This review is purposefully much shorter than the review of the first chapter of Melody of Legend (~Chapter of Love~), because that review explains the entire concept of what Melody of Legend is. So if you need to know more about it, check out that review. If not, be prepared for another track-by-track review.
I LOVE the first track of this CD. It’s my first experience of hearing Tengai Makyo music, but I always assumed the music would be good. Well, if it’s anything like this track (though it’s probably not), I need more TMIV. Yoko Ueno does some GREAT stuff on this track over all of the other tracks she does, and the arrangement is also really neat. Ronan Browne uses the uilleann pipes to follow a simple melody, and overall this is my favorite track on the CD. Convenient for me, it’s the first track!
A lot of people who have this CD really enjoy this Chrono Cross track, one of the two arranged Chrono Cross tracks EVER. The track is a very happy track, and it sounds better in quality than most of the other tracks on here. However, I don’t like it all that much, and it’s kind of short compared to the other tracks (only 3 minutes). The next track is mediocre at best. The melody isn’t that great, the arrangement is boring, I just don’t like it. Hehehe…there are other tracks like that on this CD.
Then, a surprise arrangement by Yasunori Mitsuda on Uematsu’s “Melodies of Life” from FF IX. This is an AWESOME arrangement for three reasons. First of all, the Melody of the song can easily be located. Second, during what would be where the chorus fits the first time, Mitsuda throws in “The Prelude”…in fact, he throws in a version VERY similar to the opening track on Final Fantasy Pray, but better. From here on out there are “ooh ahh” vocals (the vocalist is Eri Kawai, unlike most tracks with Yoko Ueno). A fiddle part is added, and the second verse and chorus go through. The chorus is repeated once or twice, and then the third reason comes up at 4:32…This crazy thing that doesn’t sound anything like Melodies of Life kicks in (this is the part sampled below). It just sounds really neat, and the whistle part going over it is amazing, and it’s my 2nd-favorite part of the entire CD (first being the entire first track).
Track 5 starts with an “Armenian Doudouk” being played by Ronan Browne, and then some other strange instruments as well. This doesn’t sound ANYTHING like something Sakuraba’s could have even remotely thought up, which is why I like it so much. The best way to describe this track is “interesting”…it isn’t “good” per se, but you don’t wanna stop listening because you’ve never heard anything like it before. Then comes our Grandia track, which sounds a lot less “weird” compared to other tracks, with synth bass and a more realistic percussion sound coming through. This song is a lot of fun, my friends that own this CD like this track a lot as well. I was never a big Grandia fan, though.
Passing Moment as actually listed as “Passiong Moment” in the CD booklet, and for the longest time I thought it was just a bad suffix and it was “Passionate Moment”…someone set me straight on this a long time ago…this song was originally written by Sakimoto, and it is a very slow song, but some samples in it run in this very fast 32-note fashion that help add to the sound…Yoko Ueno doing chorus vocals helps too. The Panzer Dragoon track is crazy, and it’s my least favorite track. It’s kind of scary, which is why I don’t like it. It’s really scary. I’m going to never listen to it…for awhile…
The last two tracks are from very crazy Japanese games I’ve never heard of. I really like the arrangement of track 9. It’s composed and arranged by “Thelonious Monkees” (a take off of “Thelonious Monk”, famous jazz pianist), and at one point in the song the measure is changed to 5/4, and I’m a big fan of crazy time changes. The last track is really really long (6:15), and it’s another oddball track. The melody is definitely a happy, relaxing, “Cozy” major melody, but the background noises added by KALTA just don’t suit me. It’s a strange track. Strange stuff.
It’s easy for me to say that I definitely like ~Chapter of Love~ much more overall, but this CD features my two favorite tracks of all twenty (tracks 1 and 4), so I still keep it for these tracks. The tracks on these are so random, it’s hard to remember where each song is going to go next, so the CD takes a LONG TIME to get old. For places of purchase, check out the review of Chapter of Love. Enjoy the sweet sweet samplin’!
