Okay guys, here are the songs for you to take a look at. The contest won't OFFICIALLY start until around 10 AM tomorrow, so don't get butthurt over me posting them early. I'll edit them into the OP as well. Happy writing!

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Krafty - Hi Krafty, it seems you like thrash so I want to see if you can combine the ultra-brutal style of thrash made by a band like Demolition Hammer with oldschool crust/grind like on Napalm Death's 'Scum'. I want both influences to be pronounced; don't just alternate between d-beats and e-string chugging! You're more creative than that!

Bezerko - Bezerko, you get the privilege of crafting a song of equal parts early Ulver and Dead Raven Choir! You will compose a three-part song; parts one and three will be extremely distorted and raw (BUT MELODIC) black metal, while the extended middle section will be pure clean guitar black/folk. I expect AT LEAST two guitar lines in that section, and not mirroring each other through the whole thing! All of your lyrics will be taken from Thomas Hardy's "Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave?". You can find it here: http://www.online-literature.com/hardy/909/

mattp - Hi Matt! I really like your music, so I'm here to ruin your day! You get to make the world's first symphonic slam song! Your track will be heavily influenced by 'Demigod'-era Behemoth and extremely guttural slam ala Waking The Cadaver or Digested Flesh. The symphonic element must be pronounced (I highly recommend choir effects). See if you can take the most thuggish style of metal and turn it into an amazing experience! By the way, the lyrics will detail an Aztec-style ritual involving you raping and murdering your last ex-girlfriend to sacrifice to the sun god. Happy slamming!

PedigreeButchery - I don't know anything about you, but how about you try something in the vein of Suffocation's 'Pierced From Within', but with just a hint of Winter-style doom to it. Hell, take 'Thrones Of Blood' and cut it into half time if you like! Have fun contrasting some more convoluted power chord passages with more epic sections for a good time!

invoked - Let's try something odd for you: I want something in the vein of Celtic Frost's 'Monotheist' album, but one of the more uptempo tracks such as 'Progeny'. Make it as simple or complex as you want, but I want you to keep the archaic and dismal atmosphere as intact as possible. You get bonus points for the insertion or arbitrary grunts and "Hey"s.

Traver - Since you suck at things, I want you to make a slow, depressive black metal song with a prominently featured bass including a solo. Something like Make A Change... Kill Yourself, perhaps? I don't know, you figure it out! You're an artist! Also bonus points if the tin whistle is incorporated, even if really poked at in post-production.

alexaons - Listen to Mortician's 'House By The Cemetery'. You hear what they're doing there? Do that. Bonus points for no tremolo picking at all, just massive grooves. I know nothing about you so it's hard to think something up!

blood8815 - Guess what, you didn't provide me with any information on what you have! Due to this, you now have to make a minimal but still atmospheric drone soundscape ala Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg! I want to picture desolate, windblown hills and dead trees reaching towards the sky! This is what you get for not paying attention to the first post!

death_headj - Let's stretch out those clean vocals with a traditional doom song in the vein of St. Vitus. Keep it slow and low, and the word 'tombstone' must be used at least once in the lyrics. If you want something trickier, add a hint of folk ala unknown band Kin Of Ettins. I'm interested to hear this one!

AppleQueso - Make a barely-metal power metal song in the vein of Axenstar! Take where guitars and keyboards are normally positioned and reverse them: guitars mostly harmonize with the keyboard, which is essentially the leading instrument. Doesn't have to be anything complex, and I'm sure you'll come up with something listenable. Dragons must be featured in the lyrics, and they have to be written completely seriously!

caspian - Do you like South American black/thrash? Well unfortunately now you do. It's up to you to create something that would fit beautifully on Sarcofago's 'INRI': raw and filthy black/thrash with no regard for human life. Alcohol had BETTER be a major lyrical theme and source of inspiration. I want you to have had at least four drinks (but NO WEED DAMNIT) at all times while writing and recording this track.

Prominence - I'll make something set up to echo your skillset. Create something in the vein of Godflesh's 'Hymns': sludgy yet richly melodic guitar lines that churn over a dynamic and highly syncopated drum performance. Use few riffs, but make each one a massive one and establish variation through drums and subtle rhythmic variations on guitar. Vocals are up to you; I could see it working with cleans or with Isis-style post-metal roars. A sample track from 'Hymns' if you're not familiar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRJLPu0yq5U

crusthead - It's tragic, truly tragic, that you want to do low-fi black metal, because now you have to make a grooving death metal/porngrind song in the vein of Cock And Ball Torture! You don't have to have the intricate chord structures they've turned into a staple, but you have to have a track which could appear on 'Egoleech' without a great deal of trouble. Thorry!

FirebathDan - Let's see if you can make something ala Skepticism's 'Lead And Aether'. I want murky and dark funeral doom, but I want the main feature of the music to be a classically influenced and generally non-repeating lead guitar line that pops up during instrumental passages and departs during vocals. Bonus points for subtle and relevant sample usage (no speeches, just field recordings).

You... Bastard!! Slam!! My one weakness..

Luckily I've been working with heavily Behemoth/Anaal Nathrakh influenced symphonic blackened/death metal anyway lately, so I guess I can just transplant a few breakdowns and be good...

Excellent lyrical topic by the way. Had a nasty split with the ex, so this should be therapeutic to say the least

There's actually a surprising amount of slam out there with hints of epic compositional style. If you're looking for inspiration in that regard, try out Septycal Gorge, the new Devourment, or Amputated Genitals. A lot of strange, interesting ideas can be found between all that stuff.

Oh you prick Noktorn, not only do you ask me to do something "hard", you ask me to combine two bands I've never heard before.

EDIT: You're going to need to give me an idea of what DRC to listen to, there's so much there.

Lo-fi porngrind for everybody then.
Sounds like a fun challenge. Ill mess around with the guitar today and see what I can come up with.

Excellent, I've always wanted to make some depressive doom metal.

I was actually in awe when I read mine. I just was laughing uncontrollably for a while. Oh boy I hope my vocals don't turn out horrible.

Guess I'd better dig up that CASIO keyboard and try to write something.

I haven't heard a single Sarcofago- or indeed, South American black/thrash in general song. Or basically anything South American in general. This should be great!

For Ulver, check the first three albums. For DRC, go for any of the EPs, but not the full-lengths. 'Sturmfuckinglieder' in particular is recommended. The full-lengths are weird neofolk, but the EPs are ultra-raw black metal ala Ildjarn.



If your cleans are horrible, try going the Bal-Sagoth route and use harsh ones; it's more the instrumental essence which needs to be kept.



Bands to check out: Sarcofago, Holocausto, Miserycore, Vulcano. That should give you a good background. Lean towards the first Holocausto album and you'll have a good idea.

Question for you, Noktorn. When you say incorporate folk, do you mean in the lyrics, or by using certain instruments?

Ok, I just heard some stuff off Egoleech on youtube...and I reeeeally dont think I can play like them or even emulate their production so as to "have a track which could appear on 'Egoleech'".
Does it have to be CBT or are there any other bands of CBTs style for me to go for??

Check out how Kin Of Ettins does it. There's a melodic influence from what sounds like Celtic or Nordic folk music, but it's not overbearing. Lyrics if you like; it's just a suggestion to maybe refine your idea a little more.

Ok, thank you.

This is going to be very entertaining. I'm especially excited about caspians challenge, as that is one of my favorite styles.

Im actually having a lot of fun writting this song. This is completly different from what Im playing these days but I was a big fan of Mortician when I was 14yrs!

You don't have to do anything as complicated, just go for the general style. Grooving porngrind. You'll do fine.

Got a title, BAD ASS intro, and ideas for a structure.

"We Who Are His Slaves".

Watch out

Got rough vox done, and currently working on riffs.

Damn, I was hoping for "My Girlfriend Caught me Shagging (An Inflatable Blow-up Sheep)" or something along those lines.

I missed out on THIS? *bleeep*

Looking forward to upcoming contests.

Sounds pretty kickass.

I'm trying to focus on the "Behemoth", "Aztec", and "Symphonic" tags a bit more than the slam, but there are enough breakdowns to keep it in line with the challenge. Even a gravity blast or two.

Funeral doom...one of my favorite genres, but man this stuff is hard to write authentically. Especially with a classical sort of melody. I gave it a go and I think I've got something good going on. My song, tentatively titled "I Appear As An Apparition", is musically written at this point-all that's left is tracking. I actually don't know Skepticism all that well, so I'm using my two favorite Funeral Doom bands as references-Shape Of Despair and Celestiial. I'm going for minimalist, keyboard-less, deep/guttural vocals, and a overall nasty and atmospheric sound. I'm going to forgo the field recording bonus points. I've even busted out the old 7 string and gave it a quick setup to make this happen. My plan for the next few days is something like this:

Tomorrow: band rehearsal, can't work on it
Thursday: program drum track
Friday: rhythm guitars and bass
Saturday: vocals and leads
Sunday mix, process, and bounce

Hope I can stick to it.

A good reference point of what I had in mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKajqoXTH7k

If you can expand upon that idea in your own direction though, have at it.

That's actually not too far off from where I was going with it...I'm just going to supplant the keys with guitars and fuzz bass and the tribal-esque drumming for a slightly more conventional Funeral Doom drum approach. I guess it is a little far off...but the minimalist and repetitive song structure is what I'm going for. I guess I'm making it my own. The classically inspired lead melody is where the most Shape Of Despair influence shines through.

By the way, Skepticism rules hard-that was an awesome track. When I get some extra cash, I'll have to dig into their catalog. Thanks for the hookup.

Well, my original vocal track was a slow bass..but that didn't work with the riffs. So now I've switched to a slightly faster baritone, which works much better.

Any preference on vocals? I plan on layering it up, Nergal-style, with occasional super-gutturals. Its times like these I really wish I could do inhales, the ridiculous sustain they afford would add a nice touch to some of this...

Do whatever you feel is good. Hell, if you'd like to touch it up after the contest is over (and I have access to recording equipment again) I'd be happy to contribute vocals since I do really low inhales.

Damn, I haven't heard Monotheist in years, but looks like I'll have to give it a listen again.

Some cool ideas though.

the music has been written, now it's just matter of getting enough motivation to program the drums and record it all! I have no idea if what I'm doing is very south american but it is pretty black/thrashy, so hopefully that will suffice

I'll only do that as a last resort, this is really giving me a really chance to work on my clean vocals for once.

About 50-75% of the riffs written for the black metal parts, currently working on the clean folk section thingo.

EDIT: I'm out, I just lost half my stuff due to Guitar Pro fucking up and I honestly can't be bothered putting up with the stress this is giving me.

That really sucks, man.

Hm, quite an interesting challenge, but I think I know how to nail the sound, and I'm going to write the song tonight and tomorrow, program the drums friday and record the whole thing during the weekend. There's only one problem; I haven't received Mixcraft in the mail yet, so I might have to use... Audacity. (It's become almost impossible to crack) It should've arrived a few days ago, but I hope it's here before the weekend.

I couldn't get Vitus' tone exactly, so what I have now is more closely related to Tony Iommi's guitar tone. Hopefully that is still acceptable.

My song is recorded, everything except vocals. Just gotta write lyrics and try to get the right style of singing down. This has been the hardest thing to write ever, hopefully it's close enough to the assigned style.

In the same boat here.

EDIT:

FUCK IT, I'm doing the vocals Behemoth style. Layering here we come!

about 1/3 done insturmentally, I'm sorta taking my time since I'm juggling a lot of things right now.

I just made a pathetic excuse for a drone song, I have no idea how to make drone.

All is going according to schedule...drums are programmed, processed, and pre-mixed.

Guitars and bass are up next for tomorrow; vocals on Saturday, mix and bounce on Monday.