schadd walrus 2: feast of the invisible cats (join biancospino walrus!)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Ego and in. I'm brewing up my submissions literally RIGHT NOW.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Submissions in. I went at this completely brains-free, because I'm running on 3 hours of sleep a night for 3 nights running now, and I think it's likely that I could not have done worse at anything but catfit if you paid me. But for 5 of those submissions, the catfit is probably maxed out.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Normally I would stand my ground but there were some weak songs in there, and I was not considering your enjoyment in the least -- pure catfit. I'll probably make use of this month long reconsideration time for the ones I have the least faith in.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

REJECTED SUBMISSIONS: The Curse Edition

Cat 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xw39KMMvQU
It's about not forgiving someone for selling out their purported beliefs for money, but it's a weak example of the theme and while it's a good song, it's not an AMAZING song. I felt ashamed submitting this.

Cat 8: Seasons (Summer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWl8Oo_Ja10
It's such a cop-out choice. "Let's pick something that's trying to be a summer rock hit. It doesn't need to mention the season, everyone already knows what it's about." It's a really good song as those go, but it's so blatant about its intentions that it might as well be called "June" and mention beaches. Weak shit. Even weaker than the original Cat 6 submission. Much happier with what replaced it.

Still thinking which of the 2 categories with too much overlap I should swap out.

ETA:

Cat 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-o1hP5C02k
Absolutely bonkers. What would happen if you pushed Dragonforcey technical power metal to the utmost limits of speed and shred? Now what if you gave it a brutal death vocalist and one of the absolute fastest tech death drummers ever? I've been calling this "hobbitgrind" and if you listen you'll get it. But I could do better in terms of completely excessive alien-brained magnificence -- and I have. So here it stands, a triumphant and joyous monument to "also-ran".

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Rejected Submissions: CURSE Edition: Vol 2: Being Extremely Normal About My Current Favorite Artist

Cat 1: Memorrhage - Utility
Rejected because
1: it's not released yet (that's tomorrow!),
2: I dislike the album cut compared to the prerelease cut I got to hear (album version had label meddling with mixed results),
3: honestly, schadd_ probably wouldn't like even the prerelease cut as much as the song I chose to begin with.

Cat 2, 5: https://memorrhage.bandcamp.com/track/purple-graft
Rejected because while it's got creepy vibes, it's soft shoegazy nu-trap metal and it fucks. Also, it strikes me as bad for synchronized swimming -- too slow in the beginning, then too fast when the amens hit.

Cat 5: Memorrhage - Ex-Sprite
Rejected because no one would do synchronized swimming to scream-raps. They should, but they never would. Also, not released. Tomorrow!

Cat 8: Seasons (Autumn): https://memorrhage.bandcamp.com/track/old-wave-2
Rejected because I like the challenge of paired songs much more.

Cat 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qo7VoAubkM
Rejected because schadd_ would definitely not like it, I wasn't going to actually ever list only one artist even for an shitpost like this, and I thought it would be funny to insert lo-fi caveman slams into the nu metal list.

Cat 7: Memorrhage - Infect
Rejected because it's not going to be out until next year when LP2 drops, and I have complicated feelings about the lyrics (which are based on some I wrote last year). This is the one that sparked the idea for trying to force a Memorrhage song in at all costs, which then became this subpar shitpost. I genuinely wanted to include Infect today but couldn't justify leaking the track. There are two soft-released LP2 tracks, but this isn't one of them.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm permanently ahead of the curve when it comes to Fantano, to the point of being eternally frustrated when half of my favorite bands have people saying "ah yes I too watch The Needle Drop!" I've never consumed a single frame of his content, and he discovered all of my music months to years after I've been talking it up.

Right now, there's a campaign to make Memorrhage the next artist he does this to me with, and honestly? Fair enough, at least I have proof I was here first this time (pre-mastered tracks in .wav format).

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I wonder if someone could submit the same song to every category, just through covers and remixes.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think if the different interpretations were diverse enough, it might dodge the unfamiliarity penalty too. I'm just struggling to think of any song where there'd be the required range of approaches.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm late. I'm sorry. For some reason my brain said "an hour and 3 minutes" and I was going to do it for the bit, but then I come back to get ready and the time is all wrong. Anyway you were supposed to do something 9 minutes ago.

PEDIT: sniped by a minute

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I heard a song so insane tonight that I have to modify an entry. The question right now is what one.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I ended up deciding not to switch anything out for that track, so...

Rejected CURSE Submissions: That One I Was Gonna Slip In There.

Cat ???, ???: Circuit Circuit - </null>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cYld3gmImk
I wasn't sure how I was gonna fit this in, and in the end I decided not to, but I tried really, really hard. Breathtaking genius. I'm loosely acquainted with the vocalist.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

For personal reasons, I won't be participating actively in this. But I'm not pulling out, just... minimal posts, if any at all. Will be updating my GTKAS with the reasons. Nothing to do with anyone here, purely my life.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I figured I might scoot by uncaught with clipping., but the chances you'll miss me for the rest are zero. Nil. Impossible.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm not mad, schadd_, I'm just disappointed.

Anyway there are at least five emotions I hear, which get mixed into each other to varying degrees after being introduced alone. Rage out of the gate, sorrowful defiance when the melodic leads come in, a sort of loving-regret when Iris's vocals are in, then an ancient nostalgia during the MIDI soundfont portion, and all of it together in a sort of claustrophobic, wandering isolation. I recognize a couple other different shades, too.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

• this category was the last one i came up with and i would say i was in a bit of a delirium during most of the scoring process... so you'll have to forgive me for some under-reasoned results. like if your song got a weird score you can be like "oh scores were weird this time." granted, there was a pretty strong tendency towards the mean
  
• stinkycheesedan narrowly misses the panzerjager award by virtue of having gotten 20th last time. also, there are two people that may laugh in delight upon noticing that danny has the most enjoyment points
  
• i accidentally pasted over invisibility's song with a revision from mushshagana, so i listened to it and scored it after the reveal. the song i scored at 6th place is the correct one and the 17th place one is the other one.... Isnt that right mushshagana.....
  
• aisa tragically stands as the one with the most points lost from unfamiliarity at 1.6, suffering from sending me songs that i already liked but mostly forgot about...

Look. I actually really think that Black Rot is a better option here. It's literally about both forgiving someone and not forgiving someone else, who just kind of happen to share a body. I also think that Gloom is the better band musically!

Anyway I realized after the reveal started that I should have sent this song instead of EITHER of those.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Left Behind is more "like" most of my music, so guessing that right makes more sense. I don't like symphonic metalcore or deathcore, usually, it's just irritating. Microrant time: symphonic metal works best in more complicated contexts, IMO -- tech death, grindcore, mathcore, prog. All the genres that use it most often on the other hand, like black metal, metalcore, doom metal, power metal, most gothic metal, brutal death ... it just sounds over-done and weakens the base music. That's one of the special things about that album, and that band: they not only get away with things I find annoying from other bands, but make them work better than it would be without them.

Also, Mick Gordon was approached to produce that album for them, and he said the material they were putting out was better than he knew how to work with, so I'm not alone in thinking Gloom is really, really good. If I can convince you to give it a better shot, and I were to pick "song for schadd_ specifically" from Trinity, I'd probably go with Gatekeeper -- but as I stated in my submissions, I was aiming at catfit.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm both surprised and not surprised about the entry you guessed was me, because on one hand: Yeah, That Tracks, and on the other, I am not a fan. (I find TN12LLY dull, personally, though I understand why people like them.)

For the record, I'm surprised you didn't pick out how much of the Sculptured song was indebted to 90s Christian devotional, 50s lounge, etc. It's approaching metal from a DEEPLY unusual angle, which is why I ended up picking it.

You should make sure you didn't fuck up all of Invisibility's stuff with my stuff. Yes, there's only one other I switched over, but now is the time to make sure you didn't flub that one too.

I am curious what you thought about Sarpanitum, since you clearly listened to it too given the flub, but I also think it's a way more boring thing, just power metal by way of technical deathgrind -- which is really weird to ME, but probably does nothing for most people.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Very fair. Honestly, it's mostly a curiosity, where Sculptured is legitimately odd.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

The main interest of Mithras' drums is the drummer is an absolute maniac. That's all live, not retracked. The drums are just tripping over themselves at hyperspeed, but there's also a lot of actual technique in them, it's not raw velocity with no sense of timekeeping.

Admittedly, though, the guitar does fuck. Also, the vocalist's more hardcore-roar vocals are a big bonus -- as much as I like harsh vocals, I tend to prefer when it's dialed back some.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Just realized what's up next. Oh boy, I'm either going to be getting the historical lowest-ever schadd_rus score, or getting gold. I've safely hung in "mediocre" territory so far, but this is not going to be more of the same.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

It's not surprising you guessed me for the Pharmakon track, given I like power electronics and everything. Helio is a special beast though.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

So!

Li Chao of Zaliva-D is someone I was acquainted with waaaaay back in 2007 or so, we frequented the same obscure internet music circles. As of this May, I also know a personal friend of his, also a musician (keju of Broken Thoughts) but Li Chao and I haven't spoken since like ... 2009?

In theory, I probably know someone who knows someone in RNA, because I know a ton of weird motherfuckers in Arizona, but I'm not aware of any connection there.

So you're wrong about that.

The connection between the tracks that I intended is to this hot dry distant festival atmosphere. In the Zaliva-D case it's more alien, Morrowind-like in its combination of various Asian and African cultural elements but with a distinct admixture of the totally inhuman as well (those weird bassy lurches before that odd flute-like instrument shows up make it feel like some sort of parade of rubber-maquette aliens is turning the corner into view). In RNA's case, it's more of a Woodstocky live rock festival vibe. But both are sunbaked and celebratory tracks, with a wash of the unreal from either the unusual and alien vibes or the drug-hazed echoes.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think this is the first time it would ever be fair to say that I'm at least consistent.