Themed Mixtape Game

[Vegard Pompey]

Mekong Delta - Heroes' Grief
This is a bit plodding.
5/10

Skelator - Elric: The Dragon Prince
It's /mɛlnɪˈboʊneɪ/, not /mɛlnɪˈboʊn/ you illiterate retards.
10/10

Crypt of Kerberos - Stormbringer
Eh. Listened to it twice, still makes basically no impression.
4/10

Wolfbane - Elric of Melnibone
It's got a nice vibe but it's also pretty fucking repetitive. There's a lot of NWOBHM I'd rather listen to.
6/10

Stormbringer - Tales of the White Wolf
This song's fucking great but there's one thing about it that really bugs me. It's the way the backing vocals in the chorus go for a short "White wolf" the first time and then a sustained "White woooooh-ooooolf" the second time. They should just go "wooooh-oooolf" both times. If I had a time machine I'd take this EP back to 1983 and have Heavy Load record a cover of it.
9/10

At the Gates - City of Screaming Statues
Reading Elric for the first time was such an experience because all the time I was encountering phrases that had become embedded in metal culture as the names of bands/songs/albums/etc. Craziest of all was reading Stormbringer and finding out that the villain resides in the City of Screaming Statues on the island of Pan Tang. I should relisten to TRitSiO because I forgot how much I love this song. Hellish and evocative and labyrinthine and shit.
10/10

Diamond Head - Borrowed Time
This is an obvious pick? I've actually never heard this before because no one ever talks about any other Diamond Head album than the debut. It's great.
9/10

Sacramentum - Overlord
I'm sure someone's gonna tell me this is 'bad' Sacramentum and not worth the time when FAFtS exists, but this is such a perfect adaptation into song of my favorite Elric story (Stormbringer), more faithful than the AtG song and it really nails the apocalyptic tone. In another round I might have given this an 8 or a 9, but in a Moorcock round?
10/10

Domine - The Freedom Flight
Shit chorus. Otherwise a good song.
7/10

Apollo Ra - Bane of the Black Sword
I especially enjoy these songs that are straightforward retellings of parts of the Elric saga. Here's another song like the Sacramentum before it that is much improved when you read the lyrics along with it. Beastly chorus too, of course when you start with a phrase like "Sorcerer of Pan Tang" how could it possibly be anything else?
9/10

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

Blind Guardian have several Moorcock-themed songs. I know of Damned for All Time, Fast to Madness and Quest for Tanelorn, and I'm not that familiar with their discography past the first three albums or so.

Thank you. I wasn't aware. I need to buy some of their music.

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

Blind Guardian have several Moorcock-themed songs. I know of Damned for All Time, Fast to Madness and Quest for Tanelorn, and I'm not that familiar with their discography past the first three albums or so.

Blind Guardian was my first thought, but I didn't want to submit another BG song, having done so 3 times already.

 

[no country for old wainds]

I decided to list some more bands with songs about Michael Moorcock's stories that didn't make it onto the playlist.

Ackros
Assedium
Atlantis
Black Cathedral
Black Pyramid
Blacksword
Cauldron Born
Cirith Ungol
Cremator
Dark Moor
Dark Star
Darking
Hawkmoonmor
Heroic Flame
Last Empire
Mournblade
Nightcrawler
Norselaw
Osirion
Salem's Lot
Steel Trident
Tygers of Pan Tang
Wicked Angel
Validor

I haven't even heard some of these, and I intend to try to listen to all of them soon.

nice list, i hadn't considered a whole bunch of these. i would've picked cauldron born as one of my alternates but there's no good youtube. cirith ungol was too obvious for me. the relevant dark moor song isn't one of their best.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

There are even more that I've found since typing that. I would like to hear this release:

http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Arioch/Between_Light_and_Shadow/264953

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

There are only three ratings so far.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

Call out everyone that submitted but hasn't rated.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I'll rate by Friday/Saturday, can't before that.

 

[Phylactery]

I've listened through once and then I didn't have time to write my thoughts down. I'll listen again soon and do it.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

@Serjeant Grumbles @H.P. Lovecraft @no country for old wainds @Master_Yoda77 @Talos of Atmora @HamburgerBoy @Phylactery

These are the people who haven't rated yet.

@Slayed Necros @dwellerINTHEdark

I would love if you guys rated. You both submitted songs that were already taken and didn't give me a backup song.

 

[Phylactery]

Nice to see Slayed Necros playing again, he hasn't played in ages!

Which tracks were picked more than once?

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

Skelator - Elric the Dragon Prince
At the Gates - City of Screaming Statues
Sacramentum - Overlord
Apollo Ra - Bane of the Black Sword

 

[Vegard Pompey]

Which tracks were picked more than once?

Skelator - Elric the Dragon Prince
At the Gates - City of Screaming Statues
Sacramentum - Overlord
Apollo Ra - Bane of the Black Sword

Diamond Head - Borrowed Time: Poor rating because such an obvious pick. 4/10

 

[Phylactery]

I'd never heard the Diamond Head song either but I wasn't as enthusiastic about it as you, I would have probably rated it a 7-7.5/10 if I'd done the ratings there and then. I think you have good taste (your liking of some of the indie rock from the non-metal game notwithstanding ) though so I'll give it a closer listen when I next go through the playlist to see if I missed anything.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

I think you have good taste (your liking of some of the indie rock from the non-metal game notwithstanding )

Modest Mouse > black metal

 

[no country for old wainds]

to be fair i don't think number of picks is necessarily an indicator of obviousness. often the most obvious songs don't get picked at all, if only because people assume others will take it, or just avoid the obvious picks in general. the lack of cirith ungol here is an example.

i agree that song isn't an obvious pick though so i'm just being pedantic

 

[no country for old wainds]

i picked two out of the four elric listed (i sent 3 alternates in total). if you guess which two you get an e-cookie.

 

[Phylactery]

Modest Mouse > black metal

Yeah, no.

Anyway I was more talking about Polyrock - Romantic Me which I thought you submitted, but after just checking you didn't. You did rate it an 8 though. I think there's been another similar pick as well but I can't remember what now. I can't stand that sort of stuff at all, I can at least see the appeal is Modest Mouse even if I didn't like it much.

i picked two out of the four elric listed (i sent 3 alternates in total). if you guess which two you get an e-cookie.

At the Gates and Sacramentum.

 

[no country for old wainds]

NO COOKIE FOR YOU

 

[Vegard Pompey]

At the Gates and Skelator?

Anyway I was more talking about Polyrock - Romantic Me which I thought you submitted, but after just checking you didn't. You did rate it an 8 though. I think there's been another similar pick as well but I can't remember what now. I can't stand that sort of stuff at all, I can at least see the appeal is Modest Mouse even if I didn't like it much.

That Polyrock song is not really representative of my non-metal tastes at all (and not exactly what I'd call "indie rock" either). I appreciate that kinda idiosyncratic 80s synthy post-punk whatever on a surface level but it's not something I go out of my way to check out. That said I do have plenty of questionable shit I'm waiting on the right theme to submit for. 'Course you fuckers will never hear them unless you actually bloody rate so we can move on to a new round.