| Category | Rating |
|---|---|
| Track Structure | 8 |
| Interest | 9 |
| Melody | 9 |
| Performance | 9 |
| Lyrics | 7 |
| Enjoyment | 9 |
| Recording Quality | 10 |
| Commercial Appeal | 8 |
| Overall | 8.6 |
Well now, this just makes me wanna be in a band again! I used to listen to a lot of metal so I feel I'm qualified enough to say just how great this is. To me, this track takes the best parts of metal (high energy performances, hard-hitting riffs) and mixes it with melodic beauty in both the vocal and guitar performances and even the roughness of grunge. Quite a lethal mixture!
For me, something strikingly good is the production quality of this track. Detail is paid to every aspect, from some dark, moody acoustic guitars at the start, to well blended, power-chord playing electric guitar parts that could easily have ended up just sounding like a wall of noise! Pretty standard (but very well executed) metal mix, but its brought to life by some pretty neat touches; string pad sounds, what sounds like reverse cymbals?, the unexpected break from the intro, cool effects on the vocals around 4:20ish, and lots more.
Structure is a tough one for me because it really depends what I'm comparing it to. In pop/grunge terms the structure is a bit loose, jumping between too many different parts to gain mass appeal. But, within its genre, its fine, and like prog metal moves between different ideas effortlessly. One thing that struck me was how the structure was determined by good dynamics, eg the intro is quite soft and relaxed, the next sections very powerful, next soft etc, which is a very good tool to create excitement and shows a very natural ability to write in the genre! Interesting ending, too!
Musical interest for me was around some rather special chord changes eg heard well in the intro, and for once I can honestly say it didn't remind me of too many other songs ha! Theres also some very skilful intertwining of vocal and guitar parts, with nice harmonies. Nice degree of dissonance too, eg 2:15ish and a few pad chords later on.
Vocal melody is great, again to me sounded quite grungeish (chris cornell esque i suppose), quite commerical, and theres excellent melodic phrases from the acoustic guitars.
No idea what the lyrics are so its a 7 again, the bits I caught sounded good though.
Within its genre, it's very commercially appealing. Outside its genre, its more commercially appealing than most of the rest of its genre. Fair enough? I guess the clue is in their description, 'melodic metal'!
Overall, enjoyed this a lot, brought me back to the good days of being in a band and even that whole style of music. Maybe I'd have loved this more 2 years ago, but I'm damn impressed as it is. Great work! :)
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