Page 1 of 1

Two Bits To Pay The (Toll of the Inferno Reviews)

Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2017 8:17 pm
by Pigfarmer Jr
My advice is worth what you paid for it.

Re: Two Bits To Pay The (Toll of the Inferno Reviews)

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:52 am
by Lunkhead
Songs posted.

Re: Two Bits To Pay The (Toll of the Inferno Reviews)

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 4:30 pm
by fodroy
Macaque Attack: I love the instrumental and the production. The vocals are maybe a little up front. The lyrics would be a hit at college, but they're a little on-the-nose for me. The piano is good though. This track definitely has it's musical catharsis, but the lyrics just didn't pull through it.

Minty Handy: Flavors of Pavement and GBV, so, obviously, I like it. I actually wanted it to go on a little longer. I feel there should be a guitar meltdown as toll of inferno.

dark side of the son: This song feels big and relaxed, and it's the kind of thing I would listen to for an album's length of songs. It sounds like it should be played on the college station I listen to in the car, preferably at 7:20 AM while winding through forests and over the foggy river. That said, I couldn't make out the lyrics for most of it. But I like it. VOTE

BSS: Yes, I can hear it. I always like y'all's songs. This is a good one. I don't know what to say about you guys. You'll probably win.

Vom Vorton: I can see Elvis Costello singing this one. You tell a compact story, and I like that. VOTE

Praise Muzak: This is me. Bass geetarz, garage band drums, "piano horn," and vocals. Lyrics meander, but it meanders into becoming addressed to my 9-month-old son. I only have time to make music when I'm alone, and my wife took him up to Western New York to visit her parents, so I had some time to actually write and record something. It's always nice to be able to do so. It always ends up rushed, but Songfight taught me how to do that.

Re: Two Bits To Pay The (Toll of the Inferno Reviews)

Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 2:07 am
by vowlvom
Berkeley Social Scene - the guitars have a nice crunch to them, the melody is strong and there’s a really strong 70s classic rock vibe to this one. Excellent stuff, I particularly enjoyed how it flows into that really melodic solo and the catchy lead guitar work over the outro. You’ve even got some handclaps in there!

Dark Side of the Son - very atmospheric and enjoyable listen, although it feels like it’s too short to really build a mood. I like it quite a bit though, and “too short” is better than “too long”!

Macaque Attack - this is great, I love the production - really clean and unusual - and the lyrics have a great flow to them.

Minty Handy - another solid track, although it didn’t click for me quite as much as your previous entry. The lead guitar sounds a little weedy, I feel like it’d raise the song a lot if it had a bit more bite to it.

Praise Musak - I really like that chunky bass sound, and the vocals remind me of Modest Mouse. Some of the “piano horn” stuff sounds really good and other bits sound a little sloppy (basically I like it when it sounds like a melodica, less so when it sounds more like a harmonica, I think).

Vom Vorton - this is me, rush-recorded over the weekend and I wasn’t going to submit it, but revisited it in the week (added the lead guitar and organ, re-recorded the vocals) and managed to get it to a decent standard, although it’s definitely not my best work. I think the lyric is quite fun though, and I enjoyed rocking out a bit after concentrating on synths through November.

BSS and Macaque Attack are my two favourites but I’m going to have a few more listens before voting as I feel like the others could be growers.

Re: Two Bits To Pay The (Toll of the Inferno Reviews)

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 1:10 pm
by Lunkhead
I just noticed, this is fight #800 in the history of Song Fight!

Re: Two Bits To Pay The (Toll of the Inferno Reviews)

Posted: Wed Dec 20, 2017 9:07 am
by GravityJohnson
Berkeley Social Scene - This song has really torn me in that it is clearly very competent and accomplished, but somehow didn't grab me. But then the middle section burst the song to life for me, and now I have it stuck in my head as a massive earworm. I think this track is ultimately successful, although it might benefit from another instrument or two to fill it out (a pad or synth perhaps), but that's just personal taste. I stand corrected, maybe this has grabbed me....

Minty Handy - So this is half Pavement, half Pixies. No bad combination! This is really great, and the vocal effect works superbly and it's very catchy. This is very much to my taste, one of my favourites of the fight. Great work.

Vom Vorton - Pretty good without blowing me away. This is a good solid rock track that's kinda fun, if a little muddy in the mix. An enjoyable listen and pretty catchy.

Praise Muzak - Someone has already mentioned a Modest Mouse vibe in relation to this, and that's dead right, it does have some similarity. Not my favourite of the fight, but interesting stuff.

Dark Side Of The Son - I really enjoyed this, it's got a lovely, lazy, melancholy feel to it. For my personal taste I think it could have been comfortably doubled the length. Also, it might have been nice for the instrumentation to gradually become more sparse and thinned out as the track moved towards conclusion. Really great stuff.

Macaque Attack - For better or worse, our first ever rap track.

Votes for Minty and Dark Side, but good work one and all :)

Re: Two Bits To Pay The (Toll of the Inferno Reviews)

Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2017 8:16 pm
by Chumpy
Vom Vorton - I like how the lyrics are ostensibly about a literal fire in a disco, but it's really about disco songs, with shoutouts to Disco Inferno, Stayin' Alive, Night Fever, and I Will Survive. I think the chorus is really great, it's got a that 80s sound to it, and I think it's got the best title hook of the fight. This could have been longer and I would have been pretty happy about it. Love Vom's voice on this track!

Minty Handy - Fuzzy guitars with nice lead melodic playing that cuts through the mix. This is I think the same Pixiesesque forumla that made their song last fight a winner, and it works well here too. Wasn't sure at first if I liked the delay on the vocals, but it grew on me. I think it needs a bit more meat on the bones, as it's pretty short, and the lyrics don't really stick with me. It could have used another verse, or maybe a bridge, or something to pad it out past two minutes.

BSS - Pretty sure this is Lunkhead singing. They should let him sing more often, he's great, but then they'd probably always win. Great dynamics in this song, quiet verses, loud choruses. Great guitars as usual, the two leads towards the end sound fantastic playing off each other. I was pretty sure there was nothing to criticize about this song until a friend I was listening with pointed out that the chorus sounds like an advertising jingle. He went on to sing "Eat at a McDonald's, each and every day!", which I couldn't stop hearing afterwards -- what a jerk.

Praise Musak - Like some of the weird sounds here, and the lonely melodica. The vocals have a natural sounding reverb on them that I don't think serves the song very well, like they were recorded a bit far from the mic. On the chorus things start to sound a bit off, like things are a bit off-key or something. I like the bathtub scraping sounds and the melodica a lot, especially during the freakout at the end. Points for originality.

Dark Side of the Son - Nice relaxed country feel at the start. I think this is a James Owens live side project, not that different from Squirrels in the Attic, but tighter and slightly more focused. At the start I hear something distracting that sounds like the click of a click track, but I don't think it actually is. I like the lyric at the start a lot "It's like her hair is burning". This ends sort of abruptly.

Macaque Attack - Apparently this is their first rap, but I wouldn't have known it, as it sounds really strong to me. Of course to my untrained American ears every English rapper sounds like Mike Skinner. Musically this is kinda bloopy outer-space music and doesn't have a really strong melodic hook anywhere. The aggression starts to get to me after a bit, and it starts to sound preachy at the end, but I suppose that's the point. While this didn't really do a lot for me, I can appreciate the effort that went into writing the dense rhymes, production, and engineering.

My votes went to: Vom Vorton, BSS, and Macaque Attack

Re: Two Bits To Pay The (Toll of the Inferno Reviews)

Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2017 10:14 am
by AJOwens
Chumpy wrote: Dark Side of the Son - . . . I think this is a James Owens live side project, not that different from Squirrels in the Attic, but tighter and slightly more focused.
I had nothing to do with this song (EDIT was "unless I was its inspiration" -- sorry, I had a brain fart, that would be "Foreited Friends"). I'm in a different collective, the evolving "dark side of the attic," which is invariably sloppier and less focussed, that being the whole point of the gathering.

This song is gentle and touching. The singing is far from pitch-perfect, but it is sweetened by the words. The production is improving; this one feels big and open, but with a vital raw edge.

No other reviews planned for this fight. Sorry, everyone.

Re: Two Bits To Pay The (Toll of the Inferno Reviews)

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 11:53 am
by roymond
Just a call out to the stars this week...gotta go...no time...

Berkeley Social Scene - sweet!
Macaque Attack - sweet!
Minty Handy - sweet!

Re: Two Bits To Pay The (Toll of the Inferno Reviews)

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 8:44 pm
by Lunkhead
Macaque Attack wins!