Leaderboard

well, ok then. opening is definitely a stylistic mashup. love the way you took metallica's vibe and make it work with these tracks so well. at 0:46, though, this is almost straight Metallica for like 30s straight. the melodic adaptation is indeed tenuous, especially when you consider it's two bars out of hundreds in the original (admittedly they are very recognizable bars). at least the chorus is more from the Rival track. the singing works great, it's realized well, and seph does a good job with it. i'm just not sure it's not too much metallica. the transition riff is back to the final battle riff, and then another verse (same caveats as before). the bridge works well to bring together the style and original into a better combination that's more in balance of the original. there's then 30 seconds of insane solo battle, because that's literally what the originals are about, and a bunch more instrumental sections that go through various elements of the sources. the end of the false chorus section at like 3:50 was pretty hip. the track cycles back to one more verse and chorus dyad, a quick riff, and it's done. the performances here are nuts, as expected. the three main performers are among the best in the local community at doing this kind of stuff, and it shows. there's a ton of synergy in the performance, it's intense and complex without being overly meandering or relying on tropes to make it work, and it's mixed very well by xaleph as well. the arrangement concept is also great. my concern is just that the verse's connection to the original works is essentially academic. it's tough to map the vocal lines to the original, although your timestamps make it clear once you've A/B'd it. i think what's here overall is probably distinct enough from Metallica to be ok. but this is the second really fun track from you guys that's come through recently that's been very, very close to a mainstream original. you need to be careful as you're treading a line here that we (the judges) don't want to more clearly define because of how subjective it can be. YES (borderline) edit 10/25: larry's numbers make it clearer than i originally thought that this is not 'probably too much Metallica', it's just plain too much. i didn't realize it was over a quarter of the track. sorry guys, sick track, but not for here. NO