Ryan-of-the-Metal's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Zombie Jesus]

Let's get into this.

So you had some groovy, funky bass thing going on to begin with, but then you completely bust it out with your traditional style of chugging and whatnot. It seems that with your tone, you make use of either a fuzz pedal or use single coil pickups. I may be wrong, but that's what I notice

Oh, and that chromatic sounding riff at 0:23 was pretty cool I like it and I would want to include stuff like that in my music.

But, on the drums, you use the funky sort of vibe again throughout the song, but you meld it with a metal style, I like, it's interesting. I like the timing that you use for the components on the drums, like with the hi-hat, the snare is commonplace, but it works nicely. It helps differentiate this from your other songs a bit.

You like using chromatic scales and things like that, those work well for a horror sound but, you lack that evil drive so much in this piece. When I was listening up to 3:30, at around that part, your sound seemed to have softended up from what it was originally.

^ I say this because the original riff was harder, and as you get along, you become more power sounding, loosing the guteral sense of your chords. But you return back to it, with that chromatic riff that I like, which is a good time to return it, and I like thohse unison notes working together, it has some nice variety.

Oh, and on your vocals. You use your standard formula, clean, but growly vocals, then some vocals using a harmony, and going on back to regular. I didn't notice the panning that you typically did with your vocals in the past, are you moving on to something different? Hell if I know lol.

But, as your title tells, your song seems to be about some semblance of Jesus, I use the word 'semblance' because unlike this song, Jesus could do all the things that were listed here that were not able to be done, like walking on water, turning it into wine, ect.

In my view, I see this song's meaning to be about meeting Jesus after death, not so much being with him, but seeing him, but there's mentioning of inability to commit the Godly things as mentioned. Is this refering to a non-Godly being, like a man, or lowering the releveance of Jesus' power and ability?

I don't entirely know.

This seems like a dialoge going on between to individuals. Perhaps, Jesus is the first stanza, then the traveler is the second and it continues in a pattern as mentioned? Maybe. They could be interchangable, but I don't know if I'm thinking too far into it, it's tough to figure out.

I know I've said this before, but for a metalhead like you, you're quite cryptic and skilled in writing music. This song doesn't convey mental images like your previous songs, but it makes me think.

Anyway, I can't find crap that's wrong with this submission, so I give up. \m/

Schleif responds:

wow, your reviews never cease to amaze! i wanted to try out a few new ideas for riffs, or at least keep some interesting variation going on, like the 3:30-part you mentioned. and you're right, i barely panned the vocals in this one haha. just for a couple of places.

while i did have specific thoughts when writing the lyrics, what i really wanted was to get the listener to think for themselves, and form their own perception of the message. i'm glad you did, and that you shared your thoughts about it.

once again, thanks for the fantastic review!

[Choir of Guns]

Well, check this out.

So by what I'm hearing so far, this sounds like traditional Schlief setup. You've been keen on using drum fills lately to begin your songs, which is cool, it's like a fad of sorts maybe? Well I haven't reviewed something of yours in a long time; it's good to hear some new material.

To begin with, there's an interesting sort of sweep arpeggio going on, and if I had to give my assessment, I'd have to believe that it sounds like a programmed lead based on the timbre of the sound. I could be wrong though, since one of my guitars that fancies a single coil sometimes sounds like that too.

Your leads tend to sound a bit of the same as I go through all of your songs. What I would do if I was you would be to try some new techniques, but your style, being like this song, usually never fails as it seems to get a point across. When the rhythm guitar harmonizes with a chord during the beginning, it's a little tough to understand it due to the fuzz on the lead, but it's still there and I know it.

The phrase at 0:21 is cool, and I'd like to learn phrases like that myself. Other things to note are that I hear a little more of the bass guitar than usual, which I like. I also like the dissonant, confliction of the rhythm vs. the bass when the rhythm sustains, I love that. It sort of reminds me a little sliver of Crue. But I also really like the main lead riff, it sounds fluid, fitting, yet meaty. It's catchy too, if it were to be mashed into one of those 8 or 16-bit things that everyone likes, I bet it would be still listenable and catchy.
I can feel it now, even as I pause the song to write this review, that riff is getting into my head lol.

Well, after two minutes into the song, you have a really cool section where you use harmonization on the lead. I guess you either had the other guitar play a few steps away from the root sequence of the lead guitar, or you used an octavizer or something, it s more becoming of what Metaljonus would sound like, but without all the shredding though. But don't get me wrong though, that passage rips though, I'd like to learn that myself. Oh wait, I heard all the arpeggios and speed picking now, okay that's pretty sick. And I like all that focus on the power chords too, I really like this.

Okay, enough about that, for what you did for your lyrics, you always make very interesting comparisons and metaphors in your music that are disgusting yet poetic. I use your music always for an example on how heavy metal can be poetically developed. You compare music functioning like a weapon, preferably like guns.

Violence kills everyone, friends, enemies, and it never ends, and so you're 'singing in defence' it goes with 'gun's you only friend' when you're on a battlefield shooting at friends and enemies, everyone is killing each other, your gun would seem to be the only thing not to turn on you.

Hmm. 'music beyond sense' Is that sense that you feel or sense that you understand? Very cryptic Schleif. A double entendre here. 'like lying strapped to an anvil' 'like neglecting all you know' Despite all we understand, we're going to get what comes to use, be it like a death sentence? Awesome, my good man.

Too bad MP3 device failed on me, otherwise I'd be on this song like a madman.

Schleif responds:

wow dude, your reviews are as fantastic as always! i don't know what to say, as your really just listed all i wanted to say with this song! glad it came through, and i'm really glad you like it. as you noticed, i gave the bass more space in this one, and i'm glad to hear that it turned out the way i wanted it to haha.

i'll try to experiment more with new styles and techniques in the future, for sure. in fact, i'm working on something a bit special as i write haha. once again, thanks for the amazing feedback, you're fucking excellent \m/

[*old* Lunacy Comprehended]

Reviews away!

To be honest, even though you don't appear to be enthusiastic about this submission, I honestly like this piece for what it is. There are errors and mistakes present, but the good here outweighs the bad in my opinion.

Your guitars are fine, even though there appears to be the same guitar played on two tracks panned to left and right. The form of this method is a little thin since there's only one guitar and just drums, but then that allows more room for them to do interesting things.

You had a good amount of polyrythmic transitions here. Not really much remained the same, so it avoided static tendencies. For example, the intro riff sounded like Slipknot, but then you ran into a slick groove.

After that, the pause and cymbal swell added some tension to see what was going to appear next, I liked that. Fill. Then there was a running rhythmic pattern that was really dissonant, but conjunct. It's weird. I mean, your song has weird everything.

The section that sped up was cool to me, but a lot of these sections don't last long though.

I'm glad the drums can keep up, I'm not completely sure where all the components of the drums are going and where they are, they get a little lost, but there's able to be found. Maybe they could have done with some more EQing in my opinion?

Anyway, you could really develop this into something to work with.

Oh, and I did hear that phrase with another guitar, so I guess there's another track of guitar in here. That section it played was really short too.

I guess what I'm trying to say I like this all here, weird time signatures, riffs, it works as weird as it is. By the way, I have no idea where the 9/5 riff and 11/3 are, you got me beat there. O_o

Eteocles responds:

Hey man, thanks for your honest review! I'm actually considering re-working this song and having the vocalist in my band do some screams over it, he really loved it when he heard it for some reason.

And yeah, the Bass in this song is just my guitar with all the treble and mids EQ'd out, it was a slack way to do it but I didn't want to record a whole other bass track hahaha.

There is actually 3 guitars in this song. The left and right channel are both individual guitars and the middle channel is the short lead.

Thanks for the review and opinion! It helps a lot more then you'd imagine and I'll definitely be taking all this into consideration if I rework it and for future songs!

Cheers!

[Claws of Chaos]

I'm piqued

This submission is pretty cool, I'm glad I gave it a chance, since there's some potential here that could really be molded into something real good.

I'll start with the instruments.

The overall flow of this song is really groovy. Even though there really isn't all too much complication in this song, it works just fine either way, since there's vocals. I follow the philosophy of allowing repetition when vocals are present.

There are a lot of low end frequencies present here. I mean it, it's evident in pretty much all the layers, but let me explain further. The bass EQing makes perfect sense; it's a bass after all, although in classic metal EQing of bass to mimic a guitar regularly is common. But here's the weird part, compared to the guitar, it's so much more pronounced.

There is no shame or issues with this, the guitar isn't a problem if it takes a back seat, but it just strikes to me that you did something to the EQing of the guitar to make it sit so far back and receded from the mix. I personally think that the guitar would benefit from being EQed with more attack and presence.

Now I like the sort of plop on the bass, but if it's going to come out, then the guitar should too, y'know? If you cannot re-record anymore, try acquiring some post recording equalizing equipment. That's what I usually end up doing.

Onto vocals.

Your vocals sound fine to me. They're really growly though. This causes some issues since usually singing tends to have some volume to it, body too. Growling, unless you get really good at it sounds a bit one-dimensional. I understand you added some effects too, that helps it retain some organic feel, that's good.

Growling tends to be quieter than singing, so either you need to growl louder or EQ it in some way to make it sound natural. Here it sounds a little like you added some fuzz onto the track and made it sound bassier. I don't know, since I can understand your vocals normally, but it just doesn't seem to be completely natural to you, so I guess I should stop ragging on you. Even after all I said though, they still sound fairly good though, they just need work though.

PS. I wouldn't mind working with you on collabs in the future. \m/

[Distorted Image]

You've got something here.

I like this main riff, it's got a devastating sort of quality, and it's like a demolisher. I believe you're using real guitars here, but I could be wrong.

Although, I have some problems with the guitar tone. I understand electro metal tends to be way out there on EQ, but for this guitar track, it keeps peaking so it gives a rather annoying warble at the upper tips and edges of the ears that may deter other people from enjoying it all the way. Maybe try reducing volume in the future? Or try not to abuse your EQing like you have here too hard lol.

The section in the middle when you sustain on a chord and the drums keep thumping away is cool. Some people hate the volume cutting from other instrument layers suddenly gaining all the volume, but I kind of like it, even though it's common in pop these days. If in the future you want to avoid that, use a compressor if you were not aware of that, but I'm not trying to lecture you, sorry. D:

Anyway, other points of interest were the keyboard effects floating around were cool; the snare's reverb was dirty and sweet. (By the way, nice job using an electronic set.) And the ending was interesting to me, I don't exactly know why, but it just falls right apart real fast, I liked that.

RealPublic responds:

Wow, that's a great comment.

Thank you most kindly.

The track is still before final mastering, so thanks for mentioning other points I didn't know. I usually get my final mastering done when releasing the track on a cd album, if of course I decide to put it on the album.

Thank you again for an awesome review :)

[Dystopia_]

Nice to hear from you again.

Seriously, you have some intense melodic submissions, and this one is definitely not an exception here.

I personally think that this is more of a minor-oriented piece in terms of tonality, since your other songs would tend to be 'happier' per say, but this one has more guttural expression amongst it. It's also nice and chunky too with some high-attack laden riffs.

The guitar riffs are just so polyrhythmic, there's plenty of diversity here, with a great amount of distinction between sections. There's one riff, that I do believe that's in the chorus that's pretty sweet that I wish that I could take away from this song to use on my own lol.

I like how the lead and rhythm interact at the same time signatures at times, that works for me.

Drums are seriously punk, although, it's tough for me to count the beat arrangement for them, I keep registering them on up beats, but they also are constantly changing too, even though there's a steady beat, it's just difficult to hone in exactly where the beats land.

I think I hear bass in there, I don't really know though, there's a lot of 'plop' on the bass which I like a lot, but I keep on insisting to myself that it's the bass playing, which it probably isn't, but still.

I like the EQ arrangement, there's some good strength all around. I can't really make any major suggestions on improvement, except that the drums are real awesome, but just a tiny notch soft sometimes, mostly on cymbals that could be fixed with a little more sharpness on the EQ, maybe some thump added via compressor. This song wouldn't really benefit, but you could perhaps have a song with more an emphasis on the drum beat? That'd be pretty cool.

Anyway, that's enough for one day, keep it rocking. \m/

BERSERKYD responds:

What an enjoyable review ! Thanks again man, I really really appraciate it !
I'll continu experiment music by my own, and find inspiration every where I can. You can check out my new song , Furfur, hope you gonna like it.

Rock On !

[The Cardinal Star]

Most definately epic.

Seriously, I love the songs you and your bro do, they've always been good, and they just continue to get better in different facets at a time. Also, quite honestly, I've liked the shorter stuff recently. You get to take one particularly good idea of yours, and then refine it better, as its own song instead of 'mashing' it with a whole bunch of others to make a long masterpiece-esque song.

Anyway, one of the things really getting me going is the groovy flow of the rhythm in this song, it just infected me as soon as the guitars were brought in. The piano was clear and beautifully toned too, but honestly, the guitars did the trick for me though lol.
I just dig so much the timing on the rhythm; it makes me want to bang my head so badly, it's impossible to keep myself from commencing to do so.

Anyway, the tone is Shadrock standard in my opinion. The grindy stuff, I always like that, but honeslty, I'd love to hear more of the pipe-scrapingly brutality that I used to hear years ago that made you feel abandoned in a warehouse or an asylum of sorts. I just digged that, but this is fantastic too though since the focus isn't completely on the tone of the guitar, which in my opinion is still completely good as it is.

I hear some well-placed lows and highs, personally, but the oscilloscope isn't agreeing with me, so maybe your songs need to be louder?

Anyway, the really cool elements that I loved were the bass fills that circulated all the lows, kind of like a mild sweep, I have a tough time explaining those. Sections such as 1:02.

Another was the tone of the keyboard at 1:22. That's friggin' cool. It's like a really glassy flange with a filter or something, but I just love it, the tone is just fantastic, I'm considering pestering you guys for a sample of that for me to use lol.

I like the bass having permission to the limelight at 1:51. The bass in the song that has a nice tone that allows it to please the whims of metal and slick jazz at the same time with the allotted highs as well as lows. Speaking of jazz, the solo involved was conveniently placed after the bass' quotient. After some scraping haha.

Ooh, that sound that you guys captured at 2:16, I love that sort of ambient noise, it's so celestial, yet powerfully unfamiliar. I've also been successful capturing a sound like that too. :D

The choir was good, too, ambient and evoking, blah, blah, blah lol. I kid, I like how it still stood in the mix, but was still allowed its own space, I need to figure out how to accomplish that!

But overall, a great team effort, thanks to Shadrock. ^_^

Shadrock responds:

Haha thanks again for a most excellent in-depth review. I agree I too miss my old "darker / industrial" metal. It's weird though, you get into a different groove and try new original ideas and you somehow forget your old ones. Although, I think It's time for another go at returning to my roots :)

[P Implies Q]

This sounds like a zombie romp.

Coupled with sex and violence, but the violence was implied from the start though. I also like how this song is a bit satirical with all the elements it mentions, but still withstanding at that same time as an actual song though.

I'll start with that guitar. It's basically the same riff repeated, it makes me think of if Tool did Rap or something, that's what thier sound would be like. It's a bit flat, not in musical terms, but in my opinion of EQing. There's a chance you placed cuts on both the ends of highs and lows, but I'm not completely sure, it sounds like that to me.

The buzz is cool though, even if it is the same riff and chords repeated, it's really cool sounding, it fits well with the structure of the vocals.

But, moving onto those vocals, personally, those vocals are friggin' cool. :P I NEVER get to hear heavy metal songs that address zombie killing, this is too cool. All the other of the songs are way more serious that the vocals, I'm sorry, it's mostly the theme that makes me say that though.

I loved how you mentioned recording and rhyming while killing zombies, I'm sorry, that's just beast. I laughed at high school friends. xD

The bass was pretty basic though, it either followed directly behind the guitar riffs or just did 16th notes, as towards the end. I honestly have no problem with that.

Seriously though, as much as I like this song, I think that the EQing should be a little more bold, and seperated, in a sense. I say this since the vocals, even though I like the wispy-high sound to them, blend in too much with the guitar riffs, making them almost impossible for me to pick out.

Maybe if I listen to the part a few times, I could differentiate it all but I think the EQing should be re-arranged a bit more. But that's just my opinion.

Aside from that, I like this song alot, and I'm going to have it accompany me when I kill zombies. \m/