 | Album Title: Suikoden Tierkreis: Tears in the Sky – Satomi Takasugi |
| Record Label: Rhythm Zone | |
| Catalog No.: RZCD-46083 | |
| Release Date: December 17, 2008 | |
| Purchase: Buy at CDJapan |
Overview
“Tears in the Sky” is the vocal single for Suikoden Tierkreis. This is the first time in the series that an official theme song was produced together with its single release. The disc features a total of five tracks with performances by Satomi Takasugi, an artist from the record label Rhythm Zone. “Tears in the Sky” marks her seventh single to date.
Body
“Tears in the Sky” is used as Suikoden Tierkreis‘ opening theme. Takasugi aspirates the lyrics in a clean and aesthetic way, which harmonizes quite well with the musical arrangement of percussion, strings and guitars. The addition of an fiddle is very neat and adds an ethnic feeling to the overall song. It took a while for this track to grow on me, but now I can say that this song is absolutely worthy of the game’s musical legacy and fits the context very well as both vocalist and arrangement were chosen wisely and carefully.
The ending theme “Tierkreis ~Door of Hope~” is more melancholy and slow in nature, using soft piano and string melodies together with Takasugi’s perfectly fitting voice. I like the simple structure of this piece as it captures the charm very nicely without being too powerful or clichéd. By the way, the first twenty seconds should call up some memories for you, as they’re used as introduction to Tierkreis’ official homepage.
The last three tracks are not really worth mentioning. They offer the opening theme in its shortened opening edit and both instrumental versions. They’re nice for the completeness of this disc.
Summary
In the end, this single is a worthy addition to Suikoden’s musical universe. Both themes are performed and arranged excellently and fit their context very well, almost without any clichés. Satomi Takasugi once again makes use of her aesthetic and clean voice, while Norikazu Miura shows his talent for writing and composing a beautiful theme with “Tierkreis ~Door of Hope~”. After some scepticism, I’m pretty pleased with this release.
