bronyrockspotlight - Tumblr blog

[bronyrockspotlight]

HeyLasFas - Destiny Review

So this blog is pretty much dead now, I never got back into writing it after I returned. I do have two posts in draft for a punk mix and ReverbBrony, but after all the time that has passed what I had written no longer really applies. Despite the blog being dead, brony music is not, and I think this blog served it’s purpose for showing people that brony music isn’t all dubstep. I am also not dead, and while I haven’t been writing about brony rock specifically I have written more about it. Specifically, I finally got around to writing the review for Destiny by HeyLasFas that I said I was going to waaayyy back. You can read it here: https://metalmetric.wordpress.com/2020/10/17/destiny-a-tale-of-unicorn-wings-heylasfas/

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Pony Music is not dead. The face of the scene has changed, but people are still making music. As far as rock is concerned, PrinceWhateverer, 4EverFreeBrony, and The L-Train are still major players, but we’ve seen many metal artists I haven’t covered rise like Osoch, Frozen Night, and Reverb Brony. People seem to have forgotten about this channel, so this is a call to follow them and vote!

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Can Pony Get On Rocksmith?

Hey guy, I’m not dead! Just very busy. One thing I want to share with my fellow connoisseurs of brony rock is my plan to get a brony rock pack into Rocksmith. Rocksmith is a game to Guitar Hero or Rock Band, except it teaches people to play the actual guitar parts. For those interested in playing their favorite songs, there could be nothing better. Best of all, Ubisoft accepts requests, and they’ve been known to feature songs from artists more obscure than many of the musicians from our fandom, so it’s entirely possible for brony songs to make it in. We might even get a whole pack! In order to maximize chances of getting ANY brony songs featured, I recommend that everyone who is interested submits this same song list that I compiled: 

1. AcoustiMandoBrony - Loyalty

2. Tarby - Nightmare Moon

3. Jeff Burgess - Leave This World Behind

4. L-Train - Lunar March

5. 4Everfreebrony - Honesty

6. PrinceWhateverer - Constellations 

7. Forest Rain - Hay Ms Derpy 

8. dBPony - Wonderbolt 

9. P1k - Fade To Grey 

10. ShinZm - Empyrean Flux

11. Survivors of the Siege - Alone (Celestia) 

12. Reverbrony - The Flightless Fury

13. Cyril the Wolf - The Night Seeker

14. GatoPaint - Endless Mist Of Nightmares

15. Screams From Equestria - Lyra's Secret 

16. Michael Pallante - Becoming the Alicorn

17. Metalcore Pony - Final Flight

18. HeyLasFas! - Trapped In Stone

19.  Caine the Doombringer - Welcome to Horrorville

20. Silent Night - Dear Sister Moon

21. Vaceslav - I Will See Them Fall

22. Cats Millionaire - Black Snooty

23. AcousticBrony - An Octave Beauty

24. MandoPony - Shining Armor

25. Secret Metal - Clopper (Actually, you should probably submit Hive by  Przewalski's Ponies instead. :P)

Be sure to submit them exactly as they are listed, as that’s makes it much easier for Ubisoft to recongize the demand for a given song. Also, if you’re a fan of any of the particular songs or artists, I suggest submitting 3-5 songs you like by them. This enables them to possibly get their own song pack. 

In other news. While there is still numerous artists I’d like to feature, I’ve found I no longer have time to write full spot light posts. Instead, I plan on doing a megapost for brony rock musicians I know of who I have not featured yet, with a particular emphasis on those who are still active. Remember you can submit things, and if any one else wants to be an admin for this blog I’m interested. 

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Sunset shimmer songs?

Sorry I didn’t reply sooner, for someone reason I never get notified when I get a new message. 

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I’d really like it there were a Rocksmith tracks for a few songs. Everchanging for one would be killer. 

How would you feel if one of your songs made it on RockBand 4?

If they asked permission first, and we worked stuff out, I’d be super happy about it!

If i found out and they hadn’t contacted me prior, i’d be kinda hella pissed haha

[bronyrockspotlight]

Official Hiatus Announcement

As I did not get any new writers, today I will be going on hiatus for two years. 

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Hey man, Just curious have you heard about The Wonderbolts?

Well, of course I’ve heard of them from the show, but I really have no idea if I’ve heard the brony band or not. I mean it’s common enough name, and there are a ton of brony bands I’ve heard once, but didn’t keep track of. 

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Song Submission

((Submitted by the musician, not sure if it really counts as rock but he’s pretty good, problem is I don’t have time to make a spotlight and at this late it looks like we are going on hiatus for two years, sorry I didn’t finish the updates))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ6I7vp94dk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJWFtDER4x0

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

And I also do stuff like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8nySJ-uVrs

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IMPORTANT - Mod(s) Needed ASAP

http://mylittleremix.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=10435

In short, In a couple weeks I’m leaving for two years, and I’m looking for someone to run this blog in my place. 

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Updates! - Part 1

So this blog has now been around for nearly two years, so it expected that things have changed for many of the artists II've featured since I wrote about them. With these post I’ll give updates on all the musicians I've previously featured. 

1. AcousticBrony - in the couple years since I reviewed them, they’ve released a couple of songs, so take that as you will. They’ve also announced a couple projects. such as a still upcoming 8-bit rock album with MysteriousBronie, and now have a bandcamp. AcoustiMandobrony has also released a couple of songs, namely their Rarity and Pinkie Pie songs.

2. Silent Night - between the review and starting writing this post he’s released one complete new song, as well as remastering a couple older songs, but hasn’t been seen in over year, which is really a shame especially considering he left off with a pretty sick demo. Actually just now he released a new song a few weeks ago after I wrote his section of the update, so I’m have to update this and I’m going to split this into two parts before it goes more out of date :P. Since I only did four songs by him, but five for everyone else, I'll do another song now:

#5 Phoenix, Rise!

This song opens with a groovy riff reminiscent of early Black Sabbath, and thus a riff worthy of the greatest riff maker of all time. It serves as a perfect hook. The vocals have a bit of hallowed sound to them, reminding me a bit of a harsher version of Blue Oyster Cult, and the describe an event in the castle were the narrator (Celestia?) witnesses a Phoenix revive. The chorus is absolutely anthemic; it’s simple, but it draws you in. Half through there is a pretty neat guitar solo, following which is a more metaphorical verse. The final chorus is even more anthemic with backing shouts and pounding drums, really motivating you to rise. The original version of this song had extreme clipping, which turned me off from the otherwise excellent song, so that’s why the remaster is so great. 

3. Screams From Equestria

The EP I mentioned has been released. Other than that, he’s continued to release single songs, a couple for Pounce Aid, but no new projects. My favorites of these new songs are his collab with Crowcraller and this new melodeath song, and his doom metal song also stands out. He has pulled some of his old songs down, but Sacrifice the Young to Luna is back up. 

4. Tarby

After numerous delays, Everfree, his sophomore album, has been released. I have written a review on it. My favorite tracks from it are “One Wish” and “Everchanging”. He has recently released another EP, The Origin Story, which takes more of an alternative metal/hard rock sound compared to the more progressive nature of his other songs. “Disciple” and  “Bittersweet”. He has announced many other albums, including that the current plan for Forever Broken is to release it in 5 EPs before compiling them into a two disc album. 

5. Metal Mix 1

{{Insomnia}} has changed his channel name to Chris Wöhrer, but is still releasing pony music. Equestrian Lord released an album, Revenge of the Herd, but then pulled it back to make some changed, but then broke up, and the album remains unreleased. They do have some new songs since I featured them though. There is absolutely no updates for Vafrous Coyote, I think the channel name was already Versilaryan. Crimson AE did the same thing as Chris, the channel is now Alexander Engström, and it so happens the two metal songs he’s released since the feature were shortly after said feature, and shortly before this post. Cannapplejack’s channel says he is inactive and all but two songs have been made private, I’m not sure what’s up with that, apparently for work on his non-pony band. His soundcloud is still active though, and has various tracks on it. 

6. Pinkie Guy

Sadly Pinkie Guy unexpectedly pulled his channel for professional reasons. Fortunately his compilation album Ggygxg is still up on his bandcamp. 

7. Heylasfas

The main Heylasfas has done is release the fantastic follow up to Nightfall, Destiny: A Tale of Unicorn Wings, which centers around Princess Twilight. If you thought Nightfall was great, Destiny is a whole ‘nother level. I actually got a message from Heylasfas before it’s release, but tumblr changed their layout and I forgot to check my mail so it’s too late for that, instead I’m going to write a full review for it like I did for Everfree. She’s (she’s not going by Kennedy anymore) also released another concept album thing about some cat or something and some other random songs. They’re also pretty neat.  

8. Cyril the Wolf

He has released not one, but two albums since I featured him. Recently he’s been taking more from progressive rock and Steven Universe. 

9. Metalcore Pony

He announced an EP, but it hasn’t come out. He’s recently put out some other songs though, not sure if they were from the EP or not. 

10. Metal Mix 2

Kaoss’s channel is down, I have no idea why or when it happened. Since the dearth ended ShinZm has been continuously releasing new songs, not much else to say. Secret Metal made a couple new songs a few months ago, but I still don’t think he has enough songs to do a full spotlight. Beyond his own work, he sung as the storyteller in Moonrise and has been featured on other songs. Among The Herd has many so many new songs and they just keep getting better and better, so I'm going to give them a full spotlight sometime.  Skelius Mortalis has made some more soundtrack music, but not anymore pony or rock.  

11. Mando Pony

First off, most the songs are down on the page, but that’s because he reuploaded the songs without the original cover art when he was redoing something with the channel. All the songs I featured have been reuploaded. He’s been continuing to make songs, but recently they've been all video game related rather than pony, and he’s been doing more rock and less new genres. I think he did start a Let’s Play Channel as well, but he has some Let’s Play Videos on his main channel, mainly Five Nights at Freddies. He did make this hilarious thrash metal song about cakes though, and this neat pop rock song about Diamond Tiara just missed the spotlight. 

12.  Princewhateverer

His debut album, Rediscover, came out shortly after the feature. It consists of a mixture of new songs and remastered old songs, as well as an A Day to Remember cover. (Psst, I accidently bought normal version rather than the deluxe version and thus have never heard Serenity, so can someone who has it please hit me up?). He’s also released an EP called Miniboss Battles with some accoustic and electronic stuff. Aside from that he’s released a lot of single, many featuring Dreamchan’s singing. Of his new stuff my favorite is this alternative rock song. 

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Brony Rock Spotlight #24 - Vaceslav

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Vaceslav

Vaceslav is a 25th year-old Video Game Audio student hailing for Brisbane, Australia. While he’s only been making fandom music for the last two years, and didn’t really pick up until around six months ago, he’s been watching the show since the first hiatus, and playing music for much long, being in various local bands since 2005. Currently he is bandless as he is devoted to the pony-focused Vaceslav project, though he plans on forming a band for it in the future. 

His music is primarily punk rock, which a speciality in ska punk. My brother is a big fan of ska punk who often insisted that the brony fandom should start the fourth wave of ska, and is currently serving an LDS mission in Indonesia, so if he were here I’m sure he’s love Vaceslav. What stands out the most to me about his music personally is his voice; it just rocks so hard, and the way he switches between soft and hard vocals makes it very expressive. Somehow it sounds both rough and polished, making it perfect for expressing punk while still pleasant to listen to. 

While he is still small in the community, he has still featured in a few collaborations. On this duet with Itchigotchi he lets beautiful vocals shine through while showing that his instrumentation, while simple, can stand on it’s own. Another notable collab is the massive cover of friendship through the ages featuring six other talented musicians. He is also a member of the band Luna Ticks with idkQuicksilver where he’s primarily the vocalist, which also primarily plays ska punk though they play other genres such as heavy metal.

#1 - Uninvited

Along with the sillier “’Tis a Lie” from the same EP, it was this song that got me into Vaceslav’s music. The lyrics describes Luna’s reaction to finding out that once again she wasn't’ invited to an important event, this time the royal wedding. Aside from the superbly evocative vocal delivery of said lyrics, the thing that stands out to me this song is the interplay between the synth and the guitar. They are just beautiful during the intro and bridge.

#2 Porcelain Doll

As the title explains, this is a cover of a song originally by Injustrial. For those unaware, Injustrial creates some of the darkest music in the fandom, aggrotech featuring his distinctive distorted screams which are some of the most extreme vocals I’ve ever heard, IMO easily topping death metal. This cover takes the song in a very different direction, being soft for a Vaceslav song. Gone our the synth melodies of the original, being replaced with more ska-appropriate tunes. Naturally it has a very different feel, anger in the original seems to be replaced with melancholia. It’s almost a completely new song. Still, it’s filled with power, and both versions work their lyrics to their own ends. While the original gives the impression of Spike being about the tear Rarity’s face off, this version more makes me feel that he’s gradually building up the confidence to commit to his choice and free himself from an abusive Rarity. Ultimately it’s just as dark as the original, just more subtle. 

#3 - The Wings I Didn’t Want

In contrast to his usual punk, this is an gentle acoustic piece. This is likely a result of the change of emotion; this song was created for Derpy’s Wings IV where he was assigned the emotion “simplistic acceptance”. It might be contrived, but he pulled it off with Twilight relunctly accepting her princesshood. The instrumentation is really pretty too. 

#4 Just Your Problem

Another cover, another Luna song. What’s so special about this cover is that it originally wasn’t a Luna song; it’s from Adventure Time. By only slightly changing the lyrics, he got it to fit Luna perfectly. The music is also updated to fit the lyrics, transforming the minimalistic pop song into an extremely dark and more fleshed out punk one. The screaming of “WHY DO I WANT TO?” at the end is really what sells it for me. 

#5 I Will See Them Fall

As said before, my brother is a big fan of ska-punk. Whenever I did show him a ska-punk song from the fandom, his response was pretty much always “needs more horns”. Well this song has got plenty of horns. Of course, it’s not just the presence of horns which makes this song good. It’s bold and brash, just like Rainbow Dash. One thing that stands about this in comparison to his other songs is that it has a guitar solo. In contrast to your expectations for a solo in such a song, it’s a slow and pretty guitar solo, but it still oozes confidence, and that just makes the final chorus hit all the harder. 

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Brony Rock Spotlight #23 - Forest Rain

Forest Rain

http://aklimovich.deviantart.com/art/Forest-Rain-Pop-Punk-Singer-CD-info-309650105

First off, sorry it’s taken so long. Since then tumblr has changed their editor, so sorry if things are a little wonky. Forest Rain also came out as transgender while I was writing this post, so if I worded anything wrong or focused on something I shouldn't’t have or anything else I’m apologizing in advance.

Hailing from Canada and now going by Jesse, Forest Rain is one of the most popular rock musicians in the fandom. She mainly makes pop punk, but may be better known for her non-rock songs. Back when “Journey of the Spark” was a thing, she was chosen to write original songs for it (Jeff Burgess wrote the lyrics), and she also coordinated the massive smile project. Aside from writing songs, she also narrates fanfiction. 

#1 Hay Ms. Derpy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzPXd5SR4fw

I’ll start with what I consider to be Forest Rain’s greatest classic. This love song about our favorite wall-eyed pony start’s with a melachonic piano melody that somehow become characteristic of derpy, but soon the distorted guitars with a joyous lead crash in. The song is very upbeat, with a bouncy bassline in the verses and a catchy chorus. I really enjoy the lines “Some day I'll wish upon a star and wake up somewhere very far” from there. Pop punk is generally a bit cheesy for my taste, but I find this very nice overall. 

#2 Autumn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqR5hqGgt5I

Of all of Forest Rain’s covers, this one is my favorite. It’s another Derpy love song, this time by Jackleapp. My favorite part is the groovy bass lick at the end of the chorus and the fanfare-like chord progression that follows, neither of which where in the original. It’s just in the perfect place with the perfect rhythm to give it a very fun feel. I also really like what was done with the bridge, bringing it down to this calmer piano section, allowing the sentimental part of the song to manifest amist the party-rocking. It’s quite different from the original, but all-in-all it works great. 

#3 Nightmare Night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yadfbBahFB4

In response to a challenge from Cyril the Wolf, Forest Pain was born, creating this masterpiece about the metalist princess horse just in time for Halloween. Aside one riff that reminds me of her pop punk material, it’s 100% metal, though some would call it hard rock. Either way, there are lots of tasty riffs. Just from listening I couldn't’t tell this was a Forest Rain track as she successfully pulled off an M. Shadows-esque vocal, complete with every few lines being screams in addition to the drawl. Like the previous song, it has a softer acoustic bridge, but it takes on a very different sound, based around strings and flute rather than piano synth. It also feels darker and is generally very much a metal bridge, which I found to be absolutely beatiful. This song just goes to show the variety she is capable of pulling off, and she’s not just a one trick pony who writes pop punk songs about romantic endevors with horses. 

#4 Your Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-aYiCA4Faw

This song was debuted during the Elements of Harmony special on love songs and was written as commission for two lovers. They basically talk about the song and how it was created for half an hour, so I’m not going to go much into it here. What I will say is I find the vocals be absolutely beatiful, especially during the chorus. While she didn’t come out until shortly after the interview was released, I do think the song was recorded in the middle of her transistion. Regardless, I’d like to her more of her singing now. The lyrics are also my favorite of all of Forest’s love songs, they come across as very real. 

#5 Alone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNidI7acg1E

And finally, my all time favorite song by Forest Rain. I'm not sure exactly what it’s about, I always assumed Fluttershy, but I guess it’s probably actually about Gilda. Whatever it’s about, I feel the pain in it. I guess technically the song might be based around the pop-punk style, but it’s so much darker that I wouldn't’t call it pop anything, post-hardcore might apply, or just general alternative rock. After laying down a mean opening riff followed by one of many excellent bass licks courtesy of Midnight Melody, the song moves into the first verse. There a jangly acoustic guitar and distorted power chords harmonize to drive the song with a subtly fire attitude, all while Forest Rain sings gently over. However, she just explodes into this absolutely rocking harsher voice during the chorus, even screaming a couple times in a most epic manner. I remember reading a comment from her once on the “Rock Vocals” version of “Join the Herd” that she was doomed to always have a bubblegum pop voice. Naw, you can rock as hard as you want. Really the interplay between lighter and heavier vocals in the song is great at conveying the emotion and just sounding awesome. Finally the song boasts a guitar solo that is actually pretty good, despite Forest Rain rarely featuring them. Basically this song is everything I like in rock song. Good job, Forest Rain. 

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Also I wrote at thing here. Hopefully I'll get around to doing some more spotlights this spring, got a draft on Forest Rain right now. 

Ganondox's Review of Tarby's Everfree

Tarby - Everfree

Hello, I’m Ganondox, and this is my first time directly writing for this blog.  I’m the admin for the associate blog Brony Rock Musician Spotlights though, haven’t written anything there for awhile because I’ve been busy. I’m also one of the members of the pony parody band Ghelded Kultz where I go by Soft D. String Dehooves. Now that I’ve been introduced, onto my review of Everfree. 

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Hey! Just wanted to say thank you. A lot of awesome tracks were found thanks to you. Stay awesome!

You’re welcome! 

[bronyrockspotlight]

what about dbpony?

I haven’t done him yet, mainly because he’s already really popular but doesn’t have much songs. He’s since changed his name to CookieSoup, so it’s worth mentioning a word on that.

[bronyrockspotlight]

thanks for writing such an in-depth article about my music!

You’re certainly welcome! You’re awesome! 

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Circuitfry has two i's in it, sorry, just a minor thing. :)

Which post was this a response to? Sorry for answering so late. :P