ReMix: Illusion of Gaia 'Will is the Lord'

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Scaredsim follows up his Eternal Champions ReMix from January with this most excellent mixage from Illusion of Gaia AND Brain Lord; Simon writes:

"This song was used in my Enix Month for Dwelling of Duels. I re-worked it for OCR, especially the first part, in fact. It's cleaner, I removed the synths and played the melody at guitar. I recorded again the accoustic guitars of the second part, too."

First, let me just say: awesome game/music choice from Simon, who's thus far covered games that, while not obscure, don't tend to get as much TLC. The first 1'13" here is straight-up rock, but then there's a piano solo and segue into lyrical, rock ballad territory. Judges dug the piece, though some were mixed on this transition in particular. Jimmy came down on the pro side:

"Coverish this may seem, there's a lot of instrumental expansion that I don't feel the need to clarify on. The drums are absolutely wicked throughout. Expertly sequenced. Lots of energy, and I love the whole Van Halen/Journey feel of the Brainlord portion. I was actually really happy with the transition. Not many people pull off such a quick transition so well, especially when the style and mood changeup so completely."

CHz didn't dig the transition that much, but was feeling the piece overall, and also appreciated the Brain Lord OST tip:

"You know, I've never checked out the Brain Lord soundtrack before listening to the source for this mix, and that track is pretty good. Definitely going to listen to the rest later, so thanks for that. Right off the bat, I'm liking the percussion more in this version than the DoD one. Nice introduction of the melody on guitar, which sticks pretty close to the original, but has a couple of changes. The multiple guitars were used pretty effectively, especially at the climax."

The combination of themes works fairly well, I'd say; the piece doesn't necessarily feel 100% cohesive, but rather it seems like it's telling a story, with a fast-paced introduction followed by a more dramatic, deliberate body. Performances are great across the board - not too showy, perhaps, but appropriate to the composition - and as BGC points out, the drums are hot. I dig this piece in particular because I feel like it can work equally well as both foreground and background music. The stereo mix feels a little left-heavy to me, but otherwise production is solid an unobtrusive. Ultimately I agree with Vinnie that the last third of the mix is the best:

"Very different feel to the material, and I thought the melody wasn't even that coverish, with some flourishes and harmonizations. Love the last third of this song, which combines the first two thirds in many ways."

Great follow-up mix from Simon; his DoD piece was excellent to begin with, but his modifications have improved the overall track in addition to making it more attuned to OCR.

― djpretzel