January 2014

By Ashley Jones

It’s kind of a melody in camouflage: the track draws from many sources (the main riff comes from Havoc), but the groove it builds is consistent and smooth throughout.

By Marcy “Shadolith” Nabors

When I heard this song, the first thing that popped into my head was: this should be the title screen song for an NES game about The Big Man. This song inspired me to produce fanart.

By Block Monster (OMGTSN & Solatrus)

Full-bore techno rave, with Frost’s weird ethereal backgrounds playing second fiddle.

By Robyo

Upward Movement, but at once both more metal and less wide-ranging. The section starting around 3:00, with high-pitched lead against distorted, crunching rhythm guitar, is especially cool.

By William Ascenzo

I’ve always liked solid metal jams, and this one’s excellent. And the incorporation of the strings and the tubular bells later on in the track is seamless and lends the tune a little extra gravity. My top track for the album.

By AutoDevote (SparksD2145)

A mashup of twinkly Firefly Cloud and slow-paced Doctor. It’s a little like a synth-heavy, electronic version of Green Ghost too (which was a particularly good track off of coloUrs and Mayhem B).

By UWBW

A bouncy, scatty jazz number. It’s so effortlessly improvisational. Not just with jazz-style instrumental improvisation (and there’s plenty of that in the piano and bass parts), but also in use of the samples, like the brass lead-in and the vocals. Very cool.

By A Lunatic’s Daydream

In an earlier review, I mentioned that I didn’t really like the source for this tune: it was a little, in the words of Rose, ‘melodramatic and heavy-handed.’ Changing out the church organ for electric guitar (and bouncy piano in the middle) lightens it up and makes for a fun jam.

By Colin “Elision” Stanfill

A circusy, chiptune take on Sunsetter. No, not the dark carnival kind of music that makes Gamzee beat people to death. Good circus (it even sounds a little like a calliope in the lower notes).

By Ian “myusernamesmud” White. Some percussion provided by Veritas Unae.

A drumroll-led march for the citizens of Can Town. Onward, TaB! You have the helm, Mr. Pibb. Get that man to Dr. Pepper immediately! (On an unrelated note, until I glanced at the track art, I didn’t make the connection in the title.)

By UWBW

Chiptune climactic strife music. It’s got an old-school NES Contra vibe, especially in that intro.

By Yan “Nucleose” Rodriguez

This jazz trio would fit right in on Drawing Dead. It’s a direction I wouldn’t have thought to take on Atomyk Ebonpyre. The piano improvisation is creative and flows well.

By Eston “silence” Schweickart

Not to sell it short, but ‘musically interesting’ is the best description I can give. Love how a chaotic, metallic 'noise’ slowly fades into actual music, and the odd woodblock percussion could be hammered on the tops of appropriately sized grandfather clocks, for all we know.

By Thomas “EidolonOrpheus” Ferkol 

Jazzy piano and cacophonous crash cymbal, with a catchy, Bond-eque hook. 

By Joe “DoubleJoeSeven” Ouellet

Another cool reworking of Candles and Clockwork from Volume 5. It’s a little bit of a funkier take on the original (great percussion beats throughout).

By Princey The Kid

This is the song for when Dave and Dirk finally get together to fuck shit up. It’s a great combination of intense electric guitar rock and beat-boxing synth.

By Thomas “EidolonOrpheus” Ferkol

it never really gets all that threatening, but the main low, looming synth hook works great against the flighty chiptune-y melody that hops around over top of it.

By Veritas Unae. Assistance provided by A Lunatic’s Daydream.

Maybe this will give you an idea of the scope of this album. This track (and its second part) is inspired somewhat by the album Sburb. These two tracks clock in at nearly 2/3rds the length of that entire album. And these are 2 tracks, out of 63 on this album.

This composition is solo piano through and through, much like Sburb. The largo treatment of Lotus around the 3:10 mark is my favorite amongst the many melodies visited in this track. The very different piano rendition of Savior of the Dreaming Dead just before it is fun to hear, too.

By Veritas Unae. Assistance provided by A Lunatic’s Dream.

Two parts, two posts. I especially like how slow, introspective parts from Sburb are used to tie together more dramatic segments like the bit from Gold Pilot. 

On the other hand, the version of October early in this track loses a bit in the reprise. The original’s stacatto key-bouncing positivity is hard to top: One Year Older will be a fun album to review when we roll around to it.

By Fuzz

Ethereal and light. The synth effect that backs the melody starting around 1:30 is pretty awesomely weird. It’s like a heavily processed pipe organ in an echoey room.

By Brad “Avinoch” Griffin

This track has a little bit of easy-listening, funky, muzak vibe going for it. The main source, Heart of the Forest by Solatrus, is a little more solemn. But combined with Flare, all that brooding, threatening tone is diminished, and it’s more about the jam than the attitude.

By Matt “NiceWizard” Lee

This song captures a little bit of that wonder and innocence that I like so much in Homestuck off of Volume 5. Especially in the payoff at around 1:20 or so. Pretty high up on my list of favorites for this album.

By Team Dogfight

A right proper companion piece in the ‘ridiculous weaponry’ musical genre. It’s almost too professional and catchy for its subject, but that’s the point, really. Treating a preposterous subject with extreme drama and gravity is an underused facet of irony, methinks.

By Astro Kid

God damn. If he can do this with Squiddles, I’m going to have to listen to some of his other stuff to see what else he’s got up his sleeve. How can a saccharine, squeaky cartoon character have actual rhythm and flow?

By Robert J! Lake

I am blown away.