Lurker > NFUN

MATCH 1:

Primordial Darkness 2 {Hidekuni Horita}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahtTS5FrH_8

vs

Yggdrasil {Mitsuharu Fukuyama}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifEmsaN5bcA

MATCH 2:

Dark to Light {Mitsuharu Fukuyama}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1v0szlpX78

vs

Struggle to Live {Hidekuni Horita}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1wlZhwCc-s

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

horita

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Hello > Eternal (4-3)
Phaleg > Darkness (4-3)

bruh

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

MATCH 1:

NN~TE(B) {Mitsuharu Fukuyama}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRweU1FPCQI

vs

S~C~EFM~P1 {Hidekuni Horita}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mywe_GzyLs

MATCH 2:

IC-L~K {Hidekuni Horita}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xzVQ2_iZ0w

vs

TDG {Mitsuharu Fukuyama}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvaTRHsv5pc


---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Paul Simon

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

This concept that "moderates r bad" in the online SJW hivemind is probably the thing that will result in a Trump 2024 win more than anything.

The "progressive" movement is so full of half baked and sometimes just straight up unrealistic ideas that giving any credence to their whims will destroy the fabric of society. Reddit users and our resident Board 8 tankies don't realize that people vastly prefer the status quo with incremental improvements over what the regressive left and the insane right are proposing.

And you are, after all, the expert in half-baked and unrealistic thoughts

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

masterplum posted...

Seriously, the concessions for it should be nearly endless!

I would have given West Virginia Double Federal Grants for 20 years for it!

that's not even a concession dems want to invest in the state

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

final fantasy mystic cuest

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Would never have guessed we'd get Match 1 in R3

MATCH 1:

Hello {Kenichi Tokoi}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twzw9qGcxPc

vs

Eternal encore {Hideaki Kobayashi}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDMQKCnmLaA

MATCH 2:

The Perfection ~ Phaleg {Midnight}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KspafBdklS4

vs

Unfathomable Darkness {Hideaki "Bo" Kobayashi}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98fSQ4-MkIc

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

feeling scenery today

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Underleveled posted...

Go to Five Guys. They overflow the damn thing then dump like 2 more scoops directly into the bag.

the best way I've seen their fry policy described is "spiteful"

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

I don't think I've ever played a game of Ultimate with items on with the 30+ people I've played it with, except when doing the Isabelle AT glitch

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

xp1337 posted...

Always kinda depresses me to see how many local elections are uncontested. Out of like 14-15 local elections like 11-12 were uncontested and running on the Dem, GOP, and Conservative party lines.

Propositions were basically the important thing this time around for me though so yeah.

lucky. my propositions were the most boring I've ever seen. I don't give a single fuck how sports betting is conducted in this state

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

the famous Italian Garfield and the obscure dish lasagna

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Heart of a Warrior

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Lizard Scene > Grave (5-2)
Over > FFPWDS (5-2)

round 2 beated

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Let's settle this

Lizard Sanctuary Probe ~ Amduskia (Scenery)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_KPacGb_b8

vs

Lizard Sanctuary Probe ~ Amduskia (Battle)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0wc6vtwlMw

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

foolm0r0n posted...

Marx did it first

Socialists really need to drop this useless line of non-defense

considering that the socialists you are referring to don't consider what you and BT refer to as "socialism" to be socialism, referring to them as "socialists" kind of indicates that the rebranding has been successful and that the names of the philosophies have changed

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Lizard
Over

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

dammit

Raetsel_Lapin posted...

Something like that would happen the day I forgot to participate. Sorry about that.

there was a 1 vote margin in 10/12 of the other matches this round.

GOSU > DINATIS (4-3)
HITSUGI > Lizard (5-1)

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

yes

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

no haste that's an illegal vote. you have to pick one j-rock song and one atmospheric track, not two of a kind

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

MZero posted...

someone could easily check the edit history tho

exactly!

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

pyresword posted...

It's too late for that.

you're right. too bad it's infeasible to edit posts. Damn you Allen!

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

pyresword posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNdbaq6K7QQ

get this filth out of my topic

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

https://shorturl.at/eiyU2

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Robazoid posted...

Vanilla instead of chocolate is an improvement. Less fries is unforgivable

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

PikachuTwoKing posted...

Because you can see edit history, so there would be no point

@STElNER

Nobody looks at edit history what the fuck

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

why not just edit the post

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

MATCH 1:

Grave Exegul {Mitsuharu Fukuyama}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR2dst2WqdE

vs

Lizard Sanctuary Probe (Scenery) {Hideaki Kobayashi}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0wc6vtwlMw

MATCH 2:

Over the Universe {Hidekuni Horita}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bgdJD5IXYM

vs

Floating Facility Probe Wopal Day Scenery (FFPWDS) {Mitsuharu Fukuyama}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1GdORiQZz0

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

DINATIS Q VECIS
Lizard

pain

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

CS2 does a bad job of utilizing its potential in any way tbh

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

do i even need to post scores it's just first to 4 wins now and like every match is 4-3

Dark to Light > MBS~P (4-3)
Struggle > Evoke (4-3)

sorry borque.

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

no excuse i just forgot lmao

MATCH 1:

GOSU {Hidekuni Horita}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J22iOwZlZHA

vs

DINATIS Q oh are you fucking serious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fswhqCi_PDo

MATCH 2:

Lizard Sanctuary Probe (Battle) {Hideaki Kobayashi}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_KPacGb_b8

vs

HITSUGI {Hidekuni Horita}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M31yY3XqNcs

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Dark to Light
Evoke

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

nom Divine Love
nom Ghoul

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

1 trade for Beyond the Darkness
1 trade for Zanarkand Ruins (X-2)

will work with any song except 1000 Words or Real Emotion

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

bruh moment

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire
Pat Metheny Group - Still Life (Talking)
LEX the Lexicon Artist - Alter Ego
Derek Sherinian - Planet X
Nekrogoblikon - Welcome to Bonkers
Incubus - Morning View
Nujabes - Metaphorical Music
1992 Australian Cast - Highlights from "Jesus Christ Superstar"
Kali Uchis - Isolation
Eric Dolphy - Last Date
Clutch - From Beale Street to Oblivion
Cursor Miner - An Explosive Piece of Mind
Between the Buried and Me - Colors
Cloud Cult - Light Chasers
Norma Jean - Wrongdoers
---DNF---
100 gecs - 1000 gecs

forgot to mention that the birds of fire cover looks like it should be for like, tetris cdi

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

ZaziGuado posted...

Cloud Cult - Light Chasers
https://open.spotify.com/album/33eVsQZqpFsBNoKu97rJlS?si=xENgnVfqRRqPOo9gRDlMLQ

@ZaziGuado

I have to hand it to the nominators. There's a lot of variety in these albums, and I never know what I'm going to get before listening. Of all of the strange intros I've gotten (which has been like every album), starting with the Major Tom orchestral indie piece was probably the most effective. Really got me excited for the album in a way I doubt any other plausible song would've.

Of course, I didn't like the songs that weren't in that style nearly as much, though I'm more merciful on them than I probably would've been had the first song not put me in a good mood. The album has a pretty archetypical indie pop feel, so right away this was a *risky* pick. I found that the most typical the instrumentation a given song here had, the less I liked it (with the exception of Exploding People, which had the rough handicap of the autotune in the variety I hate the most). I definitely felt my patience wearing thin by song 4 until it started ticking up again.

I think I'll say that this was "Owl City but approaching some value of 'good'". A lot of it was way too happy (or, more [and less] precisely, "happy-feeling") for me, which is just... blech. Blech is the word for those tracks. Others, like Forces of the Unseen, I liked better for not being so peppy and having neat instrumentation choices like the cello. I think I can say I genuinely liked that and a couple others, ~7/10 tier.

One thing I have to mention about this genre in general is that emotionally, it's a complete miss. It's too... straightfoward is the wrong word but it's the best one I'm coming up with. It's... I can't think of how to describe it without sounding condescending. It's too "show > tell". It's too "I am telling you how to feel so this is how you should feel". It's too "look how relateable this is". I want to stress that these aren't any kind of "objective" statements, just observations on what it feels like to me. Cheesiness can be alright, but this goes way too far. In terms of conveying emotions with songs I don't have prior associations with, I *strongly* value more nuanced compositional storytelling, and will generally consider lyrics only after I've already formed a connection, as I think I've mentioned in another writeup somewhere. The Venn diagram of emotional beats between this and, like, Kimera II is the null set. The closest song I can think of that succeeds to me is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCENN-Zm3R0, which is quite obviously pretty different. The album depends pretty strongly on feels, so it has an inherent handicap.

Some individual song notes:

The Exploding People, SOMEHOW, would fit perfectly as a goblin track with just a Ctrl-H of "people" to "goblin".

Call of the Wild was probably my least favorite movie I've ever seen.

Responsible is the specific song that led to my emotions rant, as you may have guessed.

When Dawn started, I 100% thought I somehow was listening to Dead Man's Gun from RDR.

The album was exactly as long as my preparation for dinner, so that was convenient (it finished fading out just as I took the food out of the oven and put it down). I rolled my eyes at a lot of this and wished for a few of the songs to end faster, but I can't say I hated it. Honestly, that might be a bigger accomplishment than Nujabes or Kali Uchis scoring high, since, if you saw my VGM ranking and Johnbobb's average placement, you'll know that any kind of music that can be described as "indie" scoring above "I made it through the song" is remarkable.

Favorite song: Unexplainable Stories
Score: I usually wasn't yearning to mute it/10

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

HasteDeux posted...

John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiSplZAZ1reDqkS6g2O0HVKoD0jonbUEO

@HasteDeux

Haste, when half the videos in a playlist are from 2008 and there other half are fucking video recordings of a record player playing the song, maybe you should find a better upload for me. This is the first time this ranking where I had to seek out a different upload because christ, man

I'm listening to too late on the first pass to have many comments, but I do have to mention now that Thousand Island Park is really doing it for me, particularly the midpoint. The way the piano is interacting with the guitar (which is doing a certain melancholic thing I recently discovered I love) is cool as hell, and is something I don't think I've heard the like of before.

One word: drum solo. Wait. Fuck.

I actually thought I had switched to the Allman Brothers or something when Open Country Joy came on. The opening was the best part, honestly. Kind of lost the thread with both genres when the song picked up.

I'm really struggling to write comments on the albums I like a lot compared to the albums I like less. I listened to this a ton over the last week but never felt motivated to write anything. I liked it a lot. I knew I'd like it a lot. You knew I'd like it a lot. This isn't diminishing my appreciation of the album or the nom or anything, I just feel bad that I don't have too much to say here. If asked to do an individual song analysis I'd have an easier time.

Favorite song; Thousand Island Park
Score: did you even need me to tell you/10

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

kevwaffles posted...

They straight up make fun of "generic Republican global warming denier" in that episode. Anyone who actually watched it thinking the point was "global warming is all a hoax" probably had already believed it.

and they also made fun of Al Gore MANBEARPIG with equal aplomb. That's exactly what KP is talking about. Their default strategy is "This side is extreme and this side is extreme. The answer lies in the middle!" It's not inherently wrong, but "the middle" is a very large region, and South Park's job isn't to offer solutions, so you're not left with a particularly useful analysis, and so you're only left with the kind of apathetic "I reject both sides. I am superior" enlightened centrism KP objects to.

The episode doesn't say that global warming is a hoax. It merely rejects, directly or indirectly, its urgency, which isn't much better.

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlUU2U-Sn_g

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

metroid

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Primordial barkness > LEGENDER (4-3)
Iggdrasil > Mommy (4-3)

mother :(

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

dinner party

MATCH 1:

Dark to Light {Mitsuharu Fukuyama}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cknBms3aPYs

vs

MITORIA BORQUE SONDAL ~ PAYSARZE {Hidekuni Horita}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9sPYqJlCR4

MATCH 2:

Enemy Flagship Assault ~ Zone 1 ~ Struggle to Live {Hidekuni Horita}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1wlZhwCc-s

vs

Evoke the Virtuality {Hidekuni Horita}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjCwvPfIclg

getting real old saying how fucked the matches are

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

double beyond the darkness

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

Darkness
Mother

match 1 extremely easy. match 2 also easy but very sad :(

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

when the contest is finalized you should include composer/arranger information

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt

xp1337 posted...

As bullshit as it has been that Manchin and Sinema have crippled this reconciliation bill (even if you say others would have taken their place - and on, say, Medicare negotiating drug prices, I may even agree - it seems pretty clear they were uniquely responsible for a few policies being cut from this as described last topic) I try to keep some perspective by remembering that between ARP and the two infrastructure bills that's $5t that wouldn't be going to (mostly) good policy had Georgia not bailed out this country in January.

But it absolutely is trash that paid leave got dropped from the bill. Literally six countries on Earth don't have it and we get to stay one of them.

impressively confusing punctuation here, i have to hand it to you

---

Kneel... or you will be knelt