Disgaea 5 -Alliance of Vengeance- Original Soundtrack
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Album Title: Disgaea 5 -Alliance of Vengeance- Original Soundtrack |
| Record Label: Nippon Ichi Software |
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| Catalog No.: PLJS-70015 |
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| Release Date: March 26, 2015 (JP Edition); October 6, 2015 (US Edition) |
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| Purchase: Buy Used Copy |
Overview
Earlier this March, the next iteration in the Disgaea series was released. Alongside it, the soundtrack to Disgaea 5, as usual, was a pack-in bonus with the game in both Japan and America. Titled Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance, the game introduces a series of new characters. Tenpei Sato, the staple composer, returns once again. How does his effort on this entry compare to some of the other mainline entries in the series?
Body
The album opens up with one of the many vocal themes on the album, “Kill Real.” Unlike the openings of the past games, this is the first to feature a male singer, Mamoru Miyano. It’s an extremely powerful song with a rock focus and backing choir and rivals the opening of Disgaea 2’s “Sinful Rose” as my favorite opening. I also really like how the male choir in this song is the basis for a tune called “Groan” on the soundtrack. Of course, there are also a few other vocal tunes on the album of mostly good quality. The two ballads “Lieze Love” and “Lieze Lullaby” are both quite beautiful. The former, sung by Aimi, has a wonderful acoustic feel to it. It’s a simple song, but effective. The latter is a more fleshed out ballad using the same melody. Sung by Ami Sato, it’s definitely the definitive version. The choir backing is a wonderful touch as well.
Another softer vocal is “Moving On,” sung by Nalu. The music to this song is quite beautiful, featuring some great ethereality and soft rock elements. Unfortunately, the singer chosen for this particular song is more of a detriment as her ability just isn’t nearly as strong as usual vocalists for the series. Lastly, Tenpei Sato himself, in tradition, sings a rock tune on the album. Featuring primarily rock and choir with some orchestral touches, it’s a very powerful song with a great melody that also happens to be the final boss theme.
The rest of the songs are done in the typical series fashion, featuring a blend of choir driven tracks, quirky pieces, orchestral/rock hybrids, jazzier tunes, and harkening back to the early days in the series, some more electronically driven pieces. Following the opening theme, “Revenge Blues,” opens things up with the jazzier side of the soundtrack with its harmonica driven melody and acoustic guitar/piano accompaniment. It’s quite a somber tune, but also a beautiful one at that. “Bloody Brass Band,” on the other hand, is much more upbeat, features some nice rock touches, and features a fantastic melody. “Popping Pink” is one of the aforementioned quirky tracks. There are a lot of nice touches, such as the violin, although the overall tune does have a very disjointed sound to it that might not be for everyone.
The orchestral and orchestral/rock hybrid tracks are some of the highlights on the album. “Catch the Rainbow” is one such piece with some great electric guitar lines, a fantastic melody in both the piano and brass sections. “Wolfberry” is a high energy rock/orchestral piece with another excellent melody. The electric guitar in this one is what really manages to make the piece standout. Another piece to mention is definitely “The Past Hero.” This is another awesome tune that really adds a nice dramatic flair to it. While also rock and orchestral oriented tune, the slower tempo definitely makes for a nice change from some of the other battle oriented tracks and the electric guitar gets a chance to shine once again.
Two of my favorite pieces on the entire soundtrack are “Scandal” and “Night Scoop.” It’s another orchestral/rock piece, but the violin lead makes it stand among some of Sato’s other great violin led pieces, such as “Flaxen Necklace” from Soul Cradle, even though it’s more rock focused in sound. “Night Scoop” is a rock track that has a great Latin flavor to it, with its piano accompaniment and brass led melody. “Invisible Zoon” is a synth driven tune with a wonderful melody that, at times, reminds me stylistically of his Schell Bullet image album. The punchy synth and rhythm really make for a wonderful combination.
Lastly, there are also some more emotional themes on the soundtrack as well. Both “Silent Sadness” and “Burst into Tears” rely heavily on violin and vocal samples to get their point across. The former features more operatic style vocals that complement the melody quite nicely whereas the latter focuses more on choir backing to add some extra spice to the mix. Both are quite beautiful. Lastly, “Wingless Angel” is a somber tune as well, although it conveys the message via brass. While not nearly as poignant in nature as those tunes led by strings, the melody itself is quite wonderful and does give a sense of sadness, even if it isn’t as upfront about it.
Summary
In the end, the soundtrack to Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance is quite strong. While I didn’t mention every tune, most of them are quite solid. While it retains the typical Disgaea sound, I think the variety of the tunes is more akin to the early days in the series. For fans of the series’ music, this soundtrack, in my opinion, is one of the stronger entries in the series.
Do you agree with the review and score? Let us know in the comments below!
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Posted on July 13, 2015 by Don Kotowski. Last modified on July 13, 2015.
About the Author
Don Kotowski Currently residing in Philadelphia. I spend my days working in vaccine characterization and dedicate some of my spare time in the evening to the vast world of video game music, both reviewing soundtracks as well as maintaining relationships with composers overseas in Europe and in Japan.
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