Well, the first thing that we can hear is that Primal Platypus Alley growls and screams a lot, not the best beginning for a Power Metal song but it's almost 9 minutes, give him a try for fucks sake.
And man he screams a lot. When it comes to pure vocal power this song is totally better than an original, no doubt. But is it always only about the power? Its worth mentioning that mixing in the original has vocals moved a little back in comparison to the new version.
In the original Pudel is telling a story, sometimes more talking than singing, his english isn't really clear, actually sounds like me trying to sing anything. Any harsher screams are moved to the background, it's more like a bow towards metal. Both versions have a little bit worse beginning when talking about vocals. Pudel also sounds a little bit more desperate, it's hard to tell why. Well, it isn't hard, I'm just an idiot :P
New version is less than a story, more like a powerful explosion of emotion, especially the ending is sung a little different, which is a great addition to this powerful song. Here I have to say some good things about the new version- while few people told me that Platypus isn't sounding like a "typical power metal singer" we have to look at Fifth Element track for a second- is it a typical power metal song? No, and it's quite far from it, musical background is so rich and intense that I would say it's very close to melodic death metal territory, so Platypus vocals are more suitable than Poodle's.
When it comes to English language of both vocalists I must say that Primal Alley is making a better job, his knowing of spelling and accent isn't better than Simon's (both are not very good) but he is way clearer and easier to understand. With Poodle during tracks like Elemental Power I need to have lyrics in front of my eyes to understand something. Well, maybe my hearing is shitty too :P
Overall I have to say that Fifth Element isn't my favourite Pathfinder song, not even close. It's hard for me to judge which vocalist does a better job here. While I justified some of Primal's growls it's still not very fitting for my taste, he sounds sometimes that he's "trying too hard". On the other side we have Simon who sounds more like talking than singing to me and I can't understand what he's saying. But this song with Primal is here just to make an entry, an impact. To show the world that Pathfinder is very much alive and ready to blast us with album number three. And energy on this track perfectly delivers that. The "Fly" scream is sung with so much emotion I shat my bed when I heard it for the first time. So this comparision is totally meaningless, I give the old version a score 7/banana and the new is pear/banana. This track review is so terrible that I probably won't do stuff like this ever again, I fucking suck.
PS. Not really a versus between the two of them, I saw Primal live and he was so much better than any live recording of Simon I found. Thanks for reading and sorry for shitty quality.
