Well, I didn't find the other reviews all that helpful, so let me give it a try. However, I doubt I'll be much help - there is little I can think of to compare most of these tracks to. Mostly not my cup of tea, but I shall attempt to describe the tracks so maybe you can decide if it might be your cup of tea.
One advantage of this collection is that if you like a particular band here, you get 2 cuts from them. One disadvantage is that you must take the whole thing to discover what you may enjoy out of it.
The production values are very good - the sounds are clear and well-balanced, occasionally distorted only for artistic effect. Most of the lyrics are clearly understandable (important to me). These are generally far more music than noise, and seem creative - they are varied in style. Many tracks have some swear words "sprinkled in" - unnecessarily in my opinion.
1 & 2 - start off musical and progress to driving & screaming at the end. Lyrics are "explicit" and complaining. Beat medium; vocal quality, guitar/bass/drums quite good. I liked them until about 3/4 through and until I really listened to the lyrics in #2. Rock-ish.
3 & 4 - start off "weird" and become more musical as instruments are added. Breathy, repetitive lyrics against more lyrical instruments that do some "experimental" things - almost like the lyrics serve the percussion function. Trance-ish.
5 & 6 - sort of remind me of my less favorite Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd tracks - the busy guitar licks and driving bass - but interspersed with breathy, high female vocals (#5) or pleasant male vocals (#6) and a more dreamy musical line. However, the transitions seemed to not make much musical sense. #6 is the first track I thought was decent enough to maybe keep - but perhaps my musical tastes are a bit too "rigid" - I prefer more melody and structure, I guess.
#7 & 8 - driving metallic guitar and busy bass & drums. Vocals good - a bit angry. Heavy-metal-ish (but not quite that heavy). #8 a bit more melodic than #7. I liked these 2 a bit more than 1-6. Hard-rock-ish.
#9 & 10 - harmonizing male vocals, slow rhythm, dreamy nicely reverbed guitar. Reminds me somewhat of the early Led Zeppelin I liked better than the later. Well-done juxtaposition of dreamy against more intense musical bridges. These I actually liked quite a bit. These tracks have made me more patient to await the rest of the downloads.
#11 - female vocals - medium rock with a slight country or folk flavor (her "accent" maybe). Clear rhythmic melody. Vocals a bit harder to understand. Musically coherent throughout. I liked it.
Well, that's as far as my downloads have gotten after about 8 hours (I'm on dial-up). I'll edit to add more after I get the rest of the tracks, if I do. As my reactions progressed along the selections from pretty-much-stinks to hey-not-bad to pretty-decent, maybe track 18 will be awesome-great...
ADDED LATER... Well, we never achieved awesome-great, but in the end I deleted 1-5 and kept tracks 6-18 with 3 stars (not bad) on 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, and 4 stars (good) on 9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18.
#12 - female vocals rather hard to understand (is she saying "how to die"?). Catchy guitar riff 'hook'. Fast and driving. Sort of punk-ish and 60's-ish at the same time. Good internal variety. I liked the tune enough to forgive the vocals and the somewhat distorted sound.
#13 & 14 - clear, emotive, melodic male vocals. Strong percussion/bass, medium-fast. A bit buzzy/reverby (70s-ish) guitar and keyboards. Simple melodic lines with enough variety. Rock 'ballads'. I liked them.
#15 & 16 - Male harmonizing vocals, clear and front and center (sort of Simon & Garfunkel-ish, though I suspect backup is the same singer) plus electric keyboard, rhythm guitar, drums. Clear, clean sound. Medium slow. Some added production interest (echoes, reverb). Mellow, lyrical, introspective.
#17 & 18 - Strong percussion, buzzy keyboards and guitar, clear melodic male vocals. Repetitive lyrical melody. Medium-fast and interesting.
Altogether - probably something here for you - a good variety. Overall a 3.5 stars, I guess.Get more detail about Saddle Creek sampler 2008-2009.
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