THE CRUSADE OF EPICS: Results -> A Change Of Seasons wins!

Not Meshuggah. Always Not Meshuggah.

But seriously, this Blind Guardian track was more coherent than their last epic in the game, and it had nicer stuff going on with the choirs and more memorable melodic lines. Something feels a bit off with the backing vocals on the chorus, like they’re overcompressed and manipulated or something, but this is otherwise quality stuff.

And then Meshuggah. God, I hate Meshuggah. The first 2 minutes of this shitfest tell you pretty much all you need to know — get ready for a bunch of pointless screaming and rhythmic masturbation. Yes, there are a few moments where they open things up more, especially toward the end where there’s an extended interlude with more nuance in it, but so much of this is just shitty noise. No thanks.

Sorry, @Midnight, but @LooseCannon ’s nominee takes this one easily. Winner: Blind Guardian
 
So I sat through all 30 minutes (lol) of these two songs, and while I am not a fan of either band, the answer is an obvious Blind Guardian for me. It's by default. Look -- I've heard a lot of 21+ minute songs in my life. Like, you know, 10. What do most have in common? This little thing called melody. I don't give a damn if Meshuggah can play in 5/4 or 9/8 or 15/16 or 17/23 and make it sound "great." They have no character. They have no melody. There is nothing to remember them by, other than being cybernetic beings who forgot what it was to once be human. Italics.

The intro to that song is insane. The first 90 seconds are nothing more than constant double bass and (I think) some sort of natural minor melody forming with robotic sounds, but I'm drunk at this point (I'm 47 seconds in and I started drinking when the song started) so I don't even know anymore. Then at just over 90 seconds the shitty screaming starts and honestly, if this band had a real singer I could at least give them a solid chance. I just can't get behind this.

Blind Guardian is pure power metal cheese. I can't handle them for more than 10 minutes at a time, so this by nature favors them (considering I can't handle Meshuggah for more than one minute at a time). I love complex music and I love polymeters and I love beauty in technical simplicity but holy hell I just don't get Meshuggah. I wish I did. I wish I could understand this whole other sub-genre of clangy robot sounds, but I don't. I mean, 8-string guitars? What does the bass even play? Is it in the same octave as the guitars? Why even have a bass at that point?
 
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Midnight said:
Imagine if Blind Guardian had Meshuggah guitars.
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Er... how about no? What a horrid thought.

One Andre Olbrich is worth a thousand Thordendals.

... heh, there should be a "guitarist currency", now that I think about it.
"You see the new Aston Martin that robber baron bought? From what I heard they're custom made and he paid, like, five hundred Gilberts and seventy MacAlpines for it. Kinda figures when you realize he makes about an Allman per year."
 
JudasMyGuide said:
... heh, there should be a "guitarist currency", now that I think about it.
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That reminds me of the time that my high school friend @IronDuke and I derived a system of human worth based on one of our friends, called the Tyler System. Then one day Tyler pissed us off so we unhooked the Tyler System from the Tyler Standard, devaluing him to 0.7 Tylers.

We were weird kids.
 
Detective Beauregard said:
The intro to that song is insane. The first 90 seconds are nothing more than constant double bass and (I think) some sort of natural minor melody forming with robotic sounds, but I'm drunk at this point (I'm 47 seconds in and I started drinking when the song started) so I don't even know anymore. Then at just over 90 seconds the shitty screaming starts and honestly, if this band had a real singer I could at least give them a solid chance. I just can't get behind this.
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Funny you should say that, the appeal of Meshuggah precisely is that. It's intoxication via rhythm. They put you in a trance, once you're lost, you're lost. You memorize the rhythms after some point, and it gets you moving. In that sense, they are truly a band for which one listen is insufficient. Memorizing the material, be in the patterns or the movements, improves the enjoyment greatly.

Detective Beauregard said:
I love complex music and I love polymeters and I love beauty in technical simplicity but holy hell I just don't get Meshuggah. I wish I did.
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Used to be the case for me as well, then things started to click. I do concede that you have to have an affinity towards visceral sounding music to have any chance of getting into them, because it's truly a pounding affair.
 
@The Flash

While I prefer more melody in my music, I’d honestly give them a chance if it weren’t for the screaming. I don’t mind guttural growly vocals but the screaming is something I can’t handle. It reminds me of nu-metal, which I really don’t like.

Do they have any instrumentals?
 
Obviously, I'll vote for my own pick here. I really like this song, I love the way it builds and crescendos, I love the way Hansi sounds, he sweeps epic over this one. Is it an all time great/perfect epic? Sure, no. But it's pretty damn good.
 
Beyond the Red Mirror isn't one of my favorite Bling Guardian albums, truth be told, first couple of listens somehow discouraged me to listen any further. But in all that brickwalled distortion led by Hansi, Ninth Wave is the only song that stuck with me.
 
Blind Guardian biggest quality comes from Hansi's vocals and the guitar leads and melodies, and adding choirs and orchestras just makes the band less good IMO. So the last orchestral album is useless to me, and so is the intro of this song... bores me to death. And this song is really lacking in the guitar department. These choirs also don't work. I vastly prefer it when Hansi overdubs himself (but not to the extent as he did on A Night At The Opera). Chorus is cool but that's pretty much it.

Meshuggah is a band that I greatly admire for their musicianship but I can't listen to them for very long or in certain moods. It's exhausting music, and it really applies to this song. 21 minutes of this is just... too much.

Meshuggah drummer Tomas Haake said of the EP, "That whole track was written and recorded just on random. Me and Fredrik would just jam on something, and when we found something that was kind of cool, he would walk into the control room. I would just record drums and it wasn't a set pattern, I would just kind of stray away from the pattern, but just keep going in that vibe. Then we had to chart everything and go bar by bar to record the guitars afterwards, because it's all just random."
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So it's meant to be completely crazy as it is. There are some cool riffs but overall I can't get into this.

The Flash said:
Funny you should say that, the appeal of Meshuggah precisely is that. It's intoxication via rhythm. They put you in a trance, once you're lost, you're lost. You memorize the rhythms after some point, and it gets you moving. In that sense, they are truly a band for which one listen is insufficient. Memorizing the material, be in the patterns or the movements, improves the enjoyment greatly.
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I agree with this wholeheartedly. I don't know that many Meshuggah songs, but I would still love to go see them live just for this experience.

Could've gone either way, but went with Meshuggah's superior musicianship over bottom of the barrel Blind Guardian.
 
Detective Beauregard said:
@The Flash

While I prefer more melody in my music, I’d honestly give them a chance if it weren’t for the screaming. I don’t mind guttural growly vocals but the screaming is something I can’t handle. It reminds me of nu-metal, which I really don’t like.

Do they have any instrumentals?
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I'm not too enamored with their vocals, either, can become grating over time. I do have similar experience with their vocals as I do with their music, though, when I have the lyrics and the vocals memorized they are fun to go along with. Their vocals also tend to be rhythm-centric.

Don't think they have instrumentals, no. The odd instrumental version is the best you can hope for.
 
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Results of Round 13:
Meshuggah - I
Blind Guardian - The Ninth Wave

Jethro Tull - Budapest (Nominated by @Forostar)
vs.
Virgin Steele - Emalaith (Nominated by @Wogmidget)
 
Jethro Tull for me. It's my 2nd favorite band after Maiden. And this is a really fantastic song from a fantastic album. Martin Barre's guitar sound is awesome and unique.
 
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