Reviews! Mostly second listens.
BSS - There's some interesting stuff going on, time-wise. Sounds like the guitar is in a different time signature than the drums. Distracts at first, but I got into it. The verse melody is catchier than the verse. I don't remember the last time I heard Erin with this much oomph in her voice. Is it the production job, the work of the guests, or is Erin doing something differently this time? Speaking of the guests, what are they doing, specifically? This is nice, but ultimately, it doesn't stick with me.
BLT - Steve's trumpet is sweet, but it sounds a little out of place. I think it's more due to the mix than the performance, but I can't put my finger on it. I, for one, refuse to hold the omission of the apostrophe from your interpretation of the title against you. Some of the lyrics are awkward, such as verse 2's "How's an angel immaculately conceive?" sounds particularly clunky when sung, but the later lines "I'm an alien / you're a vegetarian / and Area 51 is our Solarium" are awesome. It sounds mean, but I can't help but feel like this song - and my overall impression of it - wouldn't have changed much if you'd done it solo, without Steve. It gets better when he plays the trumpet over the last verse. Your solo is okay, but unremarkable; I'd have preferred it if you'd used the trumpet, since you had it.
BpB - The intro reminds me really heavily of the
"Noodles on my Back" song from Youtube. The Sesame Street vibe works well here, but it works against the prospect of me ever listening to this again. Lyrically, I'm not gonna knock you for omitting the apostrophe, but I will knock you for it being somewhat inane. You do some clever things with the numbers (in particular, the line "12 is swell if I am counting some eggs" stands out). I'm really taken out of the moment when we hit that bridge where it sounds like it's gonna be a rock song, but then four seconds later it goes back to being a Sesame Street song again (about 1:01 to 1:05). Props for making the song exactly 97 seconds long.
Major points off for not using any actual guests.
CCo - I wish I could come even close to your acoustic guitar tone. Beautiful. Your ear for melodic phrasing is equally awesome. Your harmonies are thick, lush, and gorgeous, as always. During the "Oh, Fortune Teller" chorus, my piano (in the left ear) is clashing pretty badly with that really fast fingerpicking pattern (in the right ear). I would have cut one or the other. Sorry I didn't listen to the full mix before recording my part. I think you sent it
while I was recording. I'm also a little jarred by the transition to the coda (the "Why oh why" part) - there's a jarring tempo change, and last time we had one of those, it also incorporated a time signature shift, so you anticipate the waltz rhythm, and it's jarring when it doesn't show up. I'm also not sure it was the best idea to key change for that section as well - or at least, not the best idea to change from B to G. I'd have kept it in the family - maybe B to E. I also think that for the first two to four bars of that coda section, again my piano clashes with something you added later, and I would have recorded it differently had I known. Oh well. Overall, this is really impressive work. It's ambitious, it's multi-faceted, it's complex, it's catchy, and it ends in under three minutes! Wow! I think the rest of us are in a spot of trouble this week!
DRD - Your piano is very lush, but sounds somewhat distant. Is that on purpose? The whole song sounds kind of vampy, like it's more of an interlude between songs, and because the lyrics are mixed weirdly (low in spots, muddled in spots, overloaded and clashing with each other in spots), they're hard to understand, which makes the song feel longer than it is. There's also something (maybe your guest's voice?) that has a background hiss, and its repeated entrance and exit is somewhat distracting. If you couldn't noise-reduce it out, it might have been better to copy and paste some of the hiss, just to make it even. Oddly enough, adding
more hiss would have made it
less noticable. This is kind of what JB was talking about
during his "Stranded" reviews (last paragraph). Sorry, but this doesn't really do it for me. Bring on the hooks! Or at least, the intelligible lyrics! On a positive note, I read the lyrics in the lyric thread, and they're a big improvement on the wordy tangle of the last two weeks. Keeping it concise where appropriate can make a good song powerful.
JoE - I like this. It's been stuck in my wife's head ever since I started bashing out the first demo on Wednesday night. King Arthur did a terrific job of reading my mind and making it sound
exactly the way it did in my head when I conceived of it in a Subway restaurant bathroom during my lunch hour. Was that too much information? I'll probably wax philosophical on the work balance a little more, but that will wait until the results are in.
MiD - Unlike your previous work, this is gritty and dirty. I've liked most of your stuff so far, but this is amazing. Those horns are used perfectly. I am so glad that you're immune this week, because you'd probably be mopping the floor with us again. I have literally no negative comments about this.
MHa - This is such a huge change of pace, I don't even know what to say about it. It's beautiful. "She said she guessed that I would have to do / And I said "I love you too." That's a beautiful line. The fake strings just barely audible under the piano interlude add a bit of
je ne sais quois to the whole thing, and the story is a real heartbreaker, both narratively and allegorically. It just goes to show... you can put so much work into a song, but it's the one that gets rushed out in a fit of inspiration that turns out to be your best. I think you and Cogott are arm-wrestling for top honors this week.
NPh - Sounds like you're cramming too much lyrics into your lines. It works okay in the chorus, but the verses are awkward. Also, the amount crunch in your guitars (and the tempo of the piece) is disproportionate to the amount of oomph in your voice. When fluffy starts playing, it sounds like something is badly out of tune. And that's a real shame. fluffy's playing helps seal the deal on that Dropkick Murphys vibe I suspect you're going for. Of the people who acknowledged the apostrophe in the title, I think your approach was probably the best, lyrically. I just wish those verses weren't so jam-packed with info. It's hard to get the concept of the song, or even the lyrical point of view, when you're struggling to keep up.
TRS - You nailed the cult vibe. However, I'm not fond of the call-and-response vocals, especially because your two voices clash so much. The male part (is that Signboy or Zaz?) is obviously so close to the mic, it's mixed high, it's whispering (or at least, speaking in an indoor voice), and it's gotta lotta reverb, while Realist's voice is projecting more, but mixed lower. Her voice is clearer, she's enunciating more, and she's mixed drier. It ruins most of the song for me. Sorry.
SDe - The intro runs too long. I would have cut the bit with Penny Wong repeating "We cannot run and we cannot hide" and jumped straight into the song. Phil nails the lead vocal pretty well, and the "nothing, nothing" part of the melody is quite catchy, as is the "How do we tellllllll the chiiiildren" bit. I worry that there's not enough movement, lyrically. All three verses say pretty much the same thing. I like Sid's voice doing those "Nah nah nah na-nah nah"s in the background in the third verse. Good effort. Needed more work and a better editor's pen.
Thr - Your vocals are mixed WAY too low, and they're absolutely drowning in reverb. I was nervous when I heard that you weren't drumming on your own track. Fraser isn't as good as you, but he's passable. Was this really recorded in one take, as the video implies? If so, that's pretty impressive, but I feel like the tempo needs a few more bpm - in its current state it's a little soporific. You know, upon further reflection, I'm kind of glad the vocals are so buried; these lyrics are so saccharine, I'm not sure I'd have been able to make it to the end of the song if I'd been paying attention to them.
WhF - I like the looseness of the pots and pans setting up the beat in the intro. If I ever do a rap song (again), you're the first person I'm asking to do the beat. The chorus confuses me; "gravestones" implies that it's a serious accident and people died (as does the rap that comes in later), but "fender bender" sounds so innocuous and non-threatening. It really takes the gravity out of the subject matter. The flow in the rap is pretty good, but it's hard to tell because the drums and synths are doing their best to derail the song during that section. It's really jarring and makes it unpleasant to listen to. I wish you'd stuck with something a little more standard and non-disruptive during that section.
Topping of my heap this week are Milo Dunderville, Chris Cogott, and Minty Handy. Great round, everyone!