Adam Ant - Nice dark production over a Beatles meets practice amp
meets open pedal piano reverb thing.
Nick and Dex - *** Same as the Adam Ant entry *** Ok, only 40 songs!
Air Kicked Pigeon Band - Sort of a South Park style spoof song. Kermit vocals
over a nice little acoustic ditty. The Casio bit works well with the song and
adds a nice 80s retro pop touch. The vocals almost remind of Heavenly at the end.
So many entries – I reviewed this twice:
Air Kicked Pigeon Band - I am a Racoon lyric is memorable and seems to be a Frisbee spoof of “You can be the wrestler”. Nice little casio pop groove. The nasal vocals work for this. This is actually a pretty decent poppy number for something that is a spoof entry.
Andre at midnight - Endless picky with a anticipation building howl. One chord that
just keeps going until subtle change of voicing takes it into the title chorus at minute 1.
The bah bahs are cool over the piano 8 section. The steady snare works too.
Brilliant Void - Philisophical intro of spoken word and little vocoder descending
backing vox. This sounds like its own hideous lyric -- as if Plato was singing this to
a member of the underworld in a vain attempt order to escape.
Brody - Nice slow country/folk intro guitar. The vocals match with a nice drawl in a
subtle "Lake of Fire" sort of way. Reminds me vaguely of Nirvana unplugged without
the heavy chorus vocal parts -- just the soft verse bits. You need an intense bit to
balance this out.
Cakeloaf – Strong intro. Lush 12 string with nice clanky keyboard hits and some loose but lovely programmed beats. A crazy FX overlay of vocals makes this kind of Weenish. The progression is nice, but needs to change into a second part, or not -- its over already!
Chirp - Click clang, soft stand up bass, whispery, shaker samba thing. Moody!
Ostara - Nice soft alternative rock backing track with some authentic brit band vocals
that remind of Bloc Party somehow. The music is more like a late 80s soft Cure track.
The repeating guitar lick renforces the Bloc Party influence. The ascending Bass takes
away from it and makes it a new thing. The reverb rich vocal now takes it into a dazy
new section. Cool, but sounds very four-track from a production stand point. Gear!
Cynthia Size and Spoons - Electronica oh yeah. That Cynthia is 100% robot just blows
my mind! She is brilliant, and I want one of my very own. The ecclectic beats of this
grate slightly, even to my math rock loving ears. Please enter a super dance tune next
week number with a pop hook and all your killer technology.
Minty Handy - Awesome! Just reading your name gets me excited. Is that appropriate for kids?
Beautiful lyrics as always. The Musical genre tag is appropriate. How do you make all
titles into a deep love song? No uke on this??? Piano is not as portable. Wow, this really
devolves into some ugly Godzilla key slamming. Nice!
Sixth Line - Etheral tone key sustain, warming to a Phil Colins style vox, into super thump
trash can bass drum hits. Groovy. This is one of the more hooky chorus melodies so far,
even though it a bit of a side glance performance of the title lyric -- kind of like the
ooo ooos in R&B. I'm sure you'l repeat a bunch at the end -- yeah. Great.
Db Collective - Heavy soul. I like the Blues perfect guitar tone.
"Queen of mean" oh yeah honey sing it! This is a *CLASSIC* Blues
rendering of the title. Awesome.
Donovanntan - Do you listen to Sufjan? Acoustic and voice. Lovely solo songwriter number.
The structure is good. People in these parts are responsive to a good song, but are even
more responsive to a highly produced piece. You next step is to figure out how to get a
symphony to back you. The second half goes for a distortion on the guitar, but its too
gritty and Small Amp for this song. The shaker is a good idea.
Don't Reply - Pan heavy synth sustain with scrachy scrachy into -- Hip Hop! Pretty cool.
The vocals start strong, but quickly lose conviction. Short.
Renwick - nicely layered acoustic guitars -- the 6 string tone is a touch harsh. not sure
how to suggest a softening. Nice soothing progression and easy going vocals. The tones
and production are getting in the way though -- I used to love high treble EQ, but this
needs a softer touch.
Mailbox - A nice Joshua Tree intro, complete with marching snare. Doesn't quite develop
into a full U2 blossom however, stays a bit more low key in the production. I like the
keyboard flute part. Kind of goes into a Jethro Tull thing which is nice.
Cool easy listening.
Doorite - Experimental Elecronica intro into -- Hip Hop! Okay, not sure how to compare
this to the don't reply bit. This has more performers and the vibe is for something smoother
rather than tough. Seems okay, but no hook to latch onto.
Eddie Lance - Piano appegios. Contemplative. Lilting. Somber. Hesitantly optimistic.
Urgent. Anxious. Instrumental.
Eugene Manitoba - Uke! Xyl! Shaker. Little nursery verse. I'm hearing a more catchy
harmony for the chorus melody. Cow bell! Nice whistle solo. Very cool lo-fi production
of alternative instruments. Nice little Hawaian BBQ campfire song. The outro can go.
Kabuto - Nerd core self-proclamation intro. Nice nerdy scratchies. Counter strike, sweet!
Pizza face, good. The track has nice smooth tones, and the vox are true to the genre. That
said, I'm not super partial to nerd rap -- its kind of a gimicky style for me -- fun the first
time, but never a beneficiary of the replay button.
Ham No Burger - Acoustic classic rock into with synth backing into a deep voice
that reminds of The Damned. Slow and broding with lyrics about agony. The synth
sounds sound really budget and hold the song back -- the lines are good, but perhaps
you could use them as MIDI masters for some better sounds generated by a good VST?
The guitar solo works well -- has a good line, development, harmonics, bends and all that.
Ken's Super Band - Ken's Green Day slow song style comes through on this one.
Borrowing time lyric is a strong starter. "Words are a false guarantee we, were
not meant to be" is a great rhyme. Liking the keyboards at the end!
King Arthur – Rolling bass groove with some nice slow guitar arpeggios in the hard panned left. This mix is pretty left heavy. A few distorted hits and texture tickle the right. The chorus is on the catchier side of this week’s entries.
Lights are a Fire – Organ and “white key jam” meandering piano solo atop. Enter weeping Nintendo synth lines. Sad little instrumental that fits the theme.
Luke Henley – Bright Eyes sort of thing but more folksy and care free. People shaped like clay reminds me of Ross Perot’s campaign in 1992. Sort of a cowboy blues wild west ballad with nice lo-fi acoustic and singer in a ‘verb room production quality.
MC Eric B – Arabia intro into uptick mustard absurdity. Standard MC Eric: Growling talk over a budget “sample track” casio knock-off with lyrics contrasting different preferences between incompatible souls.
MS Paul – Echo sparse guitar licks into back beat groove and “The Streets” style UK rap about good Donkeys being hard to find.
Melvin – Nothing like a strong Bass/Drum intro. Driving beat and strong intro vocal line punches into a *REALLY STRONG* verse that hovers in the upper register and is just lovely to the ears. Loving the Melvin patent pending Catchy Perfect Backing Vocals TM. The guitar solo is great, though that part seems like you almost pulled back a bit on your Awesome Production Is Easy TM. The end is a touch abrupt too, but this is super pop at its finest with awesome hooks.
Nathaniel Tann – Piano tension intro with Linkin Park style vocal. The mix doesn’t seem balanced, and the lack of drums is noticeable.
Ocean City Dwellers – Steady smooth intro with echo laced vocal doing a sort of popless Oasis reflection on the title. Sounds like it has a Death Cab influence which is nice.
Regular Gonzelz – Fun single melody unison linkage bit of keyboard/vox spoof story that has a touch of Heavenly to it. I strangely like something about this, but no sure what or why. The “We were not meant to be in love” line has a good melody, and is a nice extension of the title which may seem obvious (duh + “in love”), but this is the only tune to do it thus far. Good job.
Simon Stewart – Some dulcimer or other “alternative” string instrument goes into a nice catchy line. The percussion hit is nice. You have some great instruments with nice authentic tones. Instrumental though, and sparse lines leave this with little to talk about.
Sound Scape – Good X style Male/Female thing. Why are all Male/Female bands compared to X? I was in a band that had Male/Female that sounded nothing like X, and we’d get compared to them all the time. This actually does sound like X though – guitars, writing, yeah.
Thing you do to a bank – Big Sigh backing. Nice bass drum thump sample. Goes into a bit of a barber shop thing. The lead vocalist is strong.
Weakest Suit – Starting with the title as the first line is a good idea for this one – I like that. The distant backing vox hard panned works for me. Nice contrasting guitar tones on 1 and 2. I’m missing drums and bass though. Also, this doesn’t build enough before it drops back into the slow airy part. This is Weak at (its) best.  I like the pushing me melody at the end.
Wes Davis – Kind of a garbage dump jam with cool panning. Its like a bunch of folks picked up some junk, figured out how to play a chord, and vamped on that until they came up with this.
Zender – Heavy explosive synth hits. Decent drum loop enters. Nerdy rap over. Space age story about poison and intelligent oozing.
So many! I stand behind my initial verdict, that this is between
Melvin and
Ken. Other shout outs:
Db Collective
![Confused :?](./images/smilies/icon_e_confused.gif)