 | Album Title: Sonic and the Black Knight Original Soundtrax -Tales of Knighthood- |
| Record Label: Wavemaster | |
| Catalog No.: WWCE-31198 | |
| Release Date: April 8, 2009 | |
| Purchase: Buy at CDJapan |
Overview
Tales of Knighthood is the second album representation for Sonic’s second storybook adventure, Sonic and the Black Knight. The soundtrack for Black Knight brings the return of Jun Senoue as the musical director, along with several key composers who are no strangers to the Sonic series. Richard Jacques, who previously worked on SEGA soundtracks such as Sonic R, Sonic Chronicles, and Jet Grind Radio, makes his mark on the album. Howard Drossin also contributes, having provided tunes for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Comix Zone in the Genesis era. Tommy Tallarico, who is responsible for countless video game soundtracks such as the fan-favorite Earthworm Jim, makes his Sonic soundtrack debut for this album as well. An elaborate music team indeed, and with 68 themes making up the entire two-disc album, is it enough to win listeners over? Let’s read on.
Body
Since Black Knight takes Sonic to the world of King Arthur, the musical approach more or less follows the feeling of the swordsman and his Celtic adventure. On one side, the music strives for the true feeling of adventurous orchestra, but on the other, it’s either combined with electric guitar or it goes completely about-face in favor of hard rock. This, of course, depends on who is composing what. What makes the soundtrack very interesting is that not only do we have various composers arranging and programming their own music, but they also work in collaboration with Jun Senoue on selected tracks. Each artist has their own distinct style, and when combined with Jun Senoue’s arrangements, it results in various unique moments. Because of this, fans who appreciated Jun Senoue’s past work, especially his performances outside his work with Crush 40 such as in Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, will have no trouble finding a song they consider very memorable.
Let’s go over a few selected stage themes. “Camelot Castle” is a stage track written by Jun Senoue alone. It takes a rather interesting military and espionage approach. The drums play a very important role, following a military-inspired drumline; the rhythm guitar plays a hardcore riff, supported by a soft, almost whimsical xylophone melody and harmonic violins that push the espionage-action scenery. “Deep Woods” is a solo contribution by Yutaka Minobe. It is a long, tranquil string melody with a slow yet powerful jungle drum beat and a wonderful flute performance covering the rest of the melody. It evokes not only a forest or jungle but also an ambience suggesting a heavy rainstorm. Definitely one of Yutaka’s best solo works.
“Titanic Plain” sees the arrangement between Jun and Yutaka. Not very hardcore and not too mellow, the theme features a nice flute lead with the rhythm guitar playing strong chords. I absolutely love the bass performance; it is funky, intriguing, and reminiscent of some of Jun Senoue’s earlier work. “Molten Mine” is a collaboration by Tommy Tallarico and Jun Senoue. It starts with a duel guitar lead, and when the rhythm guitar and charming orchestral presentation begin to establish the feel of the piece, an incredible acoustic guitar performance takes over. Heavily inspired by Spanish guitar tunes, the acoustic guitar that plays throughout this theme is very mesmerizing, especially when the rhythm guitars and orchestra disappear so the acoustic guitar can have its own moment. An elaborate and wonderful performance, this easily places “Molten Mine” as one of my favorite tunes.
Howard Drossin’s “Dragon’s Lair” features a very cool guitar riff that remains prominent from the beginning to the end of the theme. It’s fierce and powerful, and is backed up by dueling lead guitars and violins playing the same line. The drums also add to the fierceness alongside the rhythm guitar. It’s a very action-packed, perhaps a little too hardcore, theme such that sometimes I forget it’s supposed to represent Sonic. Nonetheless, “Dragon’s Lair” is an incredible track provided by Howard. “Misty Lake” is another collaboration between Jun and Yutaka. It’s a very calming and mellow track, as the violin plays the same melody from “Knight of the Wind”, while the drums provide a steady performance with constant cymbal crashes and quick percussion. It doesn’t entirely do justice as an homage to “Knight of the Wind”, but it gets the job done.
Like the Sonic ’06 soundtrack, there are a lot more event cues than there are stage themes. Thankfully, they don’t drag out as long and some are actually pretty memorable to listen to. In fact, some of the events establish a theme song for the supporting characters in the game. For example, Blaze gets her own theme in the form of “Sir Percival… Knight of the Grail”. A short, fast-paced acoustic guitar piece not unlike the performance in “Molten Mine”, it does a great job of setting the mood for dueling Blaze. Tails also gets his own theme, “Blacksmith”, which is an acoustic guitar and violin cover of Tails’ original theme “Believe in Myself” from Sonic Adventure.
The only thing I wasn’t too fond of was the choice to use direct rips of Knuckles’ and Shadow’s theme songs as heard in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2. Rather than remixing or covering the themes, Knuckles’ theme “Unknown from M.E.” and Shadow’s theme “Throw it All Away” just don’t fit with the rest of the soundtrack. Perhaps it’s meant as a throwback for fans, but if so, why they took the time to cover Tails’ and Sonic’s themes to fit the Celtic approach but not these guys is beyond me. The rips used for their themes are instrumental and fairly short, so for those who already know the themes by heart, it’s nothing special.
The rest of the event themes are short orchestral performances. One of my favorites would have to be “Black Sword in the Sky”, arranged by Richard Jacques. It is a very chilling, eerie orchestral piece, with horns playing a powerful fanfare that suggests a chase. The vocalizations heard throughout give it a menacing power, and as quickly as the song sets up the emotion, it’s over in a flash. The themes used in the menus are worth mentioning too. I absolutely love “World Map”, the stage selection piece. Arranged by Jun and Yutaka once again, it is a heroic fanfare orchestra combined with rhythm guitars and a recurring funky bass that makes browsing the stage selection enjoyable.
While the soundtrack has a very positive outcome in my view, there are a lot of themes on the album that I question. I’ve already mentioned the re-use of the old characters’ theme songs and how they don’t fit well on the album. I was also very disappointed to see that my favorite composer, Tommy Tallarico, only managed to contribute three themes to this game, two of which were arranged with Jun Senoue’s help. I already mentioned “Molten Mine”, which happens to be one of my favorite themes. The other one is “The Cauldron”. It’s a pretty nice action cue, and I love how the bass gets a lot more attention here. It’s elaborate and funky, and also features a nice guitar duel with occasional rhythm guitar parts.
The only track Tommy Tallarico is solely responsible for is “Great Megalith”. To me, it feels like a rather uninspired orchestral fanfare — it sort of sounds like a feeble attempt at mimicking the Metal Gear main theme. This is by no means a bad thing, but I had high expectations for Tommy, especially after listening to one of his best soundtracks, the Earthworm Jim Anthology. I might’ve expected too much, but still, three themes weren’t enough for me, and only one track became my favorite.
There are even three bonus tracks on the album. All three are just variations of the “Knight of the Wind” main theme performed by Crush 40. Two of them, the “Original Version” and the “TGS 2008” version, are pretty much the same, except one lasts longer than the other. As the title indicates, it is the original performance of “Knight of the Wind”, and, with all due respect, I feel the original is superior to the final release. The difference between the two is that the original has a more focused, fierce rhythm guitar, whereas the final version has the guitar sounding as though a lot of treble was added, so it sounds completely off-key to me when I compared both tracks.
The third bonus track is “Knight of the Wind -Acoustic Ver.-“. When I first read this, I was eager to listen to it. I expected a Crush 40 unplugged performance, but instead I got an arrangement that goes completely about-face. It’s a very slow acoustic guitar performance, with the violin playing the familiar “Knight of the Wind” melody and lyrical line. There are no vocals present, and the performance itself just feels too depressing for what it should have been. It isn’t unique or special, since it drags on too much. There are also no drums whatsoever. For a bonus track, I was left unsatisfied. I really would’ve wanted that unplugged version.
Summary
For fans who loved Jun Senoue’s previous soundtracks, this album will definitely fit well in their library. Although there are a lot of nitpicks here and there, as well as missed opportunities in track choices, performances, and, overall, the composers’ contributions, Tales of Knighthood remains an average to slightly above-average soundtrack. Jun Senoue fans will definitely feel pleased, and seeing Howard Drossin, Richard Jacques, and Tommy Tallarico working on this together shows how far Sonic soundtracks have come. Hopefully in future albums we’ll see these guys contribute more, and flex their talents beyond the Celtic world. In the end, Tales of Knighthood should only be purchased by fans who really love Jun Senoue’s work.
