Quests & Challenges

@CatgirlWerewolf Sorry it took me so long!!!!

When I picked this for the "steampunk", I was expecting something like Steam Powered Giraffe (though I didn't look up if they were actually steampunk haha) but wow the vibes of this album!!!!!!!!! It starts with a very Coraline vibe that has a hint of Sweeney Todd tension, and I am loving it. The plot introduced prompted me to look up if this was a musical album, because I was like LORE????? Yes it IS a musical!!!!!! I will watch it when I can because I felt like I was missing some plot as I listened to the songs. But regardless!!!!!

I didn't notice the titles until the last song of Act 1, and the first song of Act 2 indicating that it's the next generation,,,, a situation of history repeating itself, I thought, of them falling down the same rabbit hole, and the first two acts certainly felt that way, until the 3rd act basically had a whole rebellion arc, loved it. Love the motif of "be(en) my angel",,,, the vibes are always so suspenseful like there's always something more to come.

The music is really something!!!!! I love the background sounds, it really adds to the experience. Big sweeney todd energy. I still have act 4 to listen to, but I'm really enjoying it so far.

Thank you for the recommendation!!!!!! I'll definitely watch it when I can!!!! I think that will help me put all the pieces together :DDDD!!!! <33333

@Accal1a


I'm very sorry about the late response! it took me a second to get through all of these songs, and so I just now am getting around to writing a review. My apologies! :'0


Right off the bat, I'm going to be honest, I didn't quite know what to expect- I've not listened to a lot of progressive rock,, so I wasn't sure what to think of it! additionally, I don't tend to listen to songs on the [ relatively ] longer side like these, usually ones I'm used to are 6-7 minutes long tops, so this was definitely a change of pace. Yet, I've found that these didn't disappoint! They definitely managed to capture my attention, even considering the extended duration :0 Here's my personal takes on all the songs :)


A Nightmare to Remember:
This one was, in total honesty, not the most for me. As stated earlier, I'm not usually one for longer songs, and more instrument-heavy music has never really been my thing. Yet, I still think this is a really neat song! It served as a very fitting opening song to this album, and the shifts throughout the tone of the song were super intriguing :0


A Rite of Passage:
The thing that stuck in my mind the most about this song was, for some odd reason, some of the sound effects?? There were some very unique tidbits here that really kept this song interesting for me, and I took that of note :0 Other than that, this was a pretty good song! Not the most memorable, nor my favorite, but far from poorly made.


Wither:
I totally see what you mean about this song being a favorite of yours- I'm absolutely a fan as well. It was an unexpected break from the more metal-ly style of the rest of this album, into something that more closely resembles pop music, and I think it's very well done! It did a tremendous job keeping up the overall vibes and motifs of the album, while still upholding the established shift into a different genre.


The Shattered Fortress:
Quite possibly my favorite song out of all of these, I REALLY enjoyed the eerie vibe of it. In the best way possible, this felt like a Disney villain song at parts :0 There's not much I feel like I can say about this?? But this is where the voice of the vocalist stuck out to me the most, the tone of this is like horror or a villain setting the scene and I'm a huge fan


The Best of Times:
I was honestly a bit surprised by the softer tones in this song, but not in a bad way for sure. It was especially notable, after the last one, how the vocalist's voice switched back to something more normal-sounding, giving the whole song a more calm vibe- although, that said, it could very well be interpreted as a calm before the storm sort of thing, just a single moment of quiet. This song also seemed to be a bit more longing or nostalgic in the tone


The Count of Tuscany:
WOW was this a long song [ to me, in the least ] . Several times, I thought it was coming to a close, but then checked the time, and there was 5+ minutes left. Yet, I have to note, the artist did a wonderful job sustaining my attention during the course of this song! If not anything else, it was the perfect background music to me grinding Glimmer and Gloom yestderday- definitely far from dull or uninteresting, yet not ridiculously distracting or loud!




All in all, although more metal-esque stuff isn't what I usually listen to, this was a fun way to branch out into some new genres! Some overall highlights of this album were the guitar (please tell me that's a guitar.. in spite of various music classes over the years, I am incredibly terrible with instrument identification) , and the qualities of the singer(s)' voice(s) - they sounded ominous, almost growling, throughout the entire album, and I thought that set the tone really well. Also, ironically enough, I usually heavily rely on lyrics / songwriting to judge the merit of a band, but I found myself hardly weighing that in!




note: I didn't realize that there was a special edition, containing more songs, until after I'd listened to all of these, and written all this up. Although I'll likely listen to them at some point, I unfortunately don't have the time to actually review them here, so I ended up sticking with just the six songs :'0

@ryttu3k Thank you for such a thoughtful review! I'll be honest, Nonagon was not my favorite album on my first listen. Or second. Or third. But it eventually clicked with me. 'Invisible Face' is also my least-favorite track! I'm glad you enjoyed the album, thank you for letting me share it with you!

Album: VA-11 Hall-A (Original Soundtrack: Second Round) by Garoad, as suggested by @humbledarkmage

apologies for such a late review, ive listened here and there throughout the week and finally went through it again to articulate my specific thoughts, but god damn that was a really good (almost) two hours of great, synthy vgm! i understand that the sonic palate is very different from the other two albums you put up as options (at least from what i’ve heard from mcr/gerard way haha, i cant be sure until i actually listen to them if i get the chance), but this is the exact kind of groovy vgm i need sometimes; i hope this seems comprehensive but it has a very atmospheric feel and good vibes all around, and while that can sometimes just come with the territory of being vgm, it does a hell of a good job at it and i can imagine it fitting well within the game it comes from (which also, just from what i’m seeing on the steam page, ALSO seems to have great vibes. if i wasn’t trapped on a macbook i would definitely check it out when i could, but i am locked up and forced into a box with only jackbox and out of the park baseball 22. [BRAZIL]ed up hell world we live in. i was very intrigued by the review saying it was “papers please for bisexual people”.) and, as mentioned, it’s just some great synthwave-y stuff overall. this is a great example of the type of album i can enjoy just throwing on in the background whenever i want sometime to work (or zone out) to (actually just threw it into my playlist for stuff like that, which also happens to have a few dearly beloved albums of mine in there lol), with some specific tracks i can see just enjoying on their own as apart of my everyday, (albeit thousands of songs) music rotation. oddly enough, also kind of reminds me in parts of something you might hear in the future world section of epcot, or as a more futuristic take on the backing music of a jon bois documentary, or as some sort of sample in a drum and bass song, and i mean that in the BEST way possible. by design itll be hard to do any sort of track-by-track breakdown, but here were some that stood out to me!

everyday is night - to be honest, i am very, very bad at picking out individual instruments, especially in electronic music but there is SUCH a fun beat to this track; the artificial sax-sounding instrument that comes in at about 1:08 really tickles my brain in a good way and i just love how funky this can be overall

all systems go! - i LOVE the guitars(?) that come in at the beginning of this track, and while i wish they were more prevalent in the rest of the track, i think overall it’s super dynamic overall (love the shift in particular at ~1:40) and does a good of getting me uh. pumped up? i’m not sure how to express that without sounding like a “RISE AND GRIND ????????????” bozo but i hope you know what i mean haha

where do i go from here? - woah, the track that directly precedes the above one! there’s not a ton to this one, but i like how serene it is, very nice on the ears; sounds like it would be nice for a deepsea underwater cave. kind of reminds me of a game/series of games that i can’t exactly place right now. maybe undertale?

everything will be okay - another one that’s just nice on the ears. somehow, i DO think everything will be ok

calicomp 1.1: startup & calicomp 1.1: shutdown - brings back my fond, SICKO childhood memories of watching windows all start up & shutdown sounds…….

synthestitch - god, the beginning of this one is WEIRD in the exact way i adore. feel bad that i keep on referencing timestamps in the songs considering this is flight rising and it is not practical at all, but i love how it picks up around the 2:30 mark; i feel like this, along with the funky part near the end of the track and a few other segments of this track would be KILLER as a sample in some sort of hip-hop beat someday

digital drive - BANGER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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@dracosauria im really glad you enjoyed the album!! i completely understand the complaint about it being repetitive, im not the type of person who usually sits and listens to albums at once so i can sometimes forget how repetitive metronomy's albums can get at times, haha ^^ its funny you mentioned corrine in particular as one thats grown on you, as one of the first g1s ive bought for a project was actually for a pseudo-fandragon based off that song! i eventually plan to grandfather her into my album fandragon project but that is.... a ways away, haha. thank you so much for the review!

@Farore Sorry this is late, I'm extremely forgetful. Thankfully a ping reminded me! I'm not good at describing things like impressions, especially with music, but let's give it a shot.

First song started out kinda like, okay this has some interesting indie vibes...and then as the first chorus played and the drums came in, it was like, "...oh? I like where this is going." Really sets the tone as melancholy yet strong, which is exactly the kind of music I like and reinforced that I made a good choice!

It continues with some hopeful sentiments describing resilience and salvation. I really liked the message in "Empress" about how people need each other and how in the end, everyone wants things to be better. Feels like a call for community and collaboration. "A Youth Written in Fire" has a really nice, almost cinematic atmosphere. Very dramatic third-act conflict montage vibes.

"Soon" really caught my attention because it sounded so familiar. Not in a bad way, it's just very reminiscent of that certain era of Britpop bands, which happens to be a genre I like, even if I don't listen to a lot of it. I do listen to a lot of music inspired by that genre, so again, good choice with this album haha. Maybe a safe choice, but I tend to listen to the same stuff on repeat so it's always good to expand my repertoire within my preferred genres. Nice to see they're still out here making music in this style all these years later.

The album ends out strong, too. The alternate versions carry on that emotional resonance from the rest of the album with a slightly stripped-down sound. Really well put together album full of solid music. Thanks for the rec!

@SnowmanBlood thanks for picking one of my album choices! c:
I'm so happy I got to introduce you to something different and that you enjoyed it!

(Bronco (the track) is such a bop, you're right ot has so much energy to it!)
I'd recommend checking out a music video or two if you haven't already - he has a great sense of style and the video for C'mon Baby Cry is particularly good! <3

@brit
I'm glad you enjoyed the album! I had the same problem for a while. It took me almost a year to come around to any of their albums other than Foxlore, and more time to love all of their songs. Super happy you liked some of the songs so much though, and yesss, if their lyrics weren't so masterful I wouldn't love their music the way I do lol

Thank you for choosing one of my albums, and giving Coyote Stories a shot! ^-^

@dracosauria I'm glad I could give some new perspective on old favorites! Honestly, I could ask for nothing more :) Same goes for the accidental Woodkid rec! Happy I could give something back in return ^^

@mgcltwo I'm glad you liked it!!! I'm a sucker for repetition in any sort of media i love to see characters repeat the past <3 the cycle of tragedy continues for my fun. i hope you like the musical too 'cause i definitely think it adds a lot to see it all play out as well as hearing it ^__^!