By Thomas Ferkol
It has an odd, surreal vibe to it, almost like you’re hearing it from afar, rather than up close and personal. It’s a sound that should be impossible to pull off on a heavy metal track, yet here it is. My favorite part starts at about 1:57, with the distorted violin riff, backed up by an even more heavily distorted electric guitar.
By Svix
Starts off in marching chiptune, then adds some extra synth around the 40 second mark. It’s got a solid driving beat, and that echoey chiptune backing keeps the track tied together throughout.
By Various Artists. See the Bandcamp page for details.
Original fanart (used in the comic) by Lexxy.
Four excellent songs combined into one mind-blowing medley. It’s probably the most popular single track in the Homestuck catalog.
The four individual pieces are Cascade, Flare (reviewed here), Savior of the Dreaming Dead (reviewed here), and Black Hole / Green Sun (reviewed here). I’ve reviewed most of the four parts previously, so I’ll stick to the first part. There’s a ‘beta’ version of Cascade on this album as a bonus track, but I think that the final version turned out a bit more polished.
Once again that xylophone gets a heavy-duty workout in the intro. At about 1:33, there’s a really cool phaser or flanger effect on the lead guitar, a great improvement over the 'beta’ version of Cascade featured later in the album. The 'Cascade’ portion of the track varies from fast-paced to introspective.
Of all the music in the Homestuck library, this piece is probably the one you could best describe as a soundtrack, rather than a stand-alone composition. Parts of it were modified specifically to fit the Flash animation, but that doesn’t really hurt its quality as a track. Andrew Hussie described it a little more (as well as the production and content of Cascade, the Flash animation) in a series of Tumblr posts that you can find here.
By Clark “Plazmataz” Powell and Astro Kid. Original “Crystalmanthequins” by Erik “Jit” Scheele, featuring the melody from “Crystalanthemums” by Alexander Rosetti
I liked this song’s predecessor (awesome instrumentation, awesome hook), but it felt a little rough around the edges: the opening is a little jarring, the siren kind of comes out of nowhere, and it lingers musically in places that seem a little odd. It feels a little like the middle of a song, rather than a whole composition.
This new version takes the best part of its source, and expands it into an excellent stand-alone track. The instrumentation is almost exactly the same: it’s only been re-arranged in a very effective manner. Parts that were jarring (like the intro) become smooth and ascending. Even the wailing siren finds a more effective spot in the melody.
It’s like taking an old, faithful car, and then souping it up with a supercharged big block, a new paint job, and a leather interior (complete with new car smell). I can’t complement this song enough.
And if I had to predict, of all the unfeatured tracks, which one had the best shot at being picked up for a Flash animation, I’d have to go with this one. This is my favorite unfeatured ‘sleeper’ track in the catalog.
By Toby “Radiation” Fox
On top it’s playful and lively, but below the saccharine piano and xylophone, that heavily processed, low-pitch synth line reveals something of a mean streak. It’s maybe best demonstrated by that peculiar churlish laugh that sounds more like it’s directed at you, rather than with you.
By Malcolm Brown
It’s an unholy combination of cantillated Russian folk music and Celtic Lord of the Dance (and I mean that in the most complementary sense possible).
By Toby “Radiation” Fox
Another bouncy chiptune track. You could almost call it chirptune – some kind of electronic bird makes up part of the instrumentation. It takes something of a Castlevania turn in the middle (like this).
By Michael Guy Bowman. Featuring Thomas Ferkol on electric guitar
For a song called ‘irreconcilable’, that combination of western acoustic guitar (Tavros) and electric (Vriska) seems pretty damn reconcilable. The horn at the end seems a little played out by now though – that damn juggalo’s everywhere.
By A Lunatic’s Daydream. Featuring melodies by various team members
A rockin’ metal take on Black. The first half’s slick and simple, just a kick-ass jam. Love the clean electric guitar solo that starts around 2:30 or so. The middle section of the song has a completely different feel from the rest of the song: it lazily drifts into a medley of some old favorites, before jumping back into a heavy metal conclusion.
By Malcolm Brown
A marching-band track with a pretty cool backing trumpet and brass section. It teases a little bit of Showtime throughout the first part. A little bit of Unite Synchronization features, too. Then, in the second half it kind of intersects with Showtime a little more for a while. It’s a cool track, if a little heavy-handed in the later parts.
By Jeremy “Solatrus” Iamurri
There’s a healthy dose of backwards xylophone in the intro, but it’s just the ambience, not the driving force behind this track. The main melody is reminiscent of Frost, especially after the drums kick in around the middle section. The second half carries a pretty strong electric guitar solo (one of the few guitar features on the album). And the forwards-this-time xylophone coda makes the track something of an aural palindrome.
By First Turn Fold
The techno beat is pretty good, but what really makes this song stand out is the hook at around 2:20. It’s a great little riff, and the rest of the track drops away for a moment to really highlight it.
By Sinister Psyche
Easily the most widely featured track from this album, it’s a cool jam: that distorted, industrial synth drives a rockin’ beat. It’s a little bit like Hate You in its general feel: light on top, but with a belligerent undercurrent (get it? it’s a fish pun!)
By DJ 最テー
Image source: Homestuck.
Karkat start thrashing up stunts something uncannybrutal on his quest for “MAD PALEMATES YO” and get this way rude clown under control. Shit is basically flying off the hook. It’s like shit wants nothing to do with that hook. The hook filed for divorce from that shit and is now seeking custody of the hook and the shit’s two kids.
Oh yeah, the song’s great, too. Heavy metal with a side of 80’s style thrash. It inspired me to look up some wicked flagrant quotes. Perfect for some rudebrazen wicked extreme shoosh-papping.
By repeatedScales
A futuristic techno tune (them Captors sure love their techno raves, it seems). These sort of techno tunes fall a little outside my own personal musical taste, but I can’t deny the energy and the complexity in a track like this.
By Eston “silence” Schweickart. Bass performance by Alex Amlie-Wolf
Fanart source: xamag.
Outstanding. This is one of my favorite songs on the album. It’s another fantastic combination of chiptune and more traditional instrumentation. There’s a few individual parts that I really like: the slap bass intro, the main chiptune hook, and the piano interlude that starts around the 2:20 mark.
And the track has great flow: all these segments are tied together cleanly. There’s no part of the song that doesn’t work well: just a solid, cheerful, driving energy throughout.
By DJ 最テー
What’s cool about this song is how it develops over time. It starts off with an antique marching band sort of feel (like something out of the Civil War or something), before kicking off with a little more depth in the horns.
It takes a different turn in the second half, switching up the snare drum with something a little more synthetic. Near the end, it works in a little chiptune, before dropping back into that marching band feel.
By David “Dirtiest” Dycus
A playful Caribbean tune. I doubt it’s possible to make a song maudlin and brooding when you’re working with xylophone, woodblock and guiro.
By David Ellis (A Lunatic’s Daydream). Saxophone performed by Malik Refaat.
Fanart source: tinikah.
‘The Beginning of Something Really Excellent’ is positive, energetic, and a little aggressive. This remix trades in the techno for a funky rhythm electric guitar, a solid bassline, and a fantastic alto saxophone lead. It’s just so damnably catchy, like the main theme from an 80’s sitcom.
What an awesome, imaginative remix. This is my top track for the album. It’s that good. No regrets.
By David Ellis (A Lunatic’s Daydream)
That leadoff hook, which serves as a sort of chorus and anchor for the whole song, is excellent. In hindsight, this track is more appropriate now than ever for Jane: the cheerful synth parts represent her normal personality, while the staccato electric guitar breaks represent the Betty Crocker corporate juggernaut that has bent her unwillingly to its subjug(gl?)ation.
By Plumegeist
Intense and driving: a perfect fit for Mr. Strider. It’s a little industrial, but not at all harsh. The muffled, jerky, rising fade-in makes for a cool effect. Music to get shit done by.
By Gec
It’s perky and cheerful, and that phased-in drum beat intro is awfully cool, too.
By Solarbear
Image source: Homestuck.
One of the few pure chiptune tracks on either coloUrs and mayhem album. I can’t put my finger on it, but the main melody has a really cool, unpredictable rhythm, almost like there’s two main rhythms going on at the same time. It’s like something David Byrne would write, if he worked in the medium of chiptune.
By Haunter
It’s got a monster hook, and that’s all it really takes sometimes. That final synth whomp at the end of the song (a full 10 seconds of dead time precede it) unsettled me, too. So there’s that.
By viaSatellite and infiniteKnife
An electro-symphonic cover of Beatdown. It’s a new twist on an old standard (well, old by the Homestuck book, anyways). Although the some of the string parts feel a little forced, it’s a cool jam (especially starting in about the final third of the song, where it picks up on a time measure that’s a little more suited for rock).
Extra points for working a god-damned didgeridoo into the intro.