Superbay Entrance Exam

[davidn]

We're moving offices once again, but this time it's going to be a much more pleasant experience than last time, having only a couple of books, monitors and other bits and pieces to move down with us instead of years' worth of accumulated miscellany, and it's only down one floor. If anyone else is after a couple of desks in an open-plan office space around other companies, here are the apparent requirements to get in:

Tick all that apply:

I talk:

[ ] Constantly
[ ] Incessantly
[ ] Ceaselessly
[ ] All the time

My personal volume level can best be described as:

[ ] Loud
[ ] Very loud
[ ] Obnoxiously loud
[ ] Billy Mays

My ringtone is:

[ ] Awful
[ ] Irritating
[ ] Excruciating
[ ] Fatal

1 tick or more: Congratulations! You're in.

Comments

[davidn]

I just heard Altaria for the first time via Youtube a couple of weeks ago - I'd been meaning to listen to more of them. That's a perfectly gentle yet distinctive-sounding introduction - I'm not sure what instrument it is either, I would have guessed some sort of vibraphone but it sounds too synthetic. (I'm actually reminded quite a lot of one of the pieces of music from Trauma Center.)

Conversely, I have this stored on there as a potential ringtone but have never used it - if I did I would consider it my revenge.

[kjorteo]

Honestly, I liked them better when they had their original vocalist. "Unicorn" has one of the best metal non-Lost Horizon metal screams ever and includes lyrics like

The gates of Hell call all the pagans chosen by the universe
With power of a rising legion fronted by the unicorn
Unbelievers fear the symbol created by the universe
And sacred thoughts manipulating children of the unicorn

I mean, how can you go wrong with that?

They've been a bit hit or miss due to a tragically unstable lineup since then, though.

[davidn]

More unstable than the genre usually is? It might as well say "feat. members of SONATA ARCTICA and NIGHTWISH* * Also everyone else". That's certainly an impressively sustained scream - and similarly surprising is the comparative shortness of the song, it's very rare to see a total time on one of those videos below four minutes.

Also, how hysterical that (as I discovered when looking them up) they share a name with a species of Pokemon...

[starfishchris.livejournal.com]

Even if you took a real vibraphone and layered effects upon it, it still ends up a synthetic sound. You cross that boundary long before you manage to transform a grand piano into a crazy distorted guitar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Iron_Sea).

[davidn]

I have never in my life heard a distorted piano - that's certainly original :) And a more convincing electronic rhythm-ish sound than I ever achieved. The video for Is It Any Wonder brings back fond memories of Scalectrix.