As always, I’m just some dude on the internet, what do I know? Take with as much or as large grains of NaCl as needed. My thoughts and attempts at constructive criticism and reviews, from your friendly neighborhood Siebass:
Berkeley Social Scene:
Vocals a bit buried in the verses; much cleaner vocal in the chorus, main maybe some eq or compression would help it cut through the guitars in the mix? That’s probably my biggest note, as without the lyrics in the archive it’s a bit hard to teste the lyrics apart; mostly seems about a PSA for buckling up. Nice drum fill, and fun bridge build up. Nice slide solo too, catchy chorus on the buckle up and safety first. I like the chorus and bridge a lot.
Blind Mime Ensemble:
Really out-of-tune rubber band guitar sound to open puts me off the song a lot
Really great sounding vocal, something sounds a bit weird and electronic, but sounds like a pro singer. The song really comes together after that rubber band guitar part, once the bass and electronic flute/horn sound comes in.
Doot doots also sound a bit odd and electronic, but loads of great choices in melody here.
Canned audio clip also takes me out of the groove a bit, and not sure if it’s needed; might be a better song without it. I was hoping up for a Please please pleasus to rhyme with Jesus. This song really shines in the instrumentation and vocals in the verse and chorus, which I really like; the standup bass sounds great.
The vocal sounds a little weird, but not sure what it is. Saw another review saying that this might be all AI? If so, I'm hella impressed, and that might explain the weird artifacts.
Caravan Ray:
Intro vocals and music sound super polished; really clean, gets me up for the song. Really dirty bassline grabs me from the get go. Nice guitar staccato notes. The male vocal sounds a lot less polished than the female intro; not sure what mix element that is, if it’s eq or something else. Catchy; bumpy fast vocal delivery works on the itsgonnabeabumpyride bit.
Loads of really great choices with instrumentations and synths here, and with melodic note choices. A lot that I dig about this. Nice breakdown to bassline.
1:32 Emphemeral bit is a bit jarring at the double time without a transition to it, perhaps some transitional bit after the spoken word portion would help. Acoustic guitar also feels a bit out of place to me at least here given the electronic instrumentation in the rest of the song.
1:47 is the only place I’d say I disagree with the instrumentation, my head aches in a bad way with a jarring synth tone after the ephemeral bit; not sure if it’s the patch or the volume but that sound grates on my ear in a bad way that takes me out of the song.
All in all this track gives me a bit of whiplash, perhaps I should have buckled up before hand, but it feels like a bunch of discrete parts that have been well considered and crafted melodically but perhaps stitched together without a bit of the smoothing or connecting tissue to make the transitions less jarring. The song is only 2:20 long, I think there would be enough time to work in some short transitional bits to help the listener, since there’s no real chorus to go back to; even maybe just some lead-in double time drums before the lyrics start might help. Just some thoughts, take ‘em or leave ‘em as you will.
Jerkatorium:
Got a bit of a Suffregette city vibe to it from Bowie to start. One of my favs of the round, polished, nice chord arpeggios between the singing in the verses, it's an interesting sound
Great harmonies in the backing vocals, nice stops. Can tell you guys worked on the arrangement in this. For constructives, the bass tone sounds a bit odd or a bit thin, I like the bassline, but the tone sounds a bit off to my ear for the song, take that as you will. Nice bridge, safe and happy place, nice breakdown to kick off verse 2. Rising buckle ups on the outro work great.
Gonna roll a wikipedia check b/c I actually ALSO looked up pilgrim buckle hats when researching buckles for this song, and found it's actually a MYTH.
"The capotain is especially associated with Puritan costume in England in the years leading up to the English Civil War and during the years of the Commonwealth. It is also commonly called a flat-topped hat and a Pilgrim hat, the latter for its association with the Pilgrims who settled Plymouth Colony in the 1620s. Contrary to popular myth, capotains never included buckles on the front of them;[1] this image was created in the 19th century.[2]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capotain
I feel like Chumpy appreciates the deep dive sometimes, but I'll take off my buckled pedant hat now
Buckled arm hug metaphor works well, I just generally enjoyed this take on different kinds of buckles. Well done here.
Pigfarmer Jr:
Really warm, wide-open sound. Great lyrical angle on the challenge, not literal like many of the rest of us. Vocal sounds perhaps a hair overdriven or distorted in the first verse? I would have liked a cleaner tone personally for a vulnerable song, but this is a very solid vocal take. Nice trem guitars supporting, really well put together song in terms of arrangement.
My biggest quibble with this song has to do with dynamics and melodic range; the whole song kind of stays the same throughout in terms of dynamics and in terms of chord range; it never really cuts back to the nice vocal, just vocal and guitar, or drums; never really gets bigger, stays in a kind of narrow dynamics and chord range band throughout other than one brief stop, and I wish it went further big and/or quiet in times to break things up and really keep me hooked through the whole song. I would have enjoyed maybe a change in instrumentation, picking pattern, dynamics, or chord progression, just something to spice this up. I think this is strong lyrically, and good bones though, I enjoyed it; those are just some things I think might make it better. Just 2c from some rando on the internet, though, as always.
Siebass:
Chumpy posted on the discord that more songs were needed for the current fight. I had just finished DNSG final sketch and my own song for SpinTunes, and had about 4 hours left before I needed to sleep. I cranked this one out, assuming I'd not get more time to work on it than that.
If I had more time, I'd spend a bit more time on the lyrics, as this was first-cut; I'd change the arrangement slightly to cut the second post-chorus and elongate the chorus to give you a longer dance break before the bridge; and I'd flex time adjust the first "please" in the outro to be a bit later and on the downbeat. I'm sure I'd make mix tweaks as well, but I wasn't sure when submissions would close, so I rushed this one out to beat a buzzer that didn’t apparently go off until a few days later (first songfight entry from me, I dunno what I’m doing). I still think it slaps thanks to the bassline, and gets me to wiggle, plus I worked in one of my favorite inferred-swear-rhyme jokes that tickle my dad-joke sense of humor, so it's a win from my perspective.
Yaks of the Industry:
Nice and clean production on the percussion. The vocal effect heads and tails are really taking me out of the song with the choking sounds. It’s like Daft Punk is getting strangled on stage; I think would likely clean up with trimming the heads and tails of the vocal in the spaces between the sung parts or possibly with a noise gate; it sounds like breaths or some other mouth noise are getting caught up in the effect, and at least to my ear it’s a rather grating sound.
Other than that, this sound sounds phenomenal. Really nice funk guitar, synth bass, synth pads, great groove to it, catchy chorus on the please buckle up; bridge is solid too, nice melodic lift. Lyrically I think the only quibble I’d have is the line “your free will is not suppressed” comes out a little awkward in terms of phrasing; maybe a different rhyme would solve it, like “Just do it now, I’ll be impressed” or something like that.
I think this song would be one of my favorites of the round if it weren’t for the weird vocal artifacting at the start and end of phrases throughout, which unfortunately decreased my enjoyment of the song a fair bit.
