[WALRUS] Shad Walrus 2021

#51

18th place:

Tangrowth

Isolée - Schrapnell

For a couple seconds at the one minute mark, I am preparing to party hard. I guess that's not where this is going. It doesn't go very far in general, but I love the vibe it sets so much that I'm not sure I want it to. It does have plenty of fun subtle moments, like the freight train harmonica pop-in at 2:55. And it's catchy in the best way. This was the cat 1 sub I found myself actually humming around the house the most. The wet mouth clicky sound at 1:51 jars me every time, but I can forgive that.

8.3

#52

17th place:

Ampharos

Casiopea - Asayake

I do love these funky Japanese 80s/90s jams. I subbed something along these lines to Egix's walrus recently. Unfortunately, I have to rank submissions, and the fact that he completely fucked up the solo from 2:25 and just yolo released it anyway kind of... sets this to meme tier for me. From what I'm reading they recorded the whole thing in two days and it was more of a live jam in studio. I respect that. But like... it's the main solo of the song and you totally botch it and just roll with it anyway? Come on man. At least it's kind of endearing.

All that being said, this is a style I enjoy more than most. I latched onto an easy excuse to clear space in the upper echelons. Maybe another song by the same artist could have fared a lot better. They appear to have ten thousand.

God but it is so endearing.

I think it's even triggering my vaporwave sensibilities fffffff

I actually love this.

8.4

#53

16th place:

nutella

Glass Animals - Life Itself

I really like this in the context of the category. When I said I didn't mind a bit of pep in the scene, I was imagining something more light playful, maybe in the spectrums of math rock and indie, but this manages to force some pretty thick bass into the mix. Sunny morning on the beach... that doesn't seem like it should jive. But it does here. I don't know if it's the jungle beats or what, but I can see it, and this song is really fun.

8.5

#54

TOP 15

Ace Marvel
Adam
birdwithteeth11
gbsfranca
Keldeo
ladd
Marcher Jovian
MyNameIsNothing
Newcomb
Owner Of A Lonely Heart
Roman
roro__b
schadd
shubaka17
Visorslash

#55

15th place:

Marcher Jovian

Kikagaku Moyo - Green Sugar

These are the tough slots. The biggest losers. There just wasn't anything above this that I could bring myself to bump. Maybe if they'd road that short-lived psychedelic climax into another 5 minute jam. Yes, that's it. The song was too short! Bam. Solved it.

8.6

#56

14th place:

Keldeo

Clever Girl - Teleblister

Shorting this out of the top 10 feels like a crime when I'm actively listening to it. The sax is such a natural fit it leaves me wondering why every math rock band doesn't do it. This is a gorgeously peaceful meandering journey through some happy place that doesn't necessarily scream beach to me but can certainly function there. It doesn't have any distinct hook that resonates in my head post-play, but that's ok. It just maaaybe held it back a bit from tracks that linger more.

8.7

#57

13th place:

Adam

Bruce Springsteen - Atlantic City

Here's another Shadrus moment: this is the first time I've listened to Bruce Springsteen. Wow this is... as captivating as I thought it might be. Part of why I've light avoided him is the suspicion that I might get sucked in and listen to nothing else for half a year. This is a great example of what I felt that Taylor Swift sub woefully lacked: an intuitive vocal and lyrical engrossment in the story he's telling, laying out the narrative framework and letting the feelings fill the gaps. This is way too emotionally thick to fit the category, but it's literally about Atlantic City and I goddamn love it, so I'll cut you some slack.

Well, damn, quite a bit of slack as things played out. Every time I tried to move this track down for songs that seemed to fit better, it just wouldn't budge.

8.8

#58

12th place:

birdwithteeth11

Plini - Ona / 1154

This isn't the most immediately irresistibly captivating Plini track I've heard, but it grew like hell on me.

I guess hell's supposed to be eternal uh

Whatever, that thicc whomp whomp bass is hard to resist, and the way it jives with the jazz piano is just dirty. This track has been on a long continuous journey upward the whole time, and I have no idea where it's going to ultimately stop.

8.9

#59

11th place:

Visorslash

project e.l.f. - newton

I am always extremely hesitant to place late subs high. It's not as some sort of silly reprisal. I just find it very difficult to place a track that I'm hearing in isolation from the constant back-and-forthing that resolves in the list at large, and when in doubt, the short term familiarity tends to lose out. This was an exception in that regard, and it didn't get here easily. But what ultimately convinced me was the time element. A lot of people found great beachy tunes. This one acknowledges the finer detail of a morning setting. Things are just starting to get going. The day is still mellow. We're still just coming to. The minimalist machine-like electronics encased in that hazy fluid of drawn out tones just nailed the complete mood for me.

9.0

#60

TOP 10

Ace Marvel
gbsfranca
ladd
MyNameIsNothing
Newcomb
Owner Of A Lonely Heart
Roman
roro__b
schadd
shubaka17

#61

10th place:

Roman

Frank Turner - Wanderlust

Oi, I think this is a much more effective way to countrify the category. Honestly, the lyrics are so goddamn good that it's hard for me to listen to it with the level of passiveness necessary to relate it to any scene but the one it's presenting. But I think that classic trot and the slide guitar have a more natural beach affinity than the Punch Brothers or Springsteen tracks, and that gut punch ending seals the deal on loving it.

9.1

#62

9th place:

roro__b

Pogo - Boy & Bear

There's no way this fails to make my top 5 in cat 9 of my 2019 walrus. I originally placed it as high here, because it was just so perfect in that category's context and this one has some modest overlap. But in this setting, maybe it's just a little too sweet and endearing. I want to be sipping iced tea and kicking my feet up, not desperately trying to extinguish my melting heart.

Ooof this guy's history is unfortunate. Don't think I'll be giving him money, but if I find a free dump somewhere I'll still dive.

9.2

#63

8th place:

Owner

Statik Sound System - Revolutionary Pilot (Rob Smith Mix)

This immediately made me think of Radiohead's Talk Show Host, and it goes on to bleed Radiohead all over, drums aside. Pretty easy hit for me, and it has a really chilled out but world coming to life vibe that feels like it just nailed the category on every level. Like, I thought for a moment that it might be more appropriate as a sort of sunrise in the city tune, but it's just too relaxed amid the bustle for that. I think it found an ideal home here, and it got the job done unconventionally.

I do hear that style of drumming so often that songs that plaster that type of drum loop over them feels like a genre in itself. But it certainly works here.

9.3

#64

7th place:

schadd

Yu Su - Gleam

This was a harder track to write about than most. It's passive. It's a mood; a backdrop; a scene. Is it my scene in any distinct way, or am I just imposing that because I like it so much? I think the bubbly tones have a sort of heat rising air to them. The whole thing feels arid but not distressingly so... kind of an odd take when it uses water drops as an effect. But I can see it here, and I never want it to end. It's especially appealing to me when I first wake up, which might mean it deserves higher than it got, but I can't actually rank all of these in the morning. It feels like an excellent transition piece into the final tracks.

9.4

#65

6th place:

Ace Marvel

Red Velvet - So Good

A bold but appropriate track title. This style feels like a natural category fit, and both Red Velvet songs I've heard now have been so lush and instantly satisfying. I'm offering no apologies for this placement. We're chilling the fuck out on a beach, and I don't need any deep thoughts to vibe that. I don't know how well this will hold up in other categories (I get the impression I have a lot more kpop to come

), but here it works perfectly.

9.5

#66

TOP 5

gbsfranca
ladd
MyNameIsNothing
Newcomb
shubaka17

#67

5th place:

Newcomb

Shadow Community - Restless Song

Damn this is really pretty. I'm at the point of having to make some near impossible calls here. I think with this one I'm so hooked on the mellow approach they take through the first two minutes that I sometimes find myself resenting the escalation. It's very well executed and I think probably more category appropriate than had they just ridden the original pulse to the end, but it flows from complete bliss into merely outstanding for me. That doesn't sound like... a compelling reason to hold something back, but we're splitting hairs in the top 5 at this point.

9.6

#68

4th place:

shubaka17

Covet - Falkor

This just keeps going and going and I don't know how a song can be this relaxed and still continuously grip my attention. I love how it never gives way much to predictable formulas and keeps meandering forward with a constant barrage of notes and progressions. It's the sort of song I feel like I'm still discovering a dozen plays through as I write this. If I had to say why it's a mere 4th, maybe the attention it demands is just a little too much to achieve complete relaxation while still absorbing the full depth of the performance. I pulled that line straight out of my ass, but it sounds intelligent so I'll let it stand.

9.7

#69

3rd place:

gbsfranca

Sweet Trip - Acting

This is like if you took the classic prog that I want to love but can't and washed away all of its analog hollowness with the lush full soundscape of modern electronic alacrity. But the vocals sell me the most. I'm not sure what it is about them precisely, but they pull the whole thing together for me and let me experience it as a collective mesh rather than competing instruments. Mmmm and that higher tone that really comes out at 3:35 bounces around in my head so pleasantly. This is incredibly well done. I kind of wish the outro transitioned rather than hard breaking, but whatever. And it's such a perfect cat fit, hitting both the relaxation and the rush. I think I've ended up listening to the main 5 and a half minutes of the song in its entirety every time I've popped it back on for a refresher.

9.8

#70

2nd place:

ladd

Neil Young - On the Beach

Aw shit this is my kind of jam. Maybe a bit on the bleak side for the category, but that doesn't really phase me. Just puts a nice cool welcoming cloud over the scene.

It's still mega chill and much more in line with the sort of thing I would actually want to be listening to in the scenario. Love it. I've probably? heard it before, but I haven't attentively dove into Neil's discography enough to remember it.

9.9

#71

1st place:

MyNameIsNothing

Sofia Kourtesis - La Perla

I don't typically stick to the track I slot into first on my initial play through everything, but this was unshakable. The atmosphere is euphoric and the vocals are so intimately entwined in the surrounding sound that I don't think it could have possibly functioned in any other language. Amazing stuff.

10

#72

Scoring through 1

41. 4.0 staypositivefriend
40. 4.5 Made
39. 4.8 PunchyTheCat
38. 5.0 Bloobird
37. 5.2 Aladyyn
36. 5.5 KnightsofCydonia
35. 5.6 Kane
34. 5.7 Logic
33. 6.0 LordQuas
32. 6.2 BoKnows
31. 6.5 Moose
30. 6.8 vanity.
29. 7.0 soah
28. 7.2 Relm
27. 7.4 Zarathustra
26. 7.5 fluffy rabbit
25. 7.6 marmot
24. 7.7 Psycho666Soldier
23. 7.8 Cory
22. 7.9 tane
21. 8.0 Frog
20. 8.1 BLOODYRAIN10001
19. 8.2 Zack
18. 8.3 Tangrowth
17. 8.4 Ampharos
16. 8.5 nutella
15. 8.6 Marcher Jovian
14. 8.7 Keldeo
13. 8.8 Adam
12. 8.9 birdwithteeth11
11. 9.0 Visorslash
10. 9.1 Roman
9. 9.2 roro__b
8. 9.3 Owner
7. 9.4 schadd
6. 9.5 Ace Marvel
5. 9.6 Newcomb
4. 9.7 shubaka17
3. 9.8 gbsfranca
2. 9.9 ladd
1. 10 MyNameIsNothing

#73

2. 10am beneath the arch of a submerged Atlantic grotto, but humans can't breathe under water so this might be bad
Hours of lying out in the sand fantasizing about adventures beyond inspired us to take the tour to sea. But as it turns out, the ocean actually kind of sucks. It's incredibly lonely, and there's water everywhere and not really anything else. Send me something with an oceanic or nautical vibe. It doesn't have to be bleak or forlorn necessarily, but that's the feel in my head. Drowning, adrift, succumbing to something vastly beyond you. Reflection comes with an acceptance that you might never return. Fancies are esoteric and uninviting. It goes beyond mood though. There's something tonally or rhythmically aquatic echoing the scene. That's the perfect cat fit, but you can play around with it. The samples might be above average informative here. They helped originate the idea and capture it in, I think, very different ways.

#74

41st place:

PunchyTheCat

Taylor Swift - The Archer

She should have stuck to lifting her lyrics from Wikipedia, because I haven't seen lines this bad since I stopped using Facebook. I mean, I listen to plenty of artists with questionable lyricism, but here it's almost the entirety of the song. And it has no category relevance that I can discern.

All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't spare this from the worst score I've handed out since Amy's toes were in contention.

1.0

#75

40th place:

Ampharos

Elephant Gym - Bad Dream

This is... a song. I've gotten pretty good at detecting Taiwanese. I guess I can thank subs like this for that. But it's so... incompatible with my perception of aesthetic harmony. That might be a me problem, but hearing it rapped didn't do it any favors. The moments I could understand were a bit um... I couldn't help but roll my eyes when he started ending all of his lines around 0:44 with eh. That background laughter at 4:11 when he's going "you were my girl, you were my homie, you were my girl, I was your man, I was your homie" is strange but appropriate for probably unintended reasons. I guess somewhere in around 2:40 to 3:10 there are some tones that I can loosely relate to the category if I'm trying.

I remember getting an Elephant Gym sub last year that I think was math rock? That probably suits them better than bad Engrish rap parodies. Maybe I should just think this is cute and roll with it, but yikes.

4.5

#76

39th place:

nutella

Thrice - The Whaler

This was a hard one to tank because I couldn't point to anything specific to fault it for. Every component is conventionally fine, and none of them do anything for me. It just feels very... exactly how it's supposed to? It doesn't have the sort of qualities that could distinguish it to me as beautiful simplicity rather than genericness. It's a cat fit on lyrics, and the music is melancholy in an underdefined way that can accommodate the scene. But sometimes all the pieces fit and the big picture still falls short. I couldn't connect with it emotionally, and after enough plays it started to mildly annoy me.

5.0

#77

38th place:

gbsfranca

Broken Social Scene - Pacific Theme

This may have been the most comprehensive cat fail, relaxing on the beach to the core. It's not an immediately accessible song to me, which is certainly not a direct issue. It feels like something that would have grown given more repetition. But as the latest sub I received to this category, its opportunity to accomplish that and shift up was limited. I don't think it was ever breaching the top 25, but maybe it could have risen higher than this? It's hard for me to say. Most Broken Social Scene songs I've heard so far have fallen into a zone of I feel like this should be doing more for me than it really is. I don't dislike it at all, just... seems like a total miss on the category received too late to overcome that hurdle.

5.2

#78

37th place:

Newcomb

NONE - It's Painless to Let Go

I got some metal that worked and some metal that didn't, but when metal doesn't work it usually doesn't work hard. Suicidal bm is a tough sell for me. I talk about loving black metal a lot, but when you take out the tremolo and blast beats it becomes a very different feel. None of that trance-like vibe that clicks with me naturally. Here it's a morbid dirge focused on shrill tones in that upper-mid range of sound, and there are just a lot of other styles of music that convey gloom and doom to me more effectively than this on average. For this track in particular, well, there's not much for me to latch onto to experience it differently from many other songs of its kind. The guitar is nice in a simple way at 3:00, but nothing I'll remember. I kind of like the chime tones that follow it better. Nothing is screaming aquatic to me, or anything but standard practice suicidal bm really. It's also really triggering the tinnitus side effect of my vaccine. Sorry.

5.5

#79

36th place:

Ace Marvel

Bravo - Surfin'

Beach themes were last category. I'm amused by the way the language switches mess with my head--much more effectively than the Elephant Gym track--but it just doesn't belong here. You get some points for being interesting.

5.8

#80

35th place:

Relm

Al Stewart - Old Admirals

This guy's performance is doing very little for me. The lyrics have potential, but I feel like he's just reciting them, never really owning it. That's understandable; He wrote this 36 years prior to the recording. I checked out the original, and it might have had a little more hope here. In that version too I feel like he's falling short of his full potential, but there's some unorthodox accompaniment going on that at least captured my attention. I don't think it would have made a noticeable difference though.

6.0

#81

34th place:

soah

Iotunn - Waves Below

I really don't like this guy's I'm going to belt it like Nemtheanga but not actually sing anything approach to song-writing out the gate, and when he abandons that for a mix of actual singing and straight growling after the 4 minute transition, it just feels like he's stepping down from the unrealized potential he showed initially. I dunno. The vocals really hurt this one for me. He's benign though not really enhancing the song when he's just growling. I find his singing unpleasantly distracting and his half-singing misapplied. I could make a case for the rest of the song being fine, but it's not doing anything I haven't heard a dozen times before.

This seems like the sort of album I might have ended up sampling before the end of the year and quickly concluding cool for people who like that sound and definitely not for me. It's not the sort of thing that would have drawn me from outside my usual maximum forgiveness zone.

6.2

#82

33rd place:

Owner

Derek Fiechter - Mermaid Waters

This guy's name sounded incredibly familiar, enough that I started digging through all my vgm collections for him, but it turns out he was actually subbed to me by Zack in my waltz category a few years back. I believe that was an explicit throw, but it came in on the low end of middle. Looking into the artist a bit more, I'm not surprised you both ran into him. This guy and his brother appear to release new albums about as fast as they're capable of recording them. But competition's a bit tighter here, and while this makes for a pleasant background piece, it's neither closely aligned to the mood I was going for nor standing out to me enough for me to disregard that. I think it has a lot of vgm-esque appeal as the sort of thing I can enjoy at inattentive length in the background, but in the more focused space of a walrus it just feels a little too generic.

6.4

#83

32nd place:

BoKnows

Mac Miller - Come Back to Earth

I'm pretty sure I've lived within walking distance of Mac Miller at some point in time, but I never actually listened to him. This is fine. I certainly don't dislike it. It's a little too bland to do much for me without being a perfect cat fit, though I have to admit it grew on me a fair bit. The wavy synth and gloomy attitude tap on that from a distance but don't quite take me there.

6.8

#84

31st place:

Logic

Melandru - One-Winged Angel

This is certainly something. He demonstrates a keen awareness that less is more and consistently resists any temptation to accent the song's most confrontational moments. The end result is an absolute success in converting an incredibly bombastic tune into a melancholy piece that feels independently complete. That being said, it's still One-Winged Angel, and short of pinpoint accuracy on the mood and feel of the category, it was always going to be One-Winged Angel. It's hard to hear a song I know so well and just pretend it's something else. It's a track I may very well recommend to my friends on the vgm forum I frequent, but it can only rise so far here.

When I mentioned yesterday that I got an accidental FF7 sub I forgot that I also got this lol

6.9

#85

30th place:

Moose

Zoom Guy - Krabs of Nazareth

7.0

#86

29th place:

Zack

STRFKR - Pop Song

Huh... I don't get it. This seems cat relevant in lyrics only until the outro, which is far more appropriate but only about 50 seconds and not really connected to the main thrust of the song. I like it, but I don't know if the outro is sufficient to spare it from a complete cat fail. I enjoyed it too much to completely tank it but felt it was too far off the mark for me to place higher than this.

7.1

#87

28th place:

Marcher Jovian

The Heliocentrics - Burning Wooden Ship

All hail the hurdy gurdy, but you're going to find I got a very large supply of weird shit to this category. I like to reward risk, but there are only so many spots to go around. The randomness here to me doesn't consistently achieve a sense of purpose, and the glue holding the eclectic parts together is a bit of upbeat jazzy drumming that doesn't do much as far the category's concerned. The trip-hop intro and outro are cool but again not really setting the scene for me. It has some quirky descending echo tones here and there, a water effect that comes into play more approaching 2:20, a bleeping sonar pulse, even a nautical track title, but those pieces aren't all adding up for me to actually feel a scene. It was definitely an interesting experience.

7.2

#88

27th place:

Keldeo

65daysofstatic - The Undertow

I was introduced to 65daysofstatic very early in their existence, and I have been struggling to actually enjoy them ever since. It's an odd position, because they have all the building blocks of something I should love. It's thick emotional post-rock that always yields a climax. It's not cliche, because they were one of the bands doing it first, especially with their trademark heavy electronics and piano. But the way they construct their songs just doesn't naturally resonate with me. It never has, and it's not been for lack of trying. I try to approach every track individually, but as is so often the case with 65days subs, I found myself developing more and more appreciation for other songs in this mix through replay while this song was just like... I would put it on and go yup, sounds like 65daysofstatic and forget everything about it 30 seconds after it ended.

And what I typically do is wait until I've sorted most everything else, sit down with the track, and force myself to really hone in on it. I'll have a moment where I'm picking up on the specific details, and I'll be impressed and shove it into a low end of high slot out of respect for what they do. I don't think that's a bad approach necessarily, but I'm saying it now because this track didn't yield the same results. The composition is pretty basic for them. It's textbook post-rock that pulls no punches until 4:12, when a slow and steady wall of noise starts to build up in the backdrop until it ultimately consumes the song at 5:00. The closing minute and a half where it breaks up into ambient noise is pretty cool. I definitely think the song ends strong. But for the majority of this ride, I feel no connection on an emotional level, and the things they're doing just don't stand out to me as sufficiently interesting to make me appreciate the song much in spite of it. Relatively speaking, anyway. I get the bleak vibe, but not so forcefully that it overshadows the sense that I'm listening to pretty standard post-rock.

7.3

#89

26th place:

Cory

American Football - Silhouettes

The first time I heard this, I really liked it. It saw a steady downward trend over the course of repetition. I think as the pleasant vocals and subtle touch of chime tones that grabbed me up front began to normalize, little things I'd paid no mind to originally started to stand out negatively. The lyrics feel... I don't want to say they're trite for the prominent role they play in an otherwise subtle song; they're entirely applicable to the mood of the music. But they force the tune into an emo love song space that doesn't much interest me, where I'd have preferred something a bit more open to interpretation. Starting at 5:30, there's something discordant in the background synth before it rises up to harmonize with the vocals, and that stands out to me more with each play. Just a culmination of little things that made this wear on me a bit faster than other subs. I still enjoyed it.

7.4

#90

25th place:

Made

Denzel Curry - Vengeance

Bad luck for you. I've listened to Taboo quite a bit, to the point where my only real reaction was oh yeah, I guess Vengeance is a good cat fit. I love this album and have a potential category in mind for next year that intends to invoke it, but it's really hard for me to place a song I'm this familiar with into a brand new setting. Sometimes I'll get a really familiar sub that I already relate in the zone or that clicks perfectly on every level, but with the relevance here being limited to the tones he's using and not really encompassing the full package, familiarity wins out. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough here, I dunno. The tracks above it feel like they belong above it in the context of the category. I just can't even guess where I might have placed this given a blank slate. It happens sometimes.

7.5

#91

24th place:

KnightsofCydonia

Led Zeppelin - No Quarter

If you sit through enough walrus reveals with me, you'll inevitably discover that I don't like Led Zeppelin. Perhaps you haven't or perhaps you took a gamble, but I've left them off my "you're just getting a zero" list for a reason. My issue with Led Zeppelin is very specific: Robert Plant. I can't fucking stand that guy's voice. Seriously, it's like nails on a chalkboard to me. But Led Zeppelin are a whole lot more than Robert Plant, and this song is a good case for how they can still find a home in my walruses.

The bluesy guitar that kicks in at the one minute mark on this has an absolutely perfect tone, and the bass does an excellent job of filling out the bottom regions of my head space while staying out of the way. Plant has the flange cranked so high in his first appearance that, with the help of making mostly actual word sounds, he's tolerable! The piano midsection is nice. I have no idea how they make the deep guitar tones so fat in moments like 5:50, but it's absolutely sick.

Shortly afterwards, Mr. Plant begins spewing things out of his mouth that have no business passing through any orifice of the human body. I can give him a little leeway. Like, I would listen to Robert Plant if my choices were to listen to Robert Plant or eat bugs. But it's not ideal for me.

And I barely even care because the rest is so good. I think it's a keen choice for category relevance too. If you were going to sub Zeppelin to this category, this was probably the correct track. It's been 20 years since I've voluntarily listened to them, but I can't think of any that would have worked better.

7.6

#92

23rd place:

vanity.

Autechre - Further

The main thrust of this song is basically spooky water dripping in a cavern melodically. It's great on its face for the category, and I think that if I was in the position to sub and had this song at my disposal it would seem like a no-brainer. But this round fished up ambient minimalism in abundance, and this track didn't immerse me quite as far as its relatable competitors. The main drive is in the beat, and maybe that rhythmic core clashed just a bit with the stillness of the scene. I think that's it. If I experience the beat as the setting, there's too much motion. If I experience it as the lure within--which seems to rest better with me--the surrounding package is a bit underdelivered. Or I could just enjoy the song on its face without trying to wedge it into my stupid category fantasy, but something about it wasn't carrying for me as much as it seemed like it should, so I started digging.

7.7

#93

22nd place:

Aladyyn

Obscure Sphinx - Paragnomen

This has a nice pulse to it. I love how full the bass feels. I'm kind of put off at 2:15 when she gives her best Jonathan Davis impression, but it's a short lived awkward moment easily forgotten with another 8 minutes to follow. Her clean vocals later on are quite nice. The solo that emerges around 5:50 is nothing spectacular but succeeds in keeping the song from beginning to feel redundant. The screaming at 8:45 is pretty wicked.

In then end, I'm hearing a band that's maybe not the best in their class on original songwriting but grasp the fundamentals of what makes this style work. They keep it moving forward with a progressive ebb and flow but never mellow out to a point of losing their groove. It's a style that naturally appeals to me quite a bit, and they're approaching it in a way that naturally fits into this category. Not bad.

7.9

#94

21st place:

ladd

Tim Buckley - Lorca

I often feel that early experimental rock musicians tended to force randomness where modern variants demonstrate a bit more aesthetic awareness behind the madness. A part of that had to be the limited sound options available in the 60s and 70s. A keyboard is not FL Studio. If I think too hard, I pick up on some inorganic randomness here, but it's well masked by the spooky drone and jazz infusion. This is a great track to enjoy passively. He accomplished a pretty convincing aura without any modern tools at his disposal. Is it aquatic? I don't get any sense of that beyond associating grim jazz with rain and darkness. So it works, especially for the first song sample's approach, but it's equally applicable to a lot of other occasions. I'm fine with that. I had a very interesting time listening to this. I wouldn't say I liked it as much as some perhaps less eclectic submissions, but it's an experience.

Robbed? Maybe. I had it slotted in a fair bit higher on my first draft sort, but while I'm intrigued by it, I'm just not getting the same level of pure enjoyment out of it as much as some other options.

8.0

#95

TOP HALF

Adam
birdwithteeth11
Bloobird
BLOODYRAIN10001
fluffy rabbit
Frog
Kane
LordQuas
marmot
MyNameIsNothing
Psycho666Soldier
Roman
roro__b
schadd
shubaka17
staypositivefriend
tane
Tangrowth
Visorslash
Zarathustra

#96

20th place:

Zarathustra

Tsukasa Saitoh - Orphan of Kos Phase 1

This had a very Blizzard Sound Team feel to it at first, especially in the choir sound he uses. The cello's effectiveness is what really sets it apart to me. Atmospheric soundtrack stuff can be a bit tricky to sort, because it's a component of a bigger picture with imagery and motion and explicit narrative. I'm not sure how I would have parsed this were it placed in any other haunted scene, but it seems to work for me here. The staccato strings as rain, those deep drawn out cellos as waves, the voices as the spirits drifting across them. I had this on repeat for quite a while at some point. I really enjoy it as a background piece. We're not going to play the full 14 minutes, because the loop is at about the 2 mark, but this held up really really well as an extended play.

8.1

#97

19th place:

tane

Grouper - Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping

This sort of unplugged shoegaze sound can be hit or miss for me in a walrus. It's highly dependent on whether I'm connecting to the mood, because the method has no complex parts. And coming into these songs in the framework of the category, the mood I'm trying to reach is already rather specific. She's singing about being swept away in an ocean, but it's coming across to me more as a love song, and the sound has a gentle pretty rather than bleak air to its minimalism that sort of doubles down on that. I think it's incredibly sweet but just slightly missed the mark. That being said, i can't get it out of my head, in the good way.

8.2

#98

18th place:

Tangrowth

Vladislav Delay - Hetkonen

This sat incredibly well with me the first time I heard it and continued to hold up decently. It's easy to disregard the category and just get caught up in it. When the pitch of the background hum shifts at 5:20 I keep waiting for Daveed Diggs to tell me to get my ass down to the floor.

But this has plenty of features that makes it appropriate for the category, too. The short-lived shuffly sound at the beginning sounds distinctly submerged, as does the echo in the pounding loop that fades in around 0:40. The perpetual hum encompasses and pushes down on everything. The bubble wave effect that comes and goes but becomes especially prominent at 3:50 actually does the least to make me feel under water. Other tracks may have intrigued me in more unique or encompassing ways, but this was one of my favorites to listen to as a background piece.

8.3

#99

17th place:

fluffy rabbit

Gud - Whatever (End of Time)

Song length seems to be a thing for me in this walrus. So far the average sub quality has been pretty impressive, and with a song like this, you're forced to accomplish for me in a minute and a half what other songs have far more room to develop. Not impossible, but there has to be something on a much higher level going on to compensate. This comes close. It has a really great vibe going on with the vocals and an aquatic pulse that I can connect to the category. I actually love it. It sounds really familiar, but I can't place it, and I don't know if I've actually heard something like it before or if it's just so endearing that it instantly produces that feeling of familiarity. I'm not sure where it's going to end up when all the sorting is done, because I'm having a hard time shifting it down, but I think it will ultimately give way. There just isn't enough of it.

...Or not. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

8.4

#100

16th place:

Bloobird

Jim Moray - Two Sisters

Interesting. I like this kind of stuff. I've got two specific beefs with this one. There's no absolute correct way to sing a folk song. They evolve by nature. Sometimes lyrical relics add an alluring mystique. Other times they make me go "what the fuck is a beaver hat?" 1:45 was an extremely :fry: moment for me.

My second beef is that the brief forays into contempo easy listening rock whatever at 3:10 and 6:00 shouldn't exist. I'm not suggesting they have no place in tradition. I'm questioning whether they contribute anything of value to this song. I feel like they exist as a sort of obligatory rock climax moment. It overshadows the real climax, when the miller loots her near-lifeless body and chucks her back in the river. To ship a good story, you've got to play to it, not beside it.

And now that I've got that off my chest... whew, I really liked this. On top of just enjoying the music, it gave me a great excuse to activate nerdvision, read all about the song's history, and engage in even higher level pedantry than normal. The accompanying sounds in this are great. I love that eerie tapping tone that persists throughout the song. He introduces some really weird high pitched organ and brass synth around 4:00 that comes off more jarring than complimentary, but likely by design.. For the longest time I wanted to knock this for the chorus, but so much else about the song really appeals to me quite a bit.

8.5