From anosou.music:

One thing I really enjoy about the soundtrack for Shadow Hearts: Covenant(composed mainly by Yoshitaka Hirota) is how much attention is given to the overall “sound” in his effort to portray the characters and add to the game’s unique mood. I’ve noticed that in music for JRPGs traditional instruments or simple synths rule the world and even when something other’s featured (like the ethnic instruments in Ar Tonelico) it’s just used as is.

What Yoshitaka Hirota does on the Shadow Hearts soundtracks is taking his music further by often electronically treating his instruments and using rather unconventional pallets of sound. For all examples I will provide YouTube-links, just click the name of the track.

In the track Death is the Great Leveller the rather mysterious mood is greatly enhanced by the production. To begin with the initial harp sound is quite muffled which makes it be more in the background, just adding to the harmony and not working as the main melodic line. The drums and bass are in the front of the soundscape, working together. The heavily compressed and a bit reverbed acoustic bass adds to the rather ominous mood of the track. The filtered part synthetic, part real drums drives the track forward and some distortion adds a dirty sound that works incredibly well with Shadow Hearts: Covenant’s darker visuals and environments. The mix of traditional sounds like harp, strings and bass with the synthetic drums and overall daring production certainly gives this track an edge that wouldn’t be achievable if it sounded more “clean”.

From Powerglove’s MySpace Blog: 

Hello Powerglovers,

We’re tickled pink (literally) to announce that we’ll be touring with Sonata Arctica and Munity Within right after our tour with Hammerfall.  After these two big tour announcements this week, I have a sudden urge to travel back in time and reassure my 16 year old self that if I devote my life to making metal arrangements of video game and cartoon music, for some reason I’ll get to tour with my metal heroes.  Also, I can let 16 year old Chris know that in a few short years his beard will finally fully connect to his moustache, ending years of nervous confusion and beard-doubt.

Tickets are again available through enterthevault.com at their site and through the links below.

The Sonata and Hammerfall tours play many of the same places, which might present some fans with a difficult decision.  The true Powerglove way of course is to attend all possible concerts, wearing a ceremonial Zebediah mask to all events, and try to stage dive over and over until the Ultimate Power reveals itself to you or you lose consciousness.  Cosplaying as Bridget from Guilty Gear is also acceptable.

Since most comments on these blogs are about where we’re not playing, let me assure the populace of Glovopolis that we’ll be touring a lot in 2010 and have some headlining dates and smaller shows to announce later that will happen during the Hammerfall / Sonata Arctica odyssey and beyond.  By all means though let us know in the comments where you want us to play, and we’ll analyze the data with our tricorders and make sure we bring enough swords and starbusts for everyone.

For tour dates and more check out the Powerglove blogpost on MySpace.