So let's return out our first love: Video games. A few months ago, I wrote about the songs that would creep into my noggin during my time in Skyrim. People seemed to like it. So, since I'm fairly deep into another long game with a very distinct aesthetic, Shin Megami Tensei IV, I thought I'd go back to the well a little bit, but in a more expansive way. Maybe I was strangely inspired by this week's Retronauts episode (your homework, BTW). Regardless, I present to you the SMT IV Mix Tape:
This one is guilt by association, actually. When Trail of Dead released the album Worlds Apart in 2005, it was only about four months after Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne was released in North America. These two opening tracks sounded like, well, the world was about to end, which is exactly what happens in the numbered SMT games. Every time I play a game in the series now, be it one of the "proper" ones like IV (and even Strange Journey) or offshoots like the Digital Devil Saga or any given Persona, these songs always come to mind. A short symphonic arrangement with dramatic chanting, "Ode to Isis" sounds very apocalyptic in that sort of traditional Hollywood way, and makes for an appropriate kick off to Trail of Dead's fifth album; one that played a little faster and looser with style and genre compared to other indie rock bands of the time (it's also seen as their first "prog-like" record). It leads well into "Will You Smile", a song that lives and breaths on its fierce guitar/ drum attack intro and conclusion that bookends something of a quiet, but unnerving midsection. It's a pair of tunes that never really pop to mind unless I'm playing these specific games, and I think that says something about how well they couple with SMT.
It's hard to not to think of songs that associate with religious imagery when you're playing through a game that takes place in a Tokyo already overrun by angels and demons. This song, taken from a superb Greg Dulli/ Mark Lanegan side project rife with these images, finds itself being very stirring boss battle music, if only for its very straightforward rock sound perhaps. Produced to make the synth and string arrangements sound just as surface as the Dulli's lead guitar, it was a very apropo single for the duo's band, maybe even the best example of how both musician's tastes gelled into a cohesive whole. While the majority of the album seems more in line with Dulli's Twilight Singers work (which is not a detraction), "Idle Hands" is a driving, snarling stomp that feels satisfying when you're doing just that to a cyclops whom just told you to fuck off.
This is a little bit of a new one, but still sort of an old fave. A cover by Newman for his end of the Peter Gabriel Scratch My Back/ I'll Scratch Yours covers project (and only one of which is what we can consider pretty good --sorry, Pete), Newman's "Big Tim"e adds something a little sinister to Gabriel's ode to greed. While the original, something of a classic from Gabriel's most commercially successful album (So), had a wry smirk its way of poking fun at the Gordon Gecko mentality of the time when it was written. As with all great covers, Newman takes this concept and makes the song his own, singing it with the tired groan of a man that might have felt that hunger for more than he needed at one point. I feel as though this song fits in with much of the music already found on SMTIV's soundtrack with some of its jazzier tracks. While I certainly wouldn't consider this song completely in line with that, it seems to fit, and comes to mind when I'm wandering the Tokyo "overworld."
Yes, I swear a Rush song dug (clawed?) its way out of my subconscious. And it's a Rush song from an album that, from what I understand, is deeply maligned by the hardcore Rush set, AND it's something I probably hadn't heard in close to 10 years. Way to go, video games. You always let the weirdest shit percolate. Honestly, I have nothing to say about this song; it's an okay album track, but after digging it out to listen to it after all these years, I can't even say it's one of the tunes I remember liking. Still, SMTIV decided that I needed to stroll down the most nerdy alley of memory lane. Let's all take a moment and be glad that it's not in a subdivision of something potentially worse. And no, that's not another Rush reference.
End of Side 1.
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