Heavenly Music Competition 3.
Serenity of Silence by Acumen.
17th position. (Rank score: 56 with medium 5 point deduction).

Anders' comments: Now here is an interesting mix of styles. I should start by
pointing out that this song is close to being rated X. It contains some vocal
samples that were probably snatched right off of a porno flick. I suppose heaven
can mean a lot of different things to various people. I’m afraid this is not
something we intended for HMC3. Well, enough said about that. Serenity of Silence
features a rich and rhythmic soundscape. A point deduction is inevitable here.
The beat is built around some heavy drumloops and the bass line consists of
a low-pitched, rough sounding digi-string. The melody has plenty of intriguing
twists and turns that will probably be very appealing to a lot of people.
Laserdance anybody? No, this does not sound like Laserdance, but the catchiness
level is almost as high. I must say that Acumen has implemented a lot of nice
transitions here, but the most essential element is unfortunately missing.
This will not make me dream of blue skies and glittering ice cold water.
It’s way too intense for that. But, in the proper environment this would
definitely be a hit.

        A's rank: 21

Lisa's comments: A tremendously well produced piece of music, but with some rather
odd features could summarize Serenity of Silence. The soundscape is thick, yet
well balanced, creating a strong atmosphere already from the first few tones.
The music samples are all perfect, just the right amount of fuzziness to create
an authentic sound. The rhythmic section works wonders with the melodious parts,
due to the well-weighed collaboration between the snare and the bass drum. That
piano is, as many of you already know, my weak spot, and having it play such an
important part in this song is worth an applause. At around 2 minutes, a group
of Gregorian chanters are introduced, doing their typical, freeflowing, sacral
singing. A few seconds later, a female voice starts moaning and groaning in a
very non-sacral way. It took me a few rounds of listening before I noticed this
rather interesting clash between the sacral and the profane. Seems the composer
has taken a stand for the latter, since I hear a lot more female groaning than
the male chanting. However well produced and interesting this song is, it
unfortunately is a victim of style impropriety. There are too many heavy, dark,
high-tempo parts for it to be ignored, and therefore it must be subdued to point
deduction. It’s rather hard to remember the spirit of HMC when you hear such an
impressive production; but nevertheless, the spirit needs to be honored.

        L's rank: 10

Vesa's comments: Well tracked. Nicely balanced mix apart from the stereo image
which leans left. It's a wall of sound with power. Unfortunately it's held back
by a few really strange choices. Out of place x-rated female vocals make the monk
singsong even more corny than it would have been otherwise. And how does the name
fit in? This track could have used more of both serenity and silence. Nothing much
happening and the musical content is thinly spread. All in all, the overrall effort
seems to be rather biased. The artist spent a long time honing the sound,
but the musical effect is almost random.

        V's rank: 25