Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream released.


So OverClocked ReMix has FINALLY got around to releasing Final Fantasy VII: Voice of the Lifestream (albeit too late to join the 50 Cent / Kanye West album war of Sept 11th). Reviews have already started popping up all over the place, but they’re pretty generalized and “ZOMG AMAZING.” I’m obligated to do my own review…because I have a website…and a soapbox, and you don’t.
Having listened to the whole album 3 or 4 times since zircon gave me the torrent last night to seed, I think I have a pretty good feel for the whole thing by now. Ever since this album was announced I’ve been weary of the outcome. It was a bold endeavor taking on one of the most well-known soundtracks among video game fans AND vowing to arrange MOST of it. Not to mention the hype that had been mounting up over time (especially right before it’s release…and even after it’s release). I wanted to hear it for myself. Screw the hype.

That being said, I can say that the album falls WELL above my expectations, but still falls short of “knocking me off my feet”, as some would suggest. Some of the songs I absolutely LOVE, like bLiNd and Spekko (as Steffan Andrews)’s JENOVA themes, respectively, along with Star’s Highwind mix (The Highwind Takes to the Skies), Terethian’s ReMix of the Gold Saucer / Cid’s theme (Alien Exploration), bladiator’s “The Golden Ivories of Gaia,” & Darangen’s “Collision (Northern Crater)”.

Some of the other songs on the album, while technically good, leave me wanting more. Zircon & Sixto’s ReMix of Red XIII’s theme could best be describe as “Balls awesome technoz in a similar chord progression to the original song, 2(?) bars of the original tune repeated twice, and then more balls awesome technoz. While it SOUNDS cool and all, it…hardly feels like an arrangement of the original Red XIII theme aside from those 2 bars. Same can be said for Danny B’s Turk’s theme. I went around class playing a few of the songs for some of my friends, almost all of which love FF7 as much as your average fanboy, and NONE of them could identify a lot of songs. Cid’s theme by Jovette Rivera suffers a similar problem but…well let’s just say that song isn’t really my favorite.

Some other things of note (& minor knit-picks) include:

• If you see Sixto Sounds credited in any song, it basically means they needed a crazy guitar solo. It almost feels as if they said “Well this song is good…but it needs more…CRAZY GUITAR SOLO” and bam, Sixto is off. Not that this is a BAD thing, since Sixto is REALLY GOOD at what he does, just…look out for it =P. I assure you, even if you’re doubting they could possibly fit a guitar solo into this song, it’ll be there.
• One-Winged Angel remix end kind of…suddenly. Like F4T4L said “a One-Winged Angel remix that’s less than 6 minutes is blasphemy.” It’s not at all a BAD SONG, but…geez. Give me AT LEAST another minute and a half.
• Suzu’s song sounds…well a lot like Suzu at first, and then Sixto totally tears it to shit.
Tefnek is amazing.
• Haroon r teh back <3333 All this being said, the best way I could some this up as a whole is this: If you’re familiar with the artists on this album, you’re pretty familiar with what you’re getting here on a song basis. This isn’t really BEYOND anything we’ve heard from OC ReMix before, but almost all the songs on this album are better than MOST OverClocked ReMixes. It’s HANDS DOWN the best OCR album but…it can’t really hold a torch to stuff like the Black Mages (though better than PMM), but I mean…it is free, which is what tips the scales on this one.

BIGGEST ANNOYANCE EVER:
Apparetly OCReMix still sucks @ ID3 -__-