BATTLE OF THE BARDS - Heat 2!

[Morrus]

Last week, BATTLE OF THE BARDS launched with the first heat. After a tight race, Mary Crowell won the heat with her song I PUT MY LOW STAT, which will be going through to the final in December. But the stakes grow ever higher as we enter the second of five heats; only YOU can decide who will win this heat and go through to the final!

Each of the five heats lasts for one week. You are encouraged to vote, share the videos, and get your friends to vote. It's simple: the highest number of votes wins. The winners of the first four heats will then battle it out in the BATTLE OF THE BARDS FINAL HEAT in December.

Below you'll find the entries in the second heat. Good luck to all of them - and may the best songsmith win! Feel free to comment on the entries, below. You can watch the first heat here.

[top]RAVENS IN THE LIBRARY by SJ Tucker of Dumas, Arkansas

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viIh-M5iZn8[/ame]
Find out more about SJ Tucker and her music at her official web page.

[top]JASON AND THE DRAGON by Matthew 'Amoebacide' Dobrich of Melbourne, Australia

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABRIp-LXmyA[/ame]

Find out more about Amoebacide and his music at his MySpace page.

[top]AXE OF DESTRUCTION by Gary McGath of Nashua, New Hampshire

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO2sJYsrZc4[/ame]

Find out more about Gary McGath and his music on his web page.
Based on the song "Acts of Creation" by Cat Faber, with her permission to use it in this submission.

[top]THE ORC WHO LOVES DWARVES by Neil Berry of Bristol, England

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWyOYR2R2as[/ame]

[top]DUNGEON HUSTLE by Mississippi Bones of Hardin County, Ohio

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20OwxiBU_Wo[/ame]

Find out more about Mississippi Bones and their music at their official web page

[top]SECRETS by W. Scott Snyder of Austin, Texas

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MicNY5Lyf8[/ame]

[hide][top]Notes

These entries have been arranged in heats randomly with the following exceptions: where a contestant has entered more than once, we have attempted to place their entries in separate heats.

Contestants retain all ownership and copyright regarding their works. They have non-exclusively licensed EN World to display their entries.

The winner of the prize - an animated music video (no, that's not it above: we'll be creating a much better one with the winner's input) will own all copyright to that video with the caveat that they non-exclusively license EN World to display it.

Voting totals are displayed publicly.

Please visit our YouTube channel and subscribe for automatic notifications.

For more information about BATTLE OF THE BARDS, click here.

[jonesy]

I'd already heard Dungeon Hustle earlier this year and think that Mississippi Bones is an awesome group, but I'm still voting for Neil Berry because the concept of the song is so funny.

[Janx]

I'll wrap my commentary in spoiler tags. Folks should listen on their own and form their own opinion first.

Spoiler:

Like the last heat, vocals influence the quality of the song heavily. Last heat sounded like nerds in a basement trying to catch a note with a bucket, with only a few stand-outs. I know Morrus offered to have the winner get re-sung, but weak vocals won't get you past the door.

This week, I see 3 songs with strong vocals, and the other 2 had potential, but the mixing was crap.

the orc song was darn near unlistenable. I just couldn't hear the singer, so I stopped it. The lyrics looked funny.

The Jason song was pretty good, but it felt like it was mixed by the guitarist. The vox needs to be louder in the mix, to give it some punch. A little bit of growl in the singer's voice at times would also help it. I actually liked this one, just felt the vocals needed some work.

The raven song was lovely. it seemed to set the trend that the women singers have better vocal quality, and the song from this and last week had good production quality. However, this week's female contribution didn't quite seem to be a D&D song. At best, it had Ravens, and Library, which MIGHT be found in a D&D game. Kind of like somebody had a nice song that was sort of genre neutral so they submitted it.

The Dungeon Hustle was where the Jason song needed to be. Solid vocals paired up to a great guitar track.

Secrets was cleverly written, with smooth vocals and a nice backing track.

[Bardiclug]

"clever" and "smooth" - I'll take that, quite happily.

Thank you.

[rangerjohn]

I'll wrap my commentary in spoiler tags. Folks should listen on their own and form their own opinion first.

Spoiler:

Like the last heat, vocals influence the quality of the song heavily. Last heat sounded like nerds in a basement trying to catch a note with a bucket, with only a few stand-outs. I know Morrus offered to have the winner get re-sung, but weak vocals won't get you past the door.

This week, I see 3 songs with strong vocals, and the other 2 had potential, but the mixing was crap.

the orc song was darn near unlistenable. I just couldn't hear the singer, so I stopped it. The lyrics looked funny.

The Jason song was pretty good, but it felt like it was mixed by the guitarist. The vox needs to be louder in the mix, to give it some punch. A little bit of growl in the singer's voice at times would also help it. I actually liked this one, just felt the vocals needed some work.

The raven song was lovely. it seemed to set the trend that the women singers have better vocal quality, and the song from this and last week had good production quality. However, this week's female contribution didn't quite seem to be a D&D song. At best, it had Ravens, and Library, which MIGHT be found in a D&D game. Kind of like somebody had a nice song that was sort of genre neutral so they submitted it.

The Dungeon Hustle was where the Jason song needed to be. Solid vocals paired up to a great guitar track.

Secrets was cleverly written, with smooth vocals and a nice backing track.

spoilered reply

Get out of my head. You expressed my thoughts better than I could. That's spooky, now I just need to go back and choose between Dungeon Hustle and Secerets.

[Lwaxy]

Hmm.. voice could be more in the front in Dungeon Hustle, too. But maybe that's just me.

Found myself singing along to Axe of Destruction. Another one definitely going to be used in not-so-sober RPGing nights. Also love the thief's song.

[Morrus]

It's too early to say this, but the vote distribution seems a bit more even than in the last heat.

[jonesy]

I'll wrap my commentary in spoiler tags. Folks should listen on their own and form their own opinion first.

I think spoiler tagging the comments is silly. The sort of the person who is going to read the comments first and then get influenced by them more than their own opinion is also going to read the spoiler tagged stuff regardless.

[Lanefan]

When I saw the title "Axe of Destruction" I was expecting a reworded "Eve of Destruction"; but not the case.

Lanefan

[Janx]

I think spoiler tagging the comments is silly. The sort of the person who is going to read the comments first and then get influenced by them more than their own opinion is also going to read the spoiler tagged stuff regardless.

I'm a silly kind of guy then. I also didn't want to hurt the artists feelings. If they didn't want criticism, they could still read-on and avoid my commentary.

I was trying to be nice.

I am happier with this week's batch, then last week's.