 | Album Title: Electronic Super Joy OST |
| Record Label: Michael Todd Games | |
| Catalog No.: N/A | |
| Release Date: August 5, 2013 | |
| Purchase: Download at Bandcamp |
Overview
Electronic Super Joy is a game with a setup so inherently ridiculous I just want to preface everything by saying: I’m not making this up. Somebody stole our nameless hero’s (presumably — I’ve spent a good chunk of my research for this review trying to figure out this name) butt. Like, his actual butt. He’s on an adventure to get it back. Scorsese, Spielberg, Kubrick, “Michael Todd Games”. I’m being honest; this set-up is brilliant. It’s quick and to the point, and there’s no reason in the world you wouldn’t want to get your butt back. Now that that’s out of the way, the soundtrack. Fitting with the mix of 80s neon, flashy colors mixed with the retro 8-bit aesthetic, Electronic Super Joy has a pulse-pounding score. It was crafted by “enV”, a former Newgrounds composer. His distinct style of hard, crashing electronic drops and catchy pulse-pounding beats never once leaves the soundtrack. You’ll rarely hear a video game OST that could double for a rave concert.
Body
“Destination” opens the album with an immediate blast of electronic power. Every time it leans toward becoming too repetitive, it switches it up and introduces something new. A change in the chorus, a slowdown that builds into a drop; it’s a poster child for what you’re getting into when you listen to the album. “Flare”, however, is a quieter and slightly low-key track to follow “Destination”. It has a bouncier beat, grooving along with energy rather than bombast. Admittedly, it’s less memorable than some of the other tracks on the album. Typically the first level theme of the world is meant to sucker you into everything. It shows off the style of the music and gives you a track to remember it by. “Flare” is a pleasant track to listen to, but it is very jarring compared to many of the other tracks on this OST.
Fwhoo boy, “This Sound”. I’ve never felt the need to use “sort-of-dubsteppy” until this review, but here we are. Jumping right from “Flare” into “This Sound” is an experience all in itself. From the beginning of dissonant bells and a reverberated voice telling the listener, “We will not be held responsible for any hearing impediments or damage caused to you by excessive exposure to this sound. (sound… sound… sound),” before you can compliment the cheeky way it prepares the listener for the song, it leads straight into a drop of ground-shaking, electronic-y goodness. It never lets up from here. The composition (more in its progression rather than execution) is similar to “Destination”; it holds on to something “enV” has found deliciously catchy and then adds a new element or switches gears entirely. The same could be said for “Fire Frost”; it is a song built more on repetition, repeating the same chorus line and tweaking the bits and pieces as the track head-bobs along. I would argue that “Fire Frost” leans a little hard on being genuinely repetitive, but every time the thought crossed my mind, it changed just enough that I stopped thinking about it. Electronic Super Joy as a whole feels like you’re at an EDM concert. I’ve also never been to an EDM concert. Moving on…
“Darkas” is an admittedly interesting piece for Electronic Super Joy, but I find it one of the lower points of the album. Like “Flare”, it’s a quieter piece. It manages to be somewhat unique by starting with a dark, sinister-sounding bassline, but this quickly drops into another airy electronic piece. Personally, “Flare” worked better because, while it was quieter, it still stuck with what it was doing. “Darkas” gives you a take on what could have been the album’s first villainous track. Something that was truly different from any of the other songs. I actually quite like how it opens; it should have stuck with that. Going back to something that harkens to “Flare” just doesn’t make the track work. Take “Shakestopper” for instance. One of the most “dubsteppy” of the songs, its wub-wubs contrast greatly with the secondary chorus line. Interestingly enough, “enV” complements the dubstep with more “Flare”-like sounds. In this case, it works because he doesn’t get rid of the first element. It doesn’t fall off the face of the earth; the two combine into something completely new. “Shakestopper” is the track that “Darkas” should have been. It didn’t give up its first element; it incorporated it.
Near the end of the album, we come to the cream of the crop. How rare is it that a soundtrack’s most varied, complicated and laudable pieces appear as the final 4 tracks? “Bestammelse”, “Uprising”, “Generic Techno” and “Switchblade” are my favourite pieces on the entire album (“This Sound” is also one of them — the favourites, that is). “Bestammelse” tries an opening similar to “Darkas” (which I will apparently never stop harping on); low and lingering chiptunes create an uneasy atmosphere. However, it begins to pump up into a battle-ready track perfect for a boss battle. Some of “enV’s” best songs use slow pauses in intensity right in the middle of a track. Just as your own energy begins to wane, he then drops. It’s like everything goes into slow motion for just a few seconds, your arm preparing for another fist-pump. “Uprise” takes a different approach. The song begins slow, as many of these songs do, but there are no drops here. There’s no loss of power. It just seems to get faster and faster, almost exhausting you as it nears its close.
“Generic Techno” is far from its moniker. It has an almost alienesque tone to its choice of synths, sounding otherworldly and dissonant. The pulsing backbeats merge it all together into another one of the album’s more “video-game-y” tracks. It sounds like someone is walking through a spooky, alien-infested factory (during a rave). “Switchblade” is the final track of the album, and in the way it pushes its synths to the highest, hardest they’ve ever been right at the opening, it knows it. It seems to combine everything that has previously been done on the album, and to great effect. The main chorus line in the background uses a synth similar to “Fire Frost” or “Darkas”; the hardcore “dubsteppery” is reminiscent of “Bestammelse”; and the harder synths echo “This Sound” and “Uprise”. It’s a shame that it’s the shortest track on the album. Rather than come to a close, it seems to dip into another one of “enV’s” quieter moments from previous songs, and then just ends. Disappointing, but an incredibly fun track nonetheless.
Summary
If you don’t like electronic music, then you’re going to hate this album. Everything is here: dubsteppin’, synth-banging, and drops faster than you can even prepare for. For a fan of the genre this is a must-listen. While some of the tracks are disappointing in their execution and show only hints of the greatness they could have achieved, this is an album of many starkly unique songs. It combines some aesthetics of video game soundtracks, blending the repetition of the EDM genre with an infectious love of moving forward. In a game where you’re supposed to keep, constantly, constantly moving, what better music than something that makes you want to run? (Or pump your fists to the beat.)
