New, and good quality recordings.

[popinfresh]

Hey guys, the band hit the studio these past holidays and set down 4 new tracks. What do you think of em?

http://www.mp3.com.au/artist.asp?id=22319

Dark & Narrow and Undermin'r are the old ones, others are newies.

Theres also better quality clips (I think) on my space:
www.myspace.com/themissingmusic

Feedback is HIGHLY appreciated.

Cheers.

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Bump, nobody loves me

[Correlli]

Mate, the acoustic song is terrible.

I'm only telling how I feel about the song.

This no fault of the bass and drums, it's the two guitars are not playing in harmony. They've got two melodies happening, and they're clashing like crazy. One of them needs to back off. And one guitar is slightly out of time too.

Stick at it, as I'm sure you will, and it's true - I don't love you

[Whafrodamus]

old songs

Stranger to reality- Eh, everything was tight but it was incredibly repetitive.. I can't understand the vocals, but they sound like one of those japanese groups that stick in english words here and there.

Creatures of the night- Guitar tone is horrid. I stopped listening after a little bit.. no one needs that much cheesy distortion.

The underwearer or whatever- Catchy! Nice work, except it is missing Strongbad.

The acoustic song had some potential in the beginning.. but it doesn't seem very together..


Overall, nice work. Not my cup of tea, but hey.

[popinfresh]

The acoustic can be ignored.. It's an old song (first thing ever recorded) and it was just a demo thing from our school on recording gear. It's not actually intended to be an acoustic..

Whafro - You are amoung many, including me, who can't understand the singer =/ heh. I don't really see how it's any more repetetive than any other song out there though.. I'll mention the distortion thing to the band next prac, see if we can clean it up a bit.

Cheers.

BTW - Just to make it clear, Season, Stranger, Waiting and Creatures are the newies, and the ones i'd like feedback on. Apart from the usual stuff, things such as mixed levels etc would be nice as well.. I wouldn't mind bass up a bit in the mix, does anyone agree?

[popinfresh]

Bumpity

[jazzbasta]

I downloaded the four tracks you asked critique of and listened to each twice. I'm not normally a fan of metal, but your music is catchy and I found myself wanting to do some production tweaks on it to make it less "live" sounding, and to enhance the experience of it as a "record" by upping the studio processing ante. Merely my opinion, so here goes:

Vocals--More processing, maybe some layering or more reverb, more in-your-face; The backing chorus in "Waiting" is off. Maybe the vocalist should back his own tracks.

Lyrics--"Creatures of the Night" is your Spinal Tap moment, although it's fun. This kind of song is not to be taken too seriously, is it? It's okay to be cheesy, then, but not too much. Darkness and dread is par for the course for metal, and your lyrics seem to fit into the genre just fine. Lots of aliens and devils and being let down.

Solos--Here I come with my axe, to axe the axes! Fine for live performance, but for a studio piece "Season" has its energy drained by the intro, solo, and outro. They don't fit. Like the outro in "Stranger to Reality" these bits sound like material for another song entirely, a moody piece that you guys should write, without the driving guitars (all metal bands have mood pieces, right?) "Waiting for Me At the End"? Again, ditch the outro and go out with a bang: Waiting for me at-the-END! Boom, nothing more. Maybe your outro was meant to correct my cliche, but there are certain useable cliches in music and this one fits this song.

Favorites--Season, Stranger, Waiting. (Creatures for live show, not studio album.)

Hope this was constructive for you because I like your music, even though it stretches me beyond my comfort zone. In essence these songs need a more catchy studio treatment to be album-ready, unless it's a live album.

I appreciate you sharing your work and asking for opinions from dweebs like myself. Peace.

p.s. MORE BASS!

[popinfresh]

Originally Posted by jazzbasta

I downloaded the four tracks you asked critique of and listened to each twice. I'm not normally a fan of metal, but your music is catchy and I found myself wanting to do some production tweaks on it to make it less "live" sounding, and to enhance the experience of it as a "record" by upping the studio processing ante. Merely my opinion, so here goes:

Vocals--More processing, maybe some layering or more reverb, more in-your-face; The backing chorus in "Waiting" is off. Maybe the vocalist should back his own tracks.

Lyrics--"Creatures of the Night" is your Spinal Tap moment, although it's fun. This kind of song is not to be taken too seriously, is it? It's okay to be cheesy, then, but not too much. Darkness and dread is par for the course for metal, and your lyrics seem to fit into the genre just fine. Lots of aliens and devils and being let down.

Solos--Here I come with my axe, to axe the axes! Fine for live performance, but for a studio piece "Season" has its energy drained by the intro, solo, and outro. They don't fit. Like the outro in "Stranger to Reality" these bits sound like material for another song entirely, a moody piece that you guys should write, without the driving guitars (all metal bands have mood pieces, right?) "Waiting for Me At the End"? Again, ditch the outro and go out with a bang: Waiting for me at-the-END! Boom, nothing more. Maybe your outro was meant to correct my cliche, but there are certain useable cliches in music and this one fits this song.

Favorites--Season, Stranger, Waiting. (Creatures for live show, not studio album.)

Hope this was constructive for you because I like your music, even though it stretches me beyond my comfort zone. In essence these songs need a more catchy studio treatment to be album-ready, unless it's a live album.

I appreciate you sharing your work and asking for opinions from dweebs like myself. Peace.

p.s. MORE BASS!

Very interesting, and nice reply, thanks! Lets see here, i'll reply in the sections:

Vocals

Heheh, he did I know what you mean though about his vocals, he sounds quite dry at times. Point taken in

Lyrics

Now, not to offend the band (), but I think this also, and i'm glad you agree in a way. I'm not too much of a fan of corny lyrics, although, being young, we don't have too much to right about anyway.. I think in a way, it kind of off sets the song, because it's really well written for all instruments/vocals etc i think and we get compliments on how well the song sounds (and how it's one of our best written songs as a whole) but I can see alot of people not taking it seriously with the lyrics.. I can't see them being changed though =/

Solos

Interesting with season, as we don't really call them solo's.. More just a thing to go over the top. You say the energy gets drained by them, do you have any idea of something that should go in place? Perhaps a proper solo?
Stranger is one that we had a lot of fiddling with the outro, in the end we decided on this because it was shorter. What we used to do what a clean (like the current one) chord progression of G, A#, F, C (about 2 times through) which sort of ended it, do you think doing something like that again would be better?
Waiting, point taken, and I think i'd rather to end it that way. I think we decided to ring it out (it was just on an A, but we changed the guitar chords to something more interesting) as a fair few of our other songs (we have 9 in total) in abrubtly as well, do you think doing too many of them like that could overdo it? Or wouldn't it really matter, as this is just the studio stuff?


p.s. MORE BASS!
Point taken Heheh.

Thanks for that, sorry for a kinda long reply, but I really do like getting constructive crit, even if it is just opinions, so we can work on it all.

Thanks!

[jazzbasta]

Vocals--Ouch. I was afraid that might have possibly been the case! It's not like he has a bad voice, but with modern technology "we can rebuild him, we can make him better than he was before: better, stronger, faster" (schlock 70's TV show reference). Not every note that issues forth from a studio must be "real". Studio magic is all about creating an atmosphere for the song, the album. Seems to me your music calls for various types of vocal effects. Oh, yes, we have the technology.

Lyrics--"I'm not too much of a fan of corny lyrics, although, being young, we don't have too much to write about anyway." Good point. You're young and I think you basically sound great as a band now. Actually with your type of music you can take more liberties with the lyrics since it's all part of that tradition to skirt the edge of cheese.

Solos--Listening to "Season" again it seems the intro and outro are okay, but I think the guitar "solo" reminds me of beach blanket movies and surfer music. I think that takes the harsh edge off the song's drive, which is what, to me, sucks the energy out. Still the song is good.

"Stranger to Reality". Just listened again. This is the problem with music, I guess: it grows on you the more you listen to it. But the initial impression I had of these discordant elements in the music may matter if you are trying to be commercially viable and "hook" a listener on radio.

"Waiting". I like this one alot. Yes, I do think this one simply needs to end with a bang, no fadeout. The solo section with the acoustic sounds nice and "works" (and makes me wonder what other kinds of music you guys might branch out into).

And now, for our finale: "Creatures of the Night"! I'm sorry, but this song is just too much FUN. Keep it as is. As David St. Hubbins once said, "It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever." (i.e. the razor's edge of cheese)

Peace.

[popinfresh]

Originally Posted by jazzbasta

Vocals--Ouch. I was afraid that might have possibly been the case! It's not like he has a bad voice, but with modern technology "we can rebuild him, we can make him better than he was before: better, stronger, faster" (schlock 70's TV show reference). Not every note that issues forth from a studio must be "real". Studio magic is all about creating an atmosphere for the song, the album. Seems to me your music calls for various types of vocal effects. Oh, yes, we have the technology.

Lyrics--"I'm not too much of a fan of corny lyrics, although, being young, we don't have too much to write about anyway." Good point. You're young and I think you basically sound great as a band now. Actually with your type of music you can take more liberties with the lyrics since it's all part of that tradition to skirt the edge of cheese.

Solos--Listening to "Season" again it seems the intro and outro are okay, but I think the guitar "solo" reminds me of beach blanket movies and surfer music. I think that takes the harsh edge off the song's drive, which is what, to me, sucks the energy out. Still the song is good.

"Stranger to Reality". Just listened again. This is the problem with music, I guess: it grows on you the more you listen to it. But the initial impression I had of these discordant elements in the music may matter if you are trying to be commercially viable and "hook" a listener on radio.

"Waiting". I like this one alot. Yes, I do think this one simply needs to end with a bang, no fadeout. The solo section with the acoustic sounds nice and "works" (and makes me wonder what other kinds of music you guys might branch out into).

And now, for our finale: "Creatures of the Night"! I'm sorry, but this song is just too much FUN. Keep it as is. As David St. Hubbins once said, "It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever." (i.e. the razor's edge of cheese)

Peace.

Heheh, cheers man.

With your comment about waiting, it's quite strange IMO that we make the music that we do, and all enjoy. For instance, I mainly like a lot of psychedelic (Zappa, blue cheer etc etc) and things like Primus and OLD incubus.. yet I pretty much listen to anything from Jazz to metal, to hip funk & funk, to blues and reggae and ska etc etc blah blah. The drummer loves stuff like the Beatles, The Who, rythm guitarist loves a good bit of metal (gunners, detones etc), lead guitarist likes his hendrix, mark knofler (sp?) etc, and the singer loves stuff like Queen, Muse, The Music and even classical/symphany.
Combine all that, and you get us.. Quite strange.
I'm taking all your points in though, and putting them up for discussion with the band, especially the waiting one, I like the sound of that

Thanks again

[popinfresh]

Bump.. Anyone else wanna listen?

[Joe Garage]

I liked the song Stranger to Reality a lot! You guys have a nice groove! The bridge in the song was very unique. You have similar sound to all of those early NWOFBM bands.! I dig the production as well!

Keep up the good work!