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

I'd never thought of Halloween as an epic. Somehow I missed the length of the song. That's not a bad thing, a long song that feels shorter is better than song that drags on for the sake of it. Not saying that Star One's entry does, but I find Halloween more fun and more enjoyable overall.
 
Halloween isn't really one of my favorite Helloween epics, but really, it deserves to go far in the game.
 
Halloween is a power metal classic, but I'll give a pity vote to It All Ends Here. It's the best Star One song, vocals are pure perfection and buildup is amazing.
 
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Results of Round 38:
Star One - It All Ends Here
Helloween - Halloween

Ayreon - Isis & Osiris (Nominated by @Night Prowler)
vs.
Enchant - The Great Divide (Nominated by @MindRuler)
 
Sweet Jesus, this Ayreon song is excellent. What an unexpected mix of flavors, delivered with style and finesse. 70s psychedelic rock, crunchy riffs, spacey synths, and harmonized sitars? Yes, please. And that layered synth interlude toward the end is fantastic. Definitely need to check the whole album out.

This Enchant song is pretty high quality prog rock that wears its influences on its sleeve, but doesn’t really put its own stamp on the material. It runs through the usual 70s prog tropes and does so with confidence. The singer reminds me a bit of Real Thing era Mike Patton, which is interesting.

Neither song was boring or overstayed its welcome, but one of them was much more unique and memorable. Sorry, @MindRuler, but @Night Prowler ‘s nominee is operating on a completely different level here. Winner: Ayreon
 
Thanks for giving Enchant a try @Jer , they have far better songs but they are abit shorter and therefore couldn´t be nominated. To me they´re like a mix of Kansas, Marillion and Rush.
 
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I had a feeling I'd like the Ayreon song as I like most of what I've heard by them. The Source is my favorite album of theirs; in fact, it's one of my favorite progressive albums of all time. In this song, I love the simple mid-tempo riff that kicks in at 3:05; it's heavy but gives plenty of space for the keys to breathe amongst its dynamics. I also love the staccato organ riff that enters at 8:06, and the cheesy synth goodness that follows. The only part I didn't care for was the random talking about halfway through. The song is bookended by a Celtic-sounding acoustic pattern and bluesy lines, which definitely doesn't fit Egyptian gods - but whatever, it's awesome. As @Jer said, it's a wonderful bouquet of flavors in 11 minutes of music.

The Enchant song was solid, but nothing really stood out to me. Musically it's like Dream Theater on Xanax (not an insult)... but it fails to hit any of the highs that the Ayreon song did. Maybe it's the almost constantly layered vocals, or that the guy's voice is just sort of pleasant with little bite, but this is a little less dynamic than I typically prefer. The part at 3:02 is kind of neat, I guess, and the intro (and its reprise halfway through the song) are dynamic, but this is not something I'd actively listen to often.

Ayreon is my pick.
 
I echo this sentiment, which is a bit of a shame because Enchant is quite good

Just not as good as Ayreon

Also, the previous round result will teach me for wandering off
 
Voting for Ayreon as I love that song.

Enchant is OK. Kinda like Rush - Moving Pictures era if it was more metal, mixed with Dream Theater. I thought it was forgettable to be honest, at least compared to Ayreon.
 
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Results of Round 39:
Enchant - The Great Divide
Ayreon - Isis & Osiris

Between The Buried & Me - Extremophile Elite (Nominated by @Mosh)
vs.
Dark Millennium - Pandemonium (Nominated by @Magnus)
 
What happens when you take Mr. Bungle, add a large dollop of masturbatory prog metal, then drain all of the charisma out of the whole affair? Apparently you get Between The Buried And Me. The screamed vocal sections are terrible, the clean vocal sections are strangely saccharine and don’t really work, and the song itself is a horribly disjointed mess. That said, a number of the instrumental sections are genuinely cool and exciting, but that’s not enough to drag the rest of the corpse across the finish line.

This Dark Millennium track isn’t a barnburner, and it’s really more of a slow extended jam session than it is a song; but it’s far more coherent than its opponent and it does some pretty cool and unusual interplay between its guitar parts, both rhythmically and harmonically, despite its slower pace. The vocals aren’t very good, but they don’t show up often. The heavier final minute of the track feels pretty out of place, and I found myself checking the clock a few times during the second half, but overall it was mostly fine.

No real winners here, but one track was far less annoying and incoherent than the other. Sorry, @Mosh, but I have to go with @Magnus ’s nominee here. Winner: Dark Millennium
 
I wasn't too enamored with either of the songs. I heard the latest BTBAM album and it sounds way more mature than this song, particularly the clean vocals. Dark Millennium was OK, but like half of the song felt like an intro. Could've gone either way, but went with BTBAM.
 
Wow. I truly disliked both of these.

The first one is an absolute mess with abhorrent vocals, but I guess some good instrumental parts? Everything about the Dark Millennium song sounded amateur to me.

I guess I'll go with BTBAM, but I'm not happy about it.
 
The Dark Millennium song had a chill vibe and a nice atmosphere. Not great quality, but tasteful. Then the last minute comes in and it’s simply hilarious. I can see what they were going for, but that vocal line hurts my ears.

I am not a BTBAM fan in the slightest. Their vocals annoy me and their overuse of blast beat-type things is aggravating. However, this song is much better produced and is overall more interesting. BTBAM is like what you’d get if you pulled Dream Theater through a portal into a really angry dimension, but they’re constantly stuck in that portal. They have punchy grooves at times, but the lack of any discernible melody really kills them for me.

Still, if I had to listen to one of these songs again, it’d be the BTBAM one.
 
This Pink Floyd track is fine. It’s pleasant enough, and it meanders around through some interesting and less interesting parts. It probably goes on a bit too long, but it didn’t annoy me or anything.

This Van Der Graaf Generator song is undeniably the more interesting listen, but it also has a number of annoying sections that border on carnival music, and it just goes on and on and on and on and on without much cohesion between its many segments.

I think I appreciate the Van Der Graaf Generator song a little more from an artistic point of view, but if I had to pick one of these songs to listen to again for the purpose of enjoying myself, I think my choice would be clear. Sorry, @Forostar, but I have to go with Collantium’s nominee here. Winner: Pink Floyd

Also, kudos to @Night Prowler for pairing up similarly styled songs in these early rounds — it makes the decisionmaking more interesting and preserves more variety going into round 2.
 
Jer said:
This Pink Floyd track is fine. It’s pleasant enough, and it meanders around through some interesting and less interesting parts. It probably goes on a bit too long, but it didn’t annoy me or anything.

This Van Der Graaf Generator song is undeniably the more interesting listen, but it also has a number of annoying sections that border on carnival music, and it just goes on and on and on and on and on without much cohesion between its many segments.

I think I appreciate the Van Der Graaf Generator song a little more from an artistic point of view, but if I had to pick one of these songs to listen to again for the purpose of enjoying myself, I think my choice would be clear. Sorry, @Forostar, but I have to go with Collantium’s nominee here. Winner: Pink Floyd

Also, kudos to @Night Prowler for pairing up similarly styled songs in these early rounds — it makes the decisionmaking more interesting and preserves more variety going into round 2.
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Similar style??
 
This was hard, but I think Bruce would agree that the forum needs more VDGG so I went with them. Thanks for the nomination Foro, a truly underappreciated prog rock band.
 
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