Jump to content

OCR01068 - Ninja Gaiden II "In the Atrium"


djpretzel
 Share

Recommended Posts

If I was a woman, I'd want Jason Merrill to be the father of my kids. I mean, this is very, very impressive. The singing is much better than in Tororian Love Song, with the exception of those almost painful harmonies at the very end, and the playing is spot-on as well. The drums sound fake as hell, but eh, whatcha gonna do. For being fake, they sound pretty good on the whole. Not many complaints comin' from me, I have to say. Keep the sweetness comin Jason!

:nicework:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lyrically this is a step forward over the TLS. You're avoiding "expected" lyrics, keeping the song fresh.

The vocals are, in all due honestly, a large step back from TLS. The emotions came off as whiney and over stretched. though I'm sure you're better singers than I :lol:. It also felt like this was a first take.

Now, instrumentals, there's this song's shining grace. far more expressive and self aware than Toronian Love Song.

I expect great things from this remixer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i already gave this song a lengthy review over at vgmix, but i'd just like to repeat my statement that i am completely humbled by this mix. i wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. sure, it may not sound professional, but that's not the point. this guy knows how to bring out the right emotions in a song, and create something that is rough, yet quite sincere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, it's quite odd that it only came out a couple days ago on vgmix, and shortly appears here. Sometimes I wish artists would only contribute one song to one site so that other artists could make it in on this one, but then some artists couldn't get all the coverage that they have. Like definitely more people will come here.

Anyways, I also gave a review over there, so no need to repeat too much here. I do like the song, but I'm really picky about vocals. You are a good singer, but I just can't get into your voice. Just a personal preference really.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As you may remember, I completely trashed Tororian Love Song.

This song is better in every way, and is far more enjoyable. The terrible cliched lyrics are gone, the singing is exponentially better. The recording is of higher quality. The guitar parts are quite impressive.

My only major beef is the drums. I can't find myself anything less than hating them. One major piece of advice - Drummers can only do limited fills while riding on the hihat. This song has pretty complex drum fills that already don't make much musical sense, and the fact that a hi-hat is droning impossibly doesn't help much. Drum sample quality is terrible, and it seems as though mastering and EQ'ing wasn't even considered. But that's only one blemish on an otherwise excellent song.

You've got the ballad form of rock music down pretty well, the acoustic break was rad, but like it has been mentioned before, the harmonies are very wrong, and I kept expecting a grandiose finale. If the harmonies were replaced by a buildup to a triumphant reiteration of the emotional and pleasing chorus, I'd wanna have babies with you. Great work, you're improving rapidly, and I've almost forgotten about Tororian Love Song ;). Great Work.

-Daniel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The lyrics don't sound like much of an improvement on "Toroian Love Song." They're the usual cliché rock verses about loneliness, despair, sunsets, etc. At least this time they're a bit more appropriate to the actual game, unlike TLS, but it still comes off like someone's bad poetry slapped on top a video game song. I also thought the singing sounded strained in many parts--trying to blurt out words fast enough to fit inside the melody. As has already been pointed out, the attempt at harmony at the end is...rather unpleasant.

I feel the same as several other listeners: great instrumentation, bad singing. Too bad there's no non-vocal version.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is really superb -- personally I think it's like 300% better than Toroian Love song (although I may not have the most recent version of that). The vocals are really spot-on except for that part at the end and the first few notes being a little shaky. The guitar playing and tone are wonderful. It's really a lot more daring and ambitious than most remixes -- even the really good ones -- and you pull it off very well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I must be the only one who doesn't mind the ending. It's clear to me that from 5:25 on, it's intentionally sloppy and off-key. At least, I sure hope it is. :D I mean the song could have easily ended at 5:25, and silent decided to keep the ending anyway, so I would have to think it's there for a reason. But even if it's not intentionally off-key, I still liked the ending. It's very atonal, but in a good sense. The ending reminds me of Radiohead in a way, although I can't really pin down why...

But ending or no, this is the best thing I've downloaded off OCR in a month. Bravo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess I'm less picky and less trained in judging music than most of the people reviewing this song. I definitely do not have any problem with your voice, I find it better than most bands nowadays, so good job,although your singing sort of sounds not so good at 5:27 (it sounds off tune and well, it could use some work, imo) but everything else is good. They lyrics overall are good and better than TLS, although I also like TLS a lot (everyone's bashing that song, but it's good imo). This song has lots of energy in it, and it flows very smoothly, and when first listening, I was saying, "I wonder what this one is gonna sound like...", and then the lyrics popped in, and a smiled popped on my face. I'm not a musician, and I don't know drums or how to mess around with EQs other than treble/bass boosts, so whoever said the drums are bad is probably right, but to an untrained ear (like mine) they sound fine, although for the style of song this is, I think it wouldn't hurt to give them a bass boost (raising the low end on the EQs) and maybe raising the volume, since they're pretty quiet. Overall, I'd say this is an awesome song, I'm gonna go over to VGMix right now and rate it for ya!

~Garde

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This just pales in comparison to Toroian Love Song, in my opinion. Everything about it is, well, good, but. . .missing something. I can't really fault it for anything, but nothing really stands out as praiseworthy. It could very well be the choice of song to arrange rather than the fault of Silent himself, though.

Thought that just occurred to me. . .the verses of this sound like a sort of dance/polka song. Just an offhand comment. :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome work! I love when remixes put live vocals or instruments in, it just makes it so much more ORGANIC. The effort is well worth it! His voice gets bashed, but seriously... you hear singers on the radio who aren't that good. It works with his style. The controversial 5:28-end section? Yuck. I wouldn't even call it "harmonies" as some people have - it's just dissonance. The rest of the song is great though...

I agree 100% with this:

the acoustic break was rad, but like it has been mentioned before, the harmonies are very wrong, and I kept expecting a grandiose finale. If the harmonies were replaced by a buildup to a triumphant reiteration of the emotional and pleasing chorus, I'd wanna have babies with you

As I read this, I could practically, hear the ending that way. A couple more loops, building in insensity, winding it up, jamming, winding it up, and on the last note - cutting out and finishing quietly with just the voice, maybe a mellow guitar chord. Would've made this absolutely phenomenal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought the vocals were really professionally done. This is the best new rock song I've heard recently, and I wouldn't have expected to hear it here. I also downloaded the final fantasy iv mix, which I skipped over when it first came out, because the title didn't grab me, and I didn't care much for ff4's music, but I found that to be quite good as well, though I think I prefer this one just slightly.

By the way, although a few people trashed the vocals, bear in mind that some (not all) people who visit this site are videogame freaks (not that I'm not) and have tastes in music which are somewhat limited. Maybe they can't all appreciate your style, but I think a lot of people who've never heard of Ninja Gaiden would, so kudos to you for broadening horizons.

I liked the lyrics as well. I think everyone should bear in mind that if you take the lyrics to most of your favourite songs seperately, you'll probably find that it seems like bad poetry as well. When you add music though, it just...works.

Not to criticise your criticisms, but they did seem rather nit-picky.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...