ReMix: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse 'Prelude to Darkness'

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Though every bit as good as the first two outings of Konami's classic vampire-slaying franchise's soundtracks, the score to CV3 doesn't seem to get as much attention, for whatever reason. Maestro Cox is doing his bit to change that, though, with his latest orchestral-manoeuvre-in-the-dark. The ReMixer writes: "First of all, thanks to OCRE for the name, as "Demons of the Night" just didn't fit the mood I was going for. Something I wanted to mention, is that after the organ solo with choral background, the next segment with the violins and harps playing the broken arpeggios sounds to me like something out of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. I didn't notice this until after I had wrote the song, so whether you liken it to the fact is your own choice ^_^." - I think I prefer this to the FF film soundtrack, actually ^^ (for a much better Eliot Goldenthal score, see Julie Taymor's awesome, amazing Titus, robbed of several Oscar nominations). A bit more choral and arpeggiated than some of Russell's other arrangements, you've gotta love the rich, deep opening french horn fanfare. Recording and encoding is a bit less pristine than some of Mr. Cox's other pieces, which I'm told he's been working on troubleshooting. There are some interesting major-key portions of this that are downright optimistic to be in the middle of a Castlevania piece, and the tone and momentum are a bit schizophrenic at times (Club Kukeiha were kinda like that... in a good way), but Russell makes it work with his usual symphonic pomp and panache. A little more eccentric and motif-driven, but still quite enjoyable, this dynamic CV3 arrangement thus comes recommended.

― djpretzel