew that.
The Grammys - Some G & G entries are intended for solo performance, coffee-house style; others are meant as sketches for a full song. I don't know which way to take this one. The tune has a nice lilt, and the chorus is capable of grabbing attention, but the vocal delivery is pitched too low for excitement (except for the "ooh-hoo"). The song has possibilities, but it would take a full band to realize them. The short duration of the track also suggests a sketch; it's not long enough to leave a satisfying feeling. In my monitors, the track seems to need some high midrange trimming.
grock - I like the low-blues-jazz mood of the verse a lot. The change at 1:09 has a different mood, slightly commercial, which interrupts the vibe. Structurally this part is a high point in the song, but for a couple of reasons it feels weaker than the verse. The sound loses its former transparent clarity; the rhythm guitar is too prominent, or maybe its syncopation is murkier; the bass in particular slips anchor. I'm all for adventurous bass lines, but here a straighter treatment would give the chorus a more solid feel.
The Hand Formula - The vocal recording is "tanky" -- it needs a parametric EQ to clear out the muddiness. A minimal arrangement, with the interesting choice of a toy piano and a plastic reed organ. The tune has a charming simplicity, using a progression strongly reminiscent of Pachelbel's Canon. The singing sounds distracted or listless. I can't make out all the words.
HIJ$KM - The bass and synth bass drum seem high in the mix, overwhelming the recording in my monitors. The simple tones and stark arrangement make for a very dry sound; my ears long for more richness, or perhaps just less brutality. The Dr Who-ish goings-on around 1:27 are an improvement. I do like the shape of the composition, the tensions and contrasts.
Hoblit - I like the thick, heavy sound. The chorus comes at just the right time, modulates interestingly, accelerates the chord changes, builds well, develops an exciting sound (great air raid siren guitar). Second verse emerges quietly, with the vocal an octave higher (and some minor changes in the guitar, if I'm not mistaken). Gentle outro sums up. In other words, a very well-crafted song. Tune is likeable too. Clean, well-balanced recording. A solid entry.
James Owens - The Internet was surprisingly unhelpful, so I consulted my daughter, who studies communication arts and is familiar with the concept, and then I added my own philosophical spin on the transformation and reclamation of public space, drawing out the martial metaphor and the element of surprise. Art bombs are planted overnight, and everything led me to the modified Robert Duvall quote, "I love the smell of art bomb in the morning." I didn't mean to suggest an apocalypse.
Paco and foobar would like more energy in the song. Remastering helped a little (I posted an update on page 1 of the review thread), but it still needs something else, and I don't know what would do it exactly. More distortion? More instruments? More frenetic parts? But anyway my singing voice leans toward mellow, so what can you do?
Glenn Case finds the rhythmic interplay dangerously loose. I'd followed a suggestion often made by SongFighters to use doubled rhythm guitars across the stereo field, but I didn't worry about exact duplication of the rhythm, and I gave them different tones. Possibly one or both of these choices was a mistake. Or maybe uneven drumming is the problem.
Jim Tyrrell and the Summiteers - The lyrics are well done, and after my own heart. I also like the tense seriousness of the delivery. The music is suitably martial and ominous, with a good groove (and a nod to Led Zeppelin). Good job on the clapping effects. The choir is a good idea, but the execution isn't big enough. The song could be longer.
Ken's Super Duper Band 'n Stuff - Nice upbeat song, good vocals. Interesting textures. Well recorded. Good synth break, maybe just a little loud. Ends rather unexpectedly! Great sound overall. I like your take on the title, and the lyrics are tight and efficient.
Level Nivelo - Not sure what to make of this. Overall it sounds like a recording on a budget, for which people will usually cut you some slack. But the vocal has a sophisticated effect, there's a fascinating synthesized orchestra-tuning intro that has nothing to do with anything, and some haphazard drums pop up randomly at the end. Then there's the accident with the mic. Murky recording, especially of the ukelele, and the singing is occasionally pitchy. The lyrics are not that well focussed, some lines are just padding. The tune is OK, but not outstanding. To get away with everything you'd need a really good basic song.
The Magnetic Letters - The female voiceover is convincing, both in tone and writing, and the sensitively applied vocoder synthesis over unobtrusive techno music is a brilliant touch. This disturbing atmosphere of clinical dissection breaks down with the move to speech-synthesized conversation. The dialog is composed entirely of movie clichés; that may be intentional, but in contrast to the refined quality of the preceding segment, it feels clumsy, especially given the inherently bad acting that comes with voice synthesis. In the final, sung segment, we understand the need for the setup, but it's a laborious way of going about it. The singing has a certain soulful quality though, and I do like the techno background (if that's what it's called).
Micah Sommersmith - A very dark take on the title. Well-written lyrics and tune, with a quite musical arrangement. Good performance and recording. Short and wry. My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the various instruments seem to be in separate rooms, so to speak; somehow they don't mesh into a unified sound.
New Image - (I've never been sure about fuzz bass, even when Paul McCartney tried it on "Think For Yourself." ) It could just be genre bias, but at first the chord progression and melody don't engage me. I do like the lead solo, and after a few plays the song grows on me, in particular the vocal sound. The melody in the section at 1:25 seems unsure of where it's going. This entry feels shorter than 2:52, which is a sign that it's more interesting than I think. Great "live" sound in the recording. The echoes of the vocal line in the guitar starting around 2:18 work really well, and the guitar tone is perfect for it.
Niveous - Slow to start. The words are hard to make out; they're fighting for space with the guitar, and the vocal needs more energy and commitment. There is altogether more of that solo guitar lick than it deserves. The synth sprinkling is refreshing though. If this is supposed to be a minimalist, droning kind of song, given the subject matter and all, then you did a good job. It doesn't pack a lot of excitement.
Paco del Stinko - In terms of arrangement and production, expertly and imaginatively crafted, with tight punctuations, good change-up. Great bass work. The composition itself is distinctively eccentric and angular. I have a little trouble hearing the lyrics on this one.
Political Suicide - An unusual, sparse but lively sound. The vocal rhythms move the song along briskly. By changing the vocal treatments and other surface happenings, you manage to keep it interesting even though the underlying song is quite repetitive. It's the kind of song you can bop in your chair to. I'm not completely sure, because I can't catch all of the lyrics, but they seem to be about vapid celebrity, in which case the significance of "She's a real art bomb" is not clear to me. Is it somehow akin to "blonde bombshell"?
Rio Mondo - A short, demented comedy routine about an "art bomb" as a regular wartime bomb, surrounded by a collage of quotes, conversation, and background music. The collage material is interesting, but without more clues I can't connect it all up as a commentary on art and war, humorous or otherwise -- if that's what it is.
Ross Durand - Good rocker, nice build. I'm impressed at how you get such a great lowdown rock sound from a couple of acoustic guitar tracks, a tambourine, and a raunchy vocal and harmony. Solid lyrics, fine delivery. Your lead guitar is getting better!
Ryan Dawson - Good vocal tone. The plain bass drum on the first beat of the bar is a little simplistic or heavy-handed for the song. Pretty keyboard work, adding some interest to a pattern that is getting worn. The end harmonies need some treatment to make them sound more like backing vocals; some reverb plugins have helpful presets for this. Overall the song needs more variety.
Schlimminy Cricket - The song has a good flow. The synth solo is a bit loud, and needs to be pulled back a bit when the vocals rejoin the song. The instrumentation is simple and quiet, focussing attention on the lyrics, which at their best are cryptic and intense.
Since the lyrics are so important to the song, I'll risk further comment on them. The word "fleshy" is distracting for a couple of reasons: as a dictionary word, it's doubtful (one might say fishy), but it's also strongly evocative of things not to the point. You don't really want people thinking about your flesh here. You're using it to fill out the meter, but a different word is needed; not "mortal," which is equally unhelpful (and a cliché), but something that relates a human form to whatever it is the art bomb can do or has done to it. "Broken," maybe.
The phrase "Or if not innocent" is a philosophical pulling back, a remote, abstract reflection that disrupts the immediacy and intensity of the images you're piling up.
Apart from that, and maybe the ambiguity of "said" for a poet's colony -- clever, but it could be "sad" with a typo -- the poetry is effective. (I hope you don't mind me putting on editing airs.)
Scott Gesser - This is actually a pretty good song -- tuneful, lively, interesting. The constructions and arrangements show a strong musical sense. The overall sound is sparse and thin, and that could be thickened up with pads or effects (if you wanted). But the entry suffers from imprecise singing, which seriously obscures a good melody. You need to work on that, or team up with a vocalist.
tentillum - When the piano comes in at 2:43, this changes from an interesting experimental electronic sound project into a bit of funky, happening background music. But thinking back on it, the funky, happening rhythm section gave that away almost at once; I was just too forgiving. Not that there's anything wrong with funky, happening background music; it's just destined to be anonymous. Who cares what any particular selection is named?
Tokyo Expressway - People sometimes give instrumentals short shrift, but if you contrast the ones in this fight, there's a lot to distinguish and comment on. It's just that there's no way to prove any given one was inspired by the current title. DJ's was a conscious nod to impressionism, electronic music, and musique concrete; FF's was a deliberate construction of crazy fun (HEY!); tentillium's turned out to be an endless groove; this one feels like a single-chord jam with some sound effects thrown in. On balance, the ones that appear to involve some thought and planning are the more persuasive entries.
Tyler Zahnke - Now this feels like a planned instrumental about Arthur and Guinevere -- at least for a while. Then it collapses, first into tentative exploration, then pretty much into randomness. It could be a slowly exploding art bomb. With the percussive artifacts and the "shave and a haircut" ending, this begins to seem like a plausible theory.
Wages - There are timing issues throughout. Some of this is speed variation in the song. If you ever do full-blown multitracking, this could be a real headache, so you may want to explore click tracks. But part of it is sheer synchronization. I'm hearing up to three vocal lines on more or less the same notes, with different timings. This creates an effect not unlike a late-night singalong at a bar. (Maybe that's what you're going for, I'm honestly not sure.) The whole "by and by" thing, and the simple, short, quickly resolved melody of the verse, suggests an old-time sort of song. The lead guitar is very dry in the mix. A little reverb or echo would give it more life.
WreckdoM - Another live recording captured on a single mic, but this one sounds much better than your last one; I'm hearing a full range, from the grungy amplified bass to the crisp cymbals. You could EQ the recorded track to bump up the bass (and drum kick) a bit. The song has an intriguingly degenerate sound, thanks to the rawness of the band and the semi-spoken, drawling singalong of the vocals. As a live performance, it would be entertaining. The song is very basic, so it's really more about the performance. And possibly the lyrics, which are a little murky in the audio. But reading them on the Olde Lyric Archive, I'd say they work with the song.
