Materia: FFVII Remixed

[Lex]

So this album has been released in anticipation of the remake - I haven't had a chance to listen to it, but people are saying it's good.

One thing I'm not best pleased about - it's monetised. :/

 

[Kionae]

Looked it up on Spotify... I'm liking it so far. I need to find a block of time when I can sit down and listen to it properly.

But, just scanning through the titles... I see no Turks Theme. How can you not include that?!

 

[Shademp]

*listens through the preview*

Some neat stuff in there. Oooh! Smooth McGroove! Sounds like a re-use of his One Winged Angel acapella.

 

[Channy]

Am I the only one having trouble connecting to the website?

 

[Lex]

I'm writing a full review for the front page but I'm going to do the bare bones of it in here in various posts so that I can listen to the full thing and actually get it done.

@Channy, I think so, just checked the link again and it's loading fine over here.

Anyway, I just noticed Kyle Landry has recorded Aerith's Theme for this. No doubt it'll be amazing 0_0. I'm listening now on Spotify, will give it a bash tomorrow on the peasantwagon (I have to get the bus, it's a thing with the car not working, don't get me started).

EDIT: Oh dear, the teenage masturbatory metal-fication begins at track two. Not a good sign. Main theme was amazing though.

EDIT2: lol, I'm going to have to go through this track by track because some of them are brilliant and some are not so brilliant

 

[Lex]

1. Main theme

Really nicely done. Faithful to the original with vocals that might be off-putting to some but not to me, I enjoyed them.

2. Opening - Bombing Mission

I mean... if you haven't grown tired of the "GUITARIFY THIS"-ness of music in the VII fandom, you might like it. It's certainly not badly arranged. The trouble with rockifying some of VII's music unnecessarily is that you miss memorable beats of the original, and this is just "I am guitar hear me roar". I'm a huge metal fan. I'm not a this rendition of one of my all time favourite tracks fan.

3. Highwind Theme

Impressive. It's point for point the original but orchestrated, so I suppose you can't really go wrong there. My criticism of this track comes from the fact that the wind instruments either sound synthetic or poorly recorded/ mastered, and I can't work out which. The one thing I'm certain of is that once the string kicks in all is forgiven.

4. Uh. What song is this from the game? I recognise it but I don't. It's completely different from whatever it used to be.

5. Parochial Town

It's very different in tone (it manages to sound like elevator music in the beginning) but it's certainly quite pleasant to listen to. Especially when the wind instrument kicks in later. Don't give up on it too soon, it picks up!

6. Reunion

Another faithful reimagining, and for sure an improvement on the original track. No complaints, it's a pleasure to listen to.

7. Forested Temple

HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS THIS IS SHEER PERFECTION. I have been WAITING for someone to cover this track and this just gets it so fucking right. It's not 1:1 to the original, but it matches the pace and melodies and adds more. EVERYBODY GO LISTEN RIGHT NOW. If they put this in the remake I'd be more than happy with it.

8. Aerith's Theme

I can't review a track by Kyle Landry (famous video game piano YouTuber) without being biased because I've been a huge fan of his for years (look him up on YouTube, he's covered something you love for sure). Suffice it to say I like it, and in usual Kyle Landry fashion it has his own style of improv which is needed for a track that's been covered so much.

9. "Cocktail de chocobo"

That name suits it. It's the chocobo theme and it sounds like it'd play at a 90's cocktail bar (think Frasier theme instrumentation). Not my favourite style, but well put together. Really reminds me of the Tifa's theme cover from Voices of the Lifestream.

10. Costa Del Sol theme

Maintains faith in the original track for the first 45 seconds while adding in a little electric guitar... then gets even better by upping the tempo. Note: this is how you add rock elements to a VII track without overpowering the melodies that make the track great. This is a pretty awesome rendition of this song.

11. Yuffie's Theme

Piano cover. It plays with the track a fair bit and does quite a good job of it, but it's likely not one that I'll be playing on repeat. Alternates between frantic and faithful.

12. Holding our thoughts in our hearts

(I always called this one the "when you leave midgar song". Anyway, this is a pretty beautiful cover of this song. There's nice use of acoustic guitar and a lovely rolling percussion that I really enjoy. And that's just the beginning, because then there's melancholic-turned-tense rising string that reaches its apex before landing you back on string and acoustic guitar. Really great, and quite different from the original (but in a good way).

13. Underneath the Rotting Pizza

To its detriment it's a carbon copy of the original for the first minute - it's only to its detriment because it sounds like real instruments have been used aside from what might be called the "main melody" of this track, although if I was remaking this I'm not sure what instrument I'd replace that with. There's also this odd rising noise that's been added that I think really suits the style of Midgar, but doesn't really work with the synthesised sounds.

14. Chasing the black-caped man

OK, I'm on board with this. It's an orchestral rendition of the song that I think could have done with more ominous or more pronounced bell sounds, but it's pretty awesome. I can't find much fault in this because the string and added percussion are so good.

15. Battle theme

Here we've got an odd one, because there's already a perfect orchestral version of the battle theme from "Fulfilled Desire" in Crisis Core's sountrack. This one is a guitar cover (electric) but it's really well done and a pleasure to listen to.

16. Chocobo theme (again)

I know we have multiple chocobo themes in the original game, but these covers are completely different so it's a bit of an odd choice to have a few songs which have the same melody on this album. However, THIS IS A BARBERSHOP QUARTET COVER AND THE LYRICS ARE HILARIOUS. Excerpt:

WARK! Is the sound of a super awesome bird its
called, a chocobo as if
you may have heeeeaaaard

(I laughed, and so will you when you listen to this)

17. It's hard to stand on nanaki's iconic moment

And I mean that, because while this cover is technically brilliant, we do lose the atmosphere and "bounce" of the original. But it's still a good track to listen to.

18. Judgement Day

In the style of the closing credits of a 70's Blaxploitation movie, and I'm not kidding when I say that. Or maybe the opening of an 80's TV show about American police. But it's a lot of fun to listen to, and it's a pleasure to boot.

19. Turk's Theme

Or should I say... an 80's cover of the Turk's Theme with a male/female duet. That said, I can't fault the track on its own. The percussion is so right though, I'm really impressed with this track and think it's a great listen. Definitely a standout of the non-faithfuls, though I'm not sure if that's for the right reasons or not XD.

more tomorrow

 

[Lex]

"Disc Two"

1. Highwind theme again

This rendition of the Highwind theme is called "Reichwind takes to the club". There are probably some references in this title that I don't get. I don't know what kind of "club" you'd hear this in, it sounds more like something you'd hear in a shitty movie trying too hard to be nuanced about a French dude running to catch a train. It's not a bad song, this is just what it inspires in me. I do love the running bass guitar that kicks in and stays two thirds of the way through the song though. Other than that this poor song suffers from the fact that I'm getting increasingly sick of listening to covers of the same song. There's a lot of material to work with, we don't need two covers of the Highwind theme on the same album.

2. The Oppressed

Here we have an electro cover that's influenced by reggae, and I don't have any complaints about it because it's a modern interpretation of the original. You could get away with transplanting this in the original game without losing atmosphere - not too sure about the remake though.

3. Hurry

We have a good frantic DnB inspired cover of this from Voices (with that awesome quote thrown in to boot), but this holds up nonetheless. That said, this is a synth/electro remix that I'm 99% sure was composed by an American because it doesn't deliver satisfactory bass, drops, or what I call "peaks and flows" or "separation of layers" which are absolutely essential in this type of music. Dance/trance/techno/electro - that's Europe's baby and has been for decades. US artists still seem to be getting to grips with it (cultural bias may play a part here but this is something I objectively believe to be true).

4. Battle theme

Dubbed the "Let the Battles Begin (80's remix)" which is appropriate, because that's exactly what it sounds like. 80's rock that is. I'm not a huge fan of 80's music generally but this is a good listen.

5. Shinra Theme

Remember when we were way way back six songs ago on Disc One Track 19? With the chat about the male/female 80's duet? Here we have the same thing, only with said male and female doing something between a whisper and spoken voice cheesily going "you need the power" and other wishy washy nonsense (the track is called "Power"). Since this is an entirely blind review going on sound alone, I had to look these people up to see if they're an actual music group, because I swear they inspire the worst bits of the 80's in my brain. In my head I see pastel coloured suits with horribly patterned collars, bushy wispy two-tone hair, legwarmers and too many keytars (hint: one is too many).

You'll be surprised to learn then, that "Leitbur" from Los Angeles; USA, describe their sound as the following: "Synthpop / New Wave / Dreampop". OK then. I would describe it as "completely lifted from the 80's", but since you can describe 80's synth with all of those terms I suppose it's not too much like cheating.

6. Chocobo theme (AGAIN again)

I level at this the same criticism I had for the previous chocobo cover. How many fucking covers of this do we need? It's in another distinct style (now called "Barroco de Chocobo") and it's mercifully short at a total runtime of 1 minute, 21 seconds. Good. It's probably the best cover of the chocobo theme on this album (so far, assuming I don't hit more) but I'm sorry to the artist that it's the third one in a disc and a half out of five, because it's already old.

 

[Lex]

I am going to publish a full review but "tomorrow night" was a bit optimistic for a 5-disc 83 track album XD.

Here's the deal, staff meeting tomorrow night, podcast on wednesday night. So I'm thinking it might be better to split this into 5 parts to do it justice tbh. Since part one is basically done I can have that up tomorrow.

 

[Pixel]

I really like "Hearts". I'm trying to find music to use in the last part of Case of Shinra. I need sort of low key stuff. I'll buy the album when I get some munnies.

 

[Kionae]

4. Uh. What song is this from the game? I recognise it but I don't. It's completely different from whatever it used to be.

Seriously... does anyone know? It's starting to bug the crap out of me...

 

[Lex]

Nope, still can't place it. You can overlay the chocobo theme on the intro but it's the rest of it I have no idea about. It might be Cait Sith's theme. In fact yeah, that's exactly what it is. The only recognisable part is when the piano does that fast low dip thing.

 

[RedFFWolf]

^ Yes. I went looking for a good while until seeing your post, and now I can hear this one part that resonates his theme. At the 0:14 mark. And I discovered what carom was [and that it didn't contradict the possibility of it referring to him]

 

[Aeristh]

4. Uh. What song is this from the game? I recognise it but I don't. It's completely different from whatever it used to be.

Seriously... does anyone know? It's starting to bug the crap out of me...

Nope, still can't place it. You can overlay the chocobo theme on the intro but it's the rest of it I have no idea about. It might be Cait Sith's theme. In fact yeah, that's exactly what it is. The only recognisable part is when the piano does that fast low dip thing.

Yeah, it is Cait Sith's theme! Took me a second but recognized the main part. I actually really like it. It's jazzy and reminds me of the Peanuts(aka Charlie Brown) cartoon music.