This genre was totally new to me. Everything I know about it, I learned during this month. So don’t take my good or bad comments too seriously.
When I was listening to your submissions, I decided that there should be
- symphonic elements
- heavy metal elements
- their mixture
- dramatic changes in arrangement
- clear melodic line
Dramatic changes seems to be essential part of this symphonic metal -genre.
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SWC027_becsei_gyorgy_Fall of Themyscira.mp3
This submission matches perfectly the genre of this competition. It has symphonic elements blended skillfully with heavy metal elements. And furthermore it has dramatic quick changes in arrangement. Very well done.
0:00 Beautiful piano opening.
0:10 Is that bass sound ok with piano?
0:14 Something dissonant
0:20 Drums start nicely. Great guitar sound. Lady and melody line ok
0:50 Synths come in. Melody line feels a bit timid
1:10 Great change to guitar solo. But bass is a bit restless here
1:30 Drums again with force.
1:50 cello and piano, beautiful
2:10 Drums and lady + choir,
2:50 It starts to feel that I have heard this song.
3:25 Piano outro
The strengths of this song is in structure, arrangement and sound. It’s great.
I think the weaker point is the melody. Melody is ok, but maybe it doesn’t have a needed hook to be remembered. It doesn’t carry the song enough. Maybe you could add some variation to the melody line.
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SWC027_gruskada_Transclusion.wav
I quess this is very nicely withing the competition’s genre. Very skillful symphonic elements blended with Gary Moore style rock. It’s not heavy metal, but close enough, I guess. (long hair with distorted guitar is close enough for me to be heavy) From the point of view of ”symphonic metal”, I mainly miss more dramatic changes in energy level. (But if we forget the competition’s demands, and just think compositions demands, I think the dramaturgy is just fine the way it is. As a song, it’s the strongest one)
0:00 Nice intro, with great guitar lines and choirs
0:30 Hi-hats + distorted guitar, works perfectly
0:55 Strings come in naturally, strong guitar lines
1:20 drummer feels a bit uncertain, he hasn’t decided what he should do
1:30 Weird curling bass sound, or is it guitar?
1:50 Choir in
2.06 You should consider a new drummer, it’s the weakest link in your band
2:27 Song disappers to some sort of uncertainty
Song starts nicely, but ending is a bit vague.
Nice guitar playing, I think I can hear the effect of human hand touching fretboard skillfully.
I would like to hear the main melodic line more clearly introduced. Now it has a bit jamming feeling
Overall feeling: very strong ambient song
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SWC027_TrojakEW_Become_a_Champion.wav
This submission has clearly symphonic part and heavy metal part. So I guess it’s within the genre of this competition. But somehow I feel that the heavy metal person took the lead of the project, and symphonic part was left as an obligatory part to be added. From the competitions point of view I miss the part where they are blending artfully. And most of all, I miss energy level changes.
0:00 Symphonic opening, nice. Little restless chord changes. As if there’s some sort of sidechaining.
0:48 Choir + metal, very strong change, my favorite part
0:58 Guitar comes in with nice riff.
1:17 This would be a good place to introduce slightly different, more relaxed kick groove
1:50 Sounds like Tom Waits stepped in to room to create space, cool
2.10 Kick starts to feel too monotonoes. Id dominates the sound.
3:10 choir and outro
There’s a dramatic cool point when the kick comes in. But after that I start to miss that strong effect. Kick groove is cool but in the long run it feels too monotonoes. It also eats the space from other nuances. For example there’s cool changes in guitar handling but those nuances are masked by kick. Maybe it should follow and support other arrangent changes more clearly. Somewhere quit the machinegun effect, and be more relaxed. That way it could come in more often with full force, and we would experience more often that wov-effect.
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SWC027_Mellow_Browne_All_White_Keys
This is only one that’s clearly out of this competions genre
0:00 Opening sound effect is very promising. But quite long.
0:23 Intro riff sounds great. I start to feel, that ”ok, here we have a winner”.
0:42 Drums in. But then, nothing happens. Intro repeats itself, riff is too long…
1:45 Guitar Riff alone again. Now it starts to feel too much as a loop. Actually the whole song appears to be one riff, with small variations.
I like those piano effects behind.
So, sound is all the time very good and organic, but not much musical developement happens. I think this is a great sonic base for an arrangement for some song, but the song part is currently missing.
You clearly have a great talent to make a sound and arrangement, but you must add to that an interesting chord progression and melodic lines. Now your music is a static image, you need to add movement to it. I would suggest to pick randomly for example any Beatles song and take the chord progression out of it. Then add the chord progression to your sonic idea. I’m sure your own musical ideas start to roll immediatly after that and you’ll create a great melodic line. You’ll end up having totally new great song that sounds like you.
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SWC027_SimaGT_Gates.wav
Clearly within the genre, but I think energy level changes are too mild. Overall energy level is too constant. I miss the changes from fragile moments to full anger.
0:00 Promising opening, symphonic and metal blended straight from the start
0:25 Guitar riff is interesting but sound is a bit suffocated, compared to choir yellings
0:45 Nice china part, but drum’s riff could have changed along with it. This part has nice potential to be developed
1:30 Guitar is back, but without melodic a content, just riff
1:47 cool synth part, I think the strongest part of this song, but drums are now feeling like a drum machine. It prevent your musical ideas to shine.
2.36 China again, after the synth part I start to miss the clear melodic content. Song starts to feel as if the main melodic line is muted, and we are listening to the backing band.
3:10 My concentration disappears
3:29 cool guitar riff again.
Clearly many nice ideas, but you should give them bolder mix. Now the musical ideas feels to be shy and under a planket.
Drums are too monotones, some douple kick effects and toms here and there, but otherwise not enough for feeling changes. Snare sound dies weirdly, no tail at all, kick and snare don’t make a pair. I feel the drum sound is too polite. It’s more like a click track to be replaced later with some crazy long haired drummer.
This song has many potential parts to make more dramatic changes. Those china parts could relax more and the introduce guitars in a new energy level. China parts has potential to be more fragile, and guitar parts could be more explosive.
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► Show Spoiler
01 (10 pts) - becsei_gyorgy, Fall of Themyscira
02 (9 pts) - gruskada, Transclusion.wav
03 (8 pts) - TrojakEW, Become a Championv
04 (7 pts) - SimaGT, Gates
05 (6 pts) - Mellow_Browne, All White Keys
How do we go from there?