ReMix: Castlevania II: Simon's Quest 'Cursed Bloodline'

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We encourage listeners to check out every mix, regardless of the game it came from, the ReMixer who made it, or the genre it's in, but newcomer Dennis Mott presents a ReMix that may challenge some who aren't huge fans of metal - specifically death metal - to broaden their horizons a bit and embrace this ideology. Honestly, I went through a phase where I mostly listened to NIN, KMFDM, and Front 242's harder, later stuff, but nowadays the more aggressive genres aren't what I go to first for general listening - big into Keane lately, for example. If you're not into death metal, and simply dismiss anything with screamed lyrics or walls of shredded guitar outright, perhaps the fact that this is from Castlevania 2 won't be enough for you to appreciate it, I'll just offer that lil proviso up front. If, however, you're all about unbounding energy and shouting lyrics like you're trying to communicate to someone from hell through the peripheral din of tortured souls' lamentations, well then, your ship has come in. Dennis achieves near-clipdom levels of volume and velocity but stays within the realm of listenability with this very quick, very distorted, very primal metal construction of the familiar "Bloody Tears" theme. I shall now quote the entirety of Gray's decision, because I am a lazy bastard, but also because it most closely resembles my own two cents:

"Though this is not my cup of tea genre, I can easily appreciate quality work. The way Dennis puts together this mix in concept and excecution is just impressive. The arrangement, production is all there. While it may be acceptable for this genre, I feel the rhythm distortion at times overpowers the vocals too much. I'd personally prefer the vocals have more presence in the mix. Minor complaint though. I personally liked the guitar sections the best where the distortion wasn't overpowering the rest of the mix. Quality work that shines through regardless of whether or not one likes the genre. "

Like I said initially, I'm not expecting throngs of conversions from people who previously disliked death metal over this ReMix, but I do think if you give it a try you'll hear some of what Gray's talking about; it's a different take not only on the theme in question, but on game mixing in general, and while not necessarily as accessible as electronica or orchestral, it still manages to amply display the basic ingredients of production and arrangement.

― djpretzel