By George Buzinkai
The track art suggests ‘Train’ as in ‘training montage’, but the clacking percussion and hyper-chugging background melody puts this one on the rails. Maybe they’re practicing karate in a dojo-car towed by a locomotive.
By Joren “Tensei” de Bruin
Bit of a ‘Pirates of the Carribean’ vibe on this rocker. I like the contrast in the leads: light flute, deep strings section, and harsh electric guitar.
By Clark Powell & Astro Kid. Remix of “Beatdown” by Curt Blakeslee.
Beatdown sees a whole slew of new mixes on this album. This track takes a little while to crank its way up to full-on face-melt. But by the second half, after layer upon layer of mix is brought on, it’s a hell of a jam.
By Yishan Mai, Will Ascenzo, DJ最テー, viaSatellite, David “Dirtiest” Dycus, and Ian White. Featuring Kelly Sadwin on violin.
On this album, the music team left it all out on the field. This collaboration might best demonstrate that.
Sampled instrumentation sometimes betrays its synthetic nature and sounds, well, unnatural. Especially when a sampled instrument carries the lone, lead voice of a song
Not a problem here. The live violin soars through its part, and the noir-ish trumpet puts a new mellow vibe on Black (maybe Jack Noir will only stab you a little, in a calm, reasonable sort of way).
There’s plenty of samples and synth scattered throughout, too, and I love how over-the-top those little sections are. The video game announcer’s the easiest example of this, but my favorite part of the whole song’s the ‘wall of sound’ electronic orchestra that takes over around 1:50.
By Malcolm Brown
Epic. Cataclysmic. Apocalyptic.
Starts off innocently enough: a bit of Terezi’s theme on piano, and some bullshit clownish organ in the background. But it all comes crashing to a head at 0:43.
What power. The harpsichord notes are played with hammer blows. The strings threaten to summon Norman Bates from his mother’s house on the hill. The guitar chug would make Ozzy Osbourne nod, ever so slightly, in stoic approval.
Malcolm Brown excels at the creation of those sorts of world-breaking transitions. Carne Vale at 0:20. Eternity Served Cold at 0:55. Savior of the Dreaming Dead at 0:55. He posted a WIP snippet of this track a while back, and the difference in the finished product is remarkable. That extra layer of guitar puts such a harsh edge on it.
I’m glad this song came out after Homestuck ended. Otherwise, Andrew would find a way to kill our favorite characters, yet again, all to the crushing beat of this tune.
By Mark Hadley
As pure a rocker as there is in the Homestuck discography. All the way down to the traditional metal band setup (lead guitar, rhythm guitars, bass, drums). Aggrieve has never sounded this good.
WELCOME TO THE PARTY MOTHERFUCKERS
By Kalibration
Chill and refreshing, with none of that harsh ‘pre-retcon Strider’ aftertaste. The best ‘flow’ track on the album.
By Thomas “EidolonOrpheus” Ferkol
A whole ‘Strife’-style album could be culled out of the hard-rockers on Volume 10. Like Beatdown, Skaian Ride sees a heap of attention on this album, including this punk garage-band version. The drum work here is relentless: you’d need three foot-pedals to keep the bass drum going at this kind of pace.
By Robert J! Lake
More than any other single Flash animation in Homestuck, Descend has inspired a lot of after-the-fact musical attention. After Descend’s release, Tensei wrote a new soundtrack for it, sort of as a personal challenge (and as a fan-song, not an official release, to boot!).
That song, at one point referred to as Descend2, later became the first part of Cascade.
The game of musical telephone continues on Volume 10. Tensei’s work on Descend2 inspired RJ to make his own version, which has been released on this album as Freefall. Three different composers, three very different songs, and all thematically tied to the events that occur in the End of Act 4 flash.
Freefall is very different from Tensei’s track. The hints of similarity are still there (compare 1:20 in Freefall to 1:32 in Cascade), but I doubt I’d recognize its inspirational source on my own. Where Cascade is a constant build-up of energy, Freefall’s mostly more mellow, more flowing.
By David “A Lunatic’s Daydream” Ellis
Smooth jazz fusion. What’s jazz fusion, you say? Lots of people like it! On a personal note, I played alto sax for a long time. It’s the reason why I come down on badly sampled sax, yet extoll the live stuff. My ear for it’s ingrained through hundreds and hundreds of hours of play. And this is all I could hope for.
By George Buzinkai
Cool main melody, but the background melodies are something else: rolling percussion in the first half, mournful, arpeggioed organ in the second. Really scratches that Castlevania itch. It’s a shame this one was released after Homestuck wrapped up; I’d love to see what kind of remix potential this one has.
By Seth “Beatfox” Peelle
I’ve been waiting for this one with great anticipation ever since Beatfox released a WIP snippet of it last year. The first half of Volume 10’s pretty heavy, so it’s a nice break when this impossibly upbeat, impossibly catchy tune rolls around.
The song is an homage to the soundtrack of The Neverending Story. Homestuck itself has its share of homages and references to that movie, as well, including this smug self-insert riding a long magic dog, hidden far in the background of the track art. Bullies beware.
I’ve never seen The Neverending Story. A part of me’s especially glad I didn’t see it when I was a little kid. Falcor’s face is all kinds of uncanny-valley weird. The canine snout… the strangely infantile facial features… the lifeless black marbles for eyes… yeesh. Eight-year-old-me had a hard enough time dealing with that scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Violet turns into a giant blueberry.
By Thomas “EidolonOrpheus” Ferkol
Atmospheric. The liner notes mention that EidolonOrpheus was inspired by Calliope, hiding deep in the Furthest Ring. It was a place of temporary refuge, but one subject to an ever-present threat of annihilation. The instrumentation reinforces that feeling: light, yet somehow sad.
By Curt Blakeslee
Back to Homestuck’s musical roots with an improvisational take on his original Beatdown. It’s probably the simplest track on the album. I really like the freestyle flow of it, kept pace by that heavy ‘splat’ downbeat.
This song has my favorite piece of track art, too. With all of Dave’s recent revelations about his upbringing, the picture’s 50% comical, 50% disconcerting. I think my exact reaction was “heh heh…. Oh.”
Arrangement by Michael Guy Bowman, Marcy Nabors, Clark Powell, and Erik Scheele. Instrumental contributions by Erik Scheele, Tensei, Paul Henderson, Marcy Nabors, and Jamie Paige Stanley.
A sweeping medley / mashup of Ruins, Flare, and Explore. The first half of the song’s pretty much directly sampled from the first two songs on that list, but that lead-up pays off big time starting around 2:00. This album has more ‘whoa’ moments on it than any other before it.
Solid production values, too. Starting with Solar Voyage, all the way through Thanks for Playing, the tracks flow together in smooth transitions. Nothing is sacrificed in the stand-alone songs, yet it all comes together as one solid half-an-hour of music.
Composed by Luke “GFD” Benjamins. Production and Arrangement by Robert J! Lake.
A cool main riff, with hyped-up synth insanity wrapped around it in layers like a psychedelic onion.
By Erik “Jit” Scheele
Jazzy and relaxing. Rose and Kanaya sit in a French cafe, sipping coffee, watching as the people pass by on the sidewalk.
By Jeremy “Solatrus” Iamurri
The nature of the rest of Homestuck Volume 10 leads one to think that the smooth, rising siren synth must lead to a big transition. Possibly one involving bass, and/or its displacement downwards in the vertical dimension. But that doesn’t happen. That rising siren folds right back into the melody. There’s something deeply satisfying about that effect. It’s hard to explain. But I love it.
This is my favorite track on the whole album. Just a fantastic groove, all the way through.
Song is composed by Joren “Tensei” de Bruin.
I think Aradia sums up my own thoughts on this one.
Part one of this little comic’s over here.
By Malcolm Brown
All about the most unsinkable ship in Homestuck. This song draws inspiration from prior themes for Rose and Kanaya, but there’s an impressive amount of variation to it. Darling Kanaya (2:44), done in violin and strummed acoustic guitar, is almost unrecognizable (and very cool).
The bit at 1:30 seems particularly fitting for a scene in Vriskagram, with Rose and Kanaya reading together quietly…
… until Vriska wanders in and butts her way into their business. Dammit, Vriska!
By Max “Imbrog” Wright
Warm and memorable. I like the contrast of the long, drawn-out lead melody against the staccato, wandering background.
By Marcy Nabors. Features contributions from several artists; see the song’s Bandcamp page for details.
An epic, orchestral arrangement, cut from the same cloth as [S] Act 7.
Unlike Creata, this one does feature a live choir. The first one ever to appear on a Homestuck music track, to my knowledge. I didn’t think that the ‘Warhammer of Zillyhoo’ chant could become any more ecclesiastic, yet here we stand. Especially starting at 6:30, it’s fantastic (the soprano really comes through).
By Alexander Rosetti
I love these sorts of genre-subverting remixes. Is ‘subversion’ even the right word to use here? It seems preposterous to suggest that a Homestuck song could subvert the genre of any other Homestuck song. Whatever, I’m going to go with it.
The original track’s bumbly and goofy. This one maintains that same sort of feeling (you can’t really generate a lot of dread and tension with a flexatone, after all), but in full-on orchestral HD.
By Seth “Beatfox” Peelle
What a way to sign off. By turns it’s morose, sentimental, and triumphant. The fanfare section is spectacular, starting at 4:13 (what an unremarkable coincidence). Its slow, ascending buildup in pitch and tempo peaks with a soaring final rendition of Homestuck Anthem to close out the album.