2013-09-18 0:41:00 ¶ ●

By Robert J! Lake

A cool, mellow chiptune song. It’s at its best around the minute mark. All it takes is a deceptively simple drum beat and a shimmering electronic chorus to really make the tune shine. Great, easy listening.

2013-09-19 0:40:00 ¶ ●

By Mark Hadley

The plucked strings that counter the main melody after the first verse are a nice touch. It’s my favorite variation on the Aggrieve root.

2013-09-19 3:20:00 ¶ ●

By Alexander Rosetti and Toby “Radiation” Fox. Meows supplied by Michael Guy Bowman. Original (Chorale for Jaspers) by Michael Guy Bowman

It’s sort of a novelty song, fair enough. But I can’t get past the mad, distorted cat noises.

2013-09-20 0:40:00 ¶ ●

By Steve Everson

Starts with a military, marching-band percussion beat, and a ping-y, staccato lead melody carries most of the song. Can’t put my finger on exactly what I like about it.

2013-09-20 3:21:00 ¶ ●

By Steve Everson. Original (Doctor) by George Buzinkai

My favorite stand-alone version of Doctor. Planet Healer comes close, but I like the instrumentation a little better on Plague Doctor.

2013-09-20 4:17:00 ¶ ●

By Erik “Jit” Scheele

This one’s interesting in that it features chiptune, but as the backing harmony rather than the main melody (which is mostly piano and flute). There’s a nice call back to Showtime in the middle, too. It’s a great listen.

2013-09-21 1:50:00 ¶ ●

By Erik “Jit” Scheele

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a sucker for simple piano refrains. This one fits that description to a letter. The track plays out gradually and thoughtfully. It’s an interesting choice at the end, too, letting the last couple of notes go unplayed.

2013-09-21 3:20:00 ¶ ●

By Toby “Radiation” Fox

I mentioned that Black was almost a little too electro-thrash for me: this song took a rocket-sled past the ‘too electro-thrash’ line. It’s a strange combination of 60’s science fiction computer sounds, electric guitar, and Snoop Dogg.

2013-09-22 4:20:00 ¶ ●

By Mark Hadley. Original ‘Black’ by Toby “Radiation” Fox

There’s two versions of this song in the catalog, and I’m a big fan of both of them for completely different reasons. Restrained, skittish piano set against deep, gloomy strings. The otherworldly synth whomping that starts in the second half is great.

2013-09-23 3:13:00 ¶ ●

By Mark Hadley. Original ‘Squiddles!’ by Alexander Rosetti. Original 'Dissension’ by David Ko

There’s been a few good songs on the Dissension theme, but this one’s my favorite. It has a personality of its own. It dances around the main melody with its own unique voice. Just when you think it’s about to move into familiar territory, it sidesteps towards something new and different.

And then, you’ve got to give credit to a track that uses the Squiddles theme as a source, yet results in a song that would fit into a dramatic moment in an action movie.

2013-09-23 4:21:00 ¶ ●

By Erik “Jit” Scheele

It’s sort of a slow burn, what with the deep piano lead-in and the string backing, but the payoff comes about a minute in. After all of that, it’s a fun video-game chiptune piece. Definitely an interesting mix.

2013-09-24 2:51:00 ¶ ●

By Toby “Radiation” Fox

Yeah, it’s a novelty song. And the first part is clever and entertaining: Nicolas Cage probably sets a record for ‘largest quantity of batshit crazy packed into a career’. I’ll check with Guinness on that.

But frankly, even a song like this starts running on fumes in the middle when the entire set of lyrics consists of the word ‘boner.’ I guess that was the plan.

2013-09-24 4:21:00 ¶ ●

By Erik “Jit” Scheele

Source: Homestuck

Shocking, I know. Yet I cannot tell a lie. I can’t even enjoy this song on an ironic level. It just makes me want to punch Dennis in the face. He was so wasted, ha ha, I mean damn.

2013-09-26 4:21:00 ¶ ●

By Joren ‘Tensei’ de Bruin. Original “Spider’s Claw” by Toby 'Radiation’ Fox

Starts off with a kick-ass guitar solo by Troll Eddie Van Halen (Edward Vhalen, I guess?). Seriously, if you like the intro on this song, go check out Eruption. So far as the rest of this song goes, it’s a slick combination of hard rock and blues horns, with a clean electric guitar bridge snuck in the middle.

2013-09-27 1:41:00 ¶ ●

By Malcolm Brown. Originals “Doctor” by George Buzinkai, and “Savior of the Waking World” by Toby ‘Radiation’ Fox

Awesome. Just awesome. Rises from a sober melancholy chorus, through a hopeful pizzicato rendition of Doctor, to a ridiculously energetic, driving overture. The song would have a completely different feel without the power-chords backing the main melody.

Technically, this version of the song is not used as part of a Flash animation (though it forms one of the main sections of Cascade). The coda is a bit different from the version used in Cascade: it doubles down on the energy with strings that smack of the shower scene in Psycho, until dropping just a little too abruptly.

2013-09-28 2:54:00 ¶ ●

White Host, Green Room (By Joren ‘Tensei’ de Bruin) is one of the album bonus tracks (and thus only available if you purchase the album). It’s a jazzy, slow-paced piece. I’m not a big fan of it: don’t hate it, but it’s not really on my playlist. There’s one thing about it that does interest me: the intro.

The song begins with a fuzzy medley of four songs. The first two are Terezi Owns (on this album) and Cascade (on Volume 8: this sneak peek was released well before Cascade came out, mind you). The last song is Black Rose / Green Sun.

There’s an excerpt from one other song in the middle, starting at the ten second mark: epic choir chanting and heavy, distorted electric guitar. It sounds like a ‘final boss fight’ song. Yet the track that this little snippet belongs to hasn’t been released in any official way. So, what’s it all about?

Turns out it’s an unfinished track called 'The King in Red’. Tensei made a blog post about it here, and you can listen to the work-in-progress version of the song there.

2013-09-28 4:21:00 ¶ ●

By Erik ‘Jit’ Scheele, Original 'Beatdown’ by Curt Blakeslee

It’s a different take on the two source songs, but one that abandoned the best part of each, I think. It plays as though it’s building up to a payoff that never really comes.

2013-09-28 20:59:00 ¶ ●

Image source: Homestuck

Maplehoof’s Adventure (By Michael Guy Bowman) is another album-only bonus track on Homestuck Volume 7.

I travel to the South a fair bit, where sweet tea is king. Here in the North, once the sugar stops dissolving in your iced tea, that’s it, it’s sweet enough. In the South, the laws of chemistry aren’t allowed to get in the way: it must be sweeter. The tea is heated to near boiling and even more sugar is dumped in. Then it’s cooled back down again. It shouldn’t be possible, yet there it is. It’s Trickster Mode iced tea.

That’s what I think of when I hear this song. Just ridiculously saccharine sweet.

2013-09-29 4:21:00 ¶ ●

By Clark “Plazmataz” Powell

Excellent. Just excellent. At its core it’s another simple piano tune. Starts off with a simple arpeggio – it’s a technique that’s quite common in the Homestuck library, and it’s almost always effective.

But the piano part – though superb – isn’t my favorite part of the song. It’s the percussion line that gets me. It reminds me a little of another song in that it’s very simple and static, but powerful in its own right.

This version of the song’s even better than the one featured in Cascade, in my opinion. It’s not forced to build up near the end (as required by the Flash animation), so it stands a little better as its own composition.

2013-09-30 1:41:00 ¶ ●

Arranged by Michael Guy Bowman. Original ‘Ocean Stars’ written by Mark Hadley

Great, easy listening. Starts off low key and builds slowly to a pretty cool groove. I’d have to call it a haunting refrain if it weren’t so damn cheerful and bouncy.