Comment:

120 minutes long. The story of great video game music continues in Volume 4. This album is vastly different then the past 3 albums. So far all my albums have used video game music straight from the games. Volume 4 however uses only remixed and covered video game music. Volume 3 offered no Final Fantasy music at all while Volume 4 offers almost exclusively Final Fantasy tracks. Volume 4 is more or less a showcase for The Black Mages. The band from Japan, arrangers Tsuyoshi Sekito and Kenichiro Fukui, who also both play guitar and Fukui the keyboard, handle Nobuo Uematsu's original work well. Nobuo Uematsu is actually a large part of The Black Mages, he plays the organ for them! Rounding out the group is guitarist Michio Okamiya, bass guitar player Keiji Kawamori, and drummer Arata Hanyuda. These dudes can seriously play, listening to the reworked Final Fantasy tracks (especially with Uematsu-san on the organ) is an audio workout. Everything The Black Mages lay down is hot and heavy, with the standouts here being Battle Scene, The Decisive Battle, J-E-N-O-V-A, Maybe I'm A Lion, and Hunter's Chance. The first side of this album has tracks from every major Final Fantasy game from FF 1 - FF VI. Including the beautiful piano arrangment "Theme of Love" from FF IV. Side 2 has tracks from every major Final Fantasy game from FF VII - FF X-2. X-2 has the worst music in all FF games, actually all the music in X-2 just sucks. But the X-2 theme provided here is an amazing, haunting piano arrangment from the X-2 Piano Collection, and with it in place this album has music from every major Final Fantasy game ever made. (Note: "Piano Collections" is the title for all the piano collections from IV-X. X-2 is the start of "Piano Collection".) Also each album side contains 2 tracks from the rousing Final Fantasy VI: Grand Finale recording. This was an audacious project undertaken during 93/94. Shiro Sagisu and Tsuneyoshi Saito arrange Uematsu's classic FFVI themes into music a full scale orchestra can play. Some of the tracks varied, but overall the album worked. The Opening Theme sounds just like it did in the game, but being backed by an orchestra gives this piece incredible power and force. Gau is played by a string quartet and it is probably the album standout. Most fans are split on Relm, it is an amazing arrangment with strong layerings of woodwind, however since so many people seem to hate bagpipes and Relm factors one in prominently many fans end up disliking this piece. But don't be fooled, this is an incredible track. The last Grand Finale track used is Aria Di Mezzo Carattere. I used the original video game track of this back on Volume 1. This track with a live orchestra and talented vocalist (Svetla Krasteva) makes me feel like I'm in the audience, front row, as Celes performs her operatic piece, simply magical. To round out the album are a few non-Final Fantasy tracks. The techno vocal PLANITb Remix of Hikari from Kingdom Hearts is superb, as is the remixed version of Flying On the Wings of Steam by Chris Vrenna from American McGees Alice. (Different versions of both tracks were featured on volume 3). Another orchestral piece is included, this time Koji Kondo's classic Overworld theme from The Legend of Zelda , expertly handled by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. The closer on side one is the monsterous 9 minute long Zelda medley, arranged by master Shinji Hosoe. Great fun. Lastly side 2 offers two tracks from the classic SNES game Earthbound (Mother 2 in Japan). Both tracks offer a wide variety of movements and sounds from the game, perfectly wild remixes from a wild game. All in all, this album flows well and makes me feel like I am experiencing a very bizzare and amazing Uematsu Dear Friends concert. ( http://www.square-enix-usa.com/uematsu/index.html )( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobuo_Uematsu ) ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy )

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