Rate The Song Above You

: Hold Your Fire as a whole was a rather weak album - Rush sacrificing a lot of their prog stylings also lead to them sacrificing much of what made them an interesting band. But here, we have a diamond in the rough. "Time Stands Still" might be the best pop-flavoured song in this band's whole vast discography, with excellent emotive instrumental work and a killer chorus; the only complaint I might have is that the production sounds a little brickwalled (and everything is brickwalled a bit by Youtube's compression algorithm anyway, so meh). 9/10

: Extreme metal with riffs composed using Middle Eastern scales and stylings? An interesting concept, to be sure, and they pull it off admirably. There's a distinct character given to the music by the Arabesque riffs - the horror movie setting metal like this intends to transport the listener to is transplanted from its usual cold black and grey locations, like the frozen fjords of Scandinavia, to a harsh, sweltering desert rendered entirely in dark shades of orange. 8/10

The Velvet Underground - Venus In Furs

Edited by DubhKafkaesque on Oct 31st 2018 at 2:15:49 PM

Velvet Underground has always been weird for me. I can appreciate their influence but it's just hard to appreciate the music itself, and this does't really sway me. 6/10.

Splatoon 2 - Tidal Rush

45/100 - A good example of too many cooks spoiling the dish. In this case, there's actually a highly functional orchestral score here, full fleshed out and with a number of compelling melodies at its disposals. Unfortunately it's buried under fast techno-ish beats and vocals akin to Alvin and the Chimpmunks singing a foot away from the microphones and then partially buried under the rest of the instrumentation. These latter elements end up being incongruous with its film score core; the beats ultimately over-emphasize the already well done string-communicated sense of time and motion while the singing mostly detracts and distracts from the excellent if slightly repetitive arching motions of the ensembles.

Portrait - The Nightcomers

Impressive high notes on the vocalist, very momentous track in general. The drum section could have been a bit more interesting, but the melodic guitar riffs more than make up for it, 4/5.

Obsequiae - Starlit Shore

7/10. Not what I normally listen to, but this was pretty cool. I really like the guitar work and the drumming is quite nice. I wish I could understand the vocals, though.

Black Sabbath - Iron Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eSBG9hkHT8

I know this song has been overplayed but fuck it, I want to post it here.

7/10: Kind of goofy and (yes) overplayed, but you can't deny that riff.

Julia Holter - Voce simul

An understated piece, airy vocals give it a quietly menacing atmosphere, like taking a walk through a thicket at night, 5/5.

Magawijja Hamzijn - Bes Toere (Five Genghisids), by Taettimbet Kazangapuly

53/100 - I like the instrument, don't like how it seems to struggle to find some sort of coherency as it jumps wildly among a fractured array of themes and patterns that seem often very tenuously connected to one another (or not at all).

Hyperion - Dangerous Days

Juicy classic heavy metal awesomeness. My only complaint is that the vocals seem a bit too restrained for this kind of song. A tiny bit more recklessness, a bit more oomph wouldn't hurt, 4/5.

HasSak - Zhekpe-zhek (The Duel), by Nurgijsa Tilendijev (1925-1998)

Edited by Millership on Nov 3rd 2018 at 1:45:37 AM

I can't tell if this is good or not, but honestly, and call me out for having no culture, but I can't really get into world music. 5/10.

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 - Nova Theme

6/10. I had this game once. Played it so much that scratchs formed a crack and the disc snapped in half. This was actually one of my favorite themes from it. I guess the nostalgia ran out for me.

Also, great taste or no taste, when you put a song up it is accepted as something you listen to, no judgement about how popular or pretentious it is.

Final Solution by Pere Ubu

Aren't you that guy who rated a song I posted a "0" just because it was Imagine Dragons?

I don't like Imagine Dragons because I have listened to them previously and decided i'd rather not ever listen to them. Now, what I said while rating that song, I will admit, was quite ignorant of me. I could have just not listened to the song. But that, unfortunately did not cross my mind then and there. But, that wasn't an attack on you more a attack on what I personally found to be a Brown Note

Edited by KeironCioran on Nov 2nd 2018 at 6:57:57 AM

8.5/10. Pere Ubu are really their own thing. David Thomas' vocals are so desperate, but in a non-stereotypical way, the guitar work here is superb and original (which is par for the course for that whole era of music that happened either after Punk, or completely bypassed it, as it was the case here), that pause in the middle before things just propel onwards until the anger dissipates right at the end...

I don't really like that guy, because he doesn't have a positive opinion of most European countries (presumably including my own). But he, like, say, Mark E. Smith from The Fall (even though both bands are remarkably different), is an interesting contrarian, musically/vocally speaking.

Hot on the Heels of Love by Throbbing Gristle.

Edited by Quag15 on Nov 2nd 2018 at 3:50:32 PM

It is a regular rock'n'roll number on the surface, but there's a lot more going on underneath with its postpunk influences, 4/5.

The beat, and the synths, while not that impressive by themselves are combined in such a good way to produce an interestingly eerie musical pattern, 4/5.

Kurmangazy Sagyrbajuly (1818-1889) - Kishkentaj (Little Boy)

The solo dombra version

The orchestral rendition

As with most of Kurmangazy's body of work, the piece deals with the subject matter of hardships and struggles of the Kazakh people during the early 19th century of which he was a witness and a participant.

The piece's title comes from an alleged event set during the Kazakh uprising lead by Ijsataj Tajmanov: Kurmangazy was denied joining Ijsataj's host on account of him being too young to fight.

Review either or both.

Edited by Millership on Nov 2nd 2018 at 10:02:33 PM

Solo dombra version, I guess. I have said it before, but I do like what I've heard of the dombra's jagged yet warm sound. This is a piece that utilises the instrument's tone very well, building from melancholy minimalism to a fast-paced, energetic Central Asian hoedown. 8/10

Michael Jackson - Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

The composition is simple yet effective in just making you forget everything and dance with a stupid smile plastered on your face. There's something strangely exhilarating about this groove. However… appropriately enough, this is a song that does not stop, and at some point, yeah, I got enough. X) Both the verses and the final chorus overstay their welcome, and the song clearly didn't need to be 6 minutes long. That drags it down a little to me.

And now it's the great return of the sooooooong roulette!!

Reminder of the rules: you must pick one, and only one of the three mystery songs below and stick to it.

Song 1

Song 2

Song 3

They're all under 7 minutes.

Edited by Lyendith on Nov 3rd 2018 at 8:47:13 PM

10/10. I chose song 3. I really loved that show in my childhood. This is one of the reasons why. The song perfectly conveyed the protagonist's guilt at being the cause of brother's loss of his body. And his anguish at his inability to bring his mother back to life.

Epihanie by Luciano Berio

There used to be so-called "Adult Cartoons" back in the Soviet Union. Though not that kind of adult material as you might think - they usually dealt with more mature themes than the usual ones, such as depression, family struggles, etc, though some of them were crossing into Le Film Artistique territory through their sheer incomprehensibility. I do remember watching one of those cartoons (with pretty psychedelic-looking art style) that had a very similar piece as its soundtrack (maybe it was the exact same track, who knows?). What I want to say is that the track obviously provides some kind of narrative, and rather unnerving atmosphere at that, but it does it in a rather obtuse way without a palpable structure, 2/5.

Ludicra - A Larger Silence

6.5/10. Although the instruments behind them are lacking in differentiation from any other black metal track. The vocals themselves are interestingly brutal considering the singer is female.

Deeper than the Night by Les Rallizes Dénudés

Edited by KeironCioran on Nov 5th 2018 at 8:15:58 AM

It all sounds like if The Pillows tried to record something just after collectively falling off the wagon. Or during a drinking binge. Very wibbly-wobbly, carefree, with lots of background noise acting as a smokescreen for very, very repetitive riff and bouncy rhythm. And it's kinda fun? 4/5.

Fatoumata Diawara - Wilile

Edited by Millership on Nov 6th 2018 at 8:09:20 PM

9/10: Oh wow, this is super pretty. Great voice, nice guitar playing. I need to listen more.

The Pop Group - Snow Girl

This is my favourite track from Y, probably the closest post-punk has actually come to an honest love song, even though it does have some creepy moments. The whole thing sounds like deranged lounge music, and I positively love it. (10/10)

Skrillex - Scatta (feat. Foreign Beggars & Bare Noize)

Nightmarish-sounding dubstep. I like it, 4/5.

Minniva feat. Quentin Cornet - House of Sleep (Amorphis cover)

Make room for another chorus to get stuck in your head.

Edited by Millership on Nov 6th 2018 at 9:00:09 PM

35/100 - I'm not sure why the riffing capacities of Scandinavians in the late 90's onwards collectively atrophied. Occasionally we would at least get some solid to impressive power metal at the least but then there's bands like later Amorphis that basically just wrapped up banal fifth rate pop hooks under stale, static crunch with one of those whining dog-whining-when-not-fed blues guitar licks over the chorus to try and pull your attention away from the skip button. The vocal performance, some sort of seductive over-emphasizing croon, really doesn't distract from these shortcomings very well.

Faceless Burial - Piteous Sepulchre (of Amentia)