A Taiwanese band and late contender for “Best Title of the Year”…

[Video][Website]
[5.50]

Iain Mew: Post-rock bands the world over should be looking on in awe at that title, which goes right through on-the-nose and out the other side. Like, if you’re releasing an album called Winter Endless, the final entry in a four seasons “Vivaldi Project,” with a German orchestra on board, of course it should have a lead single called “Violently Sad and Beautiful.” Sodagreen follow through with almost everything I could want in a big prog ballad, too. Wu Tsing-Fong sings with purity tempered with an emotional catch that works for both the spikier moments and the pin drop quiet despair they end on. The orchestra starts off just adding a bit of surface grandeur (and gurning for the video), but add a lot of panache to the way that Sodagreen pull off a big dramatic pause and then swerve into a groove before going back to the blowout they seemed to be heading for. And yeah, if you’re going to do this, go all out.
[8]

Thomas Inskeep: RIYL symphonic prog-pop: Moody Blues, Muse. I don’t.
[3]

Micha Cavaseno: Doesn’t matter where you go in the world; everywhere, someone is making “Kashmir” styled pomp-rock of all lushness and no substance and boring me to tears with it.
[2]

Alfred Soto: At last: a band connecting that adverb-adjective + adjective into a string-laden arena buster with an eye on the audience’s waving smart phones and the other on amusing itself. Dour verse melodies though.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Not all big sounds can coexist; this is exponentially better when it sounds like a carnival-horror remix of the Camelot overture than when it sounds like it can’t decide whether it’s feinting toward “Total Eclipse of the Heart” or “I Believe I Can Fly.”
[6]

Brad Shoup: The drive to epochal is winning, but it’s cut off by Wu Tsing-Fong — who has the vibrato but not the power — and a pitiably piddling bassline nearly two minutes in. The orchestral flourishes, then — at first Golden Age Hollywood, later “Uninvited” — have to bear too much weight. He strikes a nice compromise after four minutes or so, when he and the violins are climbing the same slippery staircase.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: Not sure I’ve heard a better opening line than “Celebrities are all diseased” this year, and almost want to throw all my points in just for that. Few songs should last nearly six minutes, but Sodagreen makes it seem manageable by just embracing the big, soaring orchestra sound, made all the more interesting by the lead singer’s sudden pants for breath, like these are his last words.
[6]

Anthony Easton: The Dick Dale super-fast ending to this with the disaffected vocals would be perfect, but I’m not sure that it earns the sopping piano coda. Maybe add another minute or so. 
[7]