Shin Megami Tensei V‘s music honors the SMT series’ musical tradition: strange, intense, funky, boundary-pushing. And, in honoring the boundary-pushing tradition, lead composer Ryota Kozuka has taken the baton passed from Tsukasa Masuko, Shoji Meguro, and others as he reshapes the SMT soundscape. As I listen to all five discs of the Shin Megami Tensei V Original Soundtrack, I can sense Kozuka’s shift towards a fusion of past SMT elements with distinct Southeast Asian musical traditions, especially Mahayana Buddhist and animist traditions throughout Indonesia. Comparing this OST to Kozuka’s work on Shin Megami Tensei IV in 2014, I feel that Kozuka has permitted himself to expand the many musical influences in the SMT soundscape even further. Given the end result, I have to say, I am all for it!
The tracklist for Shin Megami Tensei V‘s sizeable OST places the music in the approximate order you’d encounter them in a standard playthrough. But I’m going to zoom in on three track types: the “Da’at” tracks (12 total), the “Quest” tracks (19 total), and the “Battle” tracks (23 total). Da’at is the name the demons have given to the netherworld/expanse that once was Tokyo. Essentially, then, Da’at serves as town and environment themes. This becomes clearer with track names like “Da’at: shinagawa station” and “Da’at: ginza.”
(Additionally, “Da’at” is a Hebrew word loosely translated as “knowledge,” and is significant in the Kabbalah. Da’at is a label given to the specific state of the Tree of Life when all ten sephirot within the tree unite. There is a great deal of depth to this “expanse” concept. The world itself is layered in meaning and mysticism!)
One of my favorite tracks in the “Da’at” series is “Da’at: konan” (disc 3 track 5). I immediately notice the emphasis on each beat at an allegro moderato tempo, making me want to nod my head to the beat. The soft rock band sound has rhythm guitar and drums landing on the beat so well. The trade from the A section to the B section allows for some fun play between the keyboard and lead guitar. Atop all this, there are some weird vocaloid synth leads. The theme of “playing with the human voice in a variety of ways” is noticeable throughout the Shin Megami Tensei V OST, and something I admire in Kozuka’s work. Here, the manipulation and effects are light, but still present. This is a catchy theme!
Keeping focus on the third disc, I call your attention to “Quest -fertility-” — easily my favorite of the many “Quest” tracks. Toshiki Konishi, a great guitarist who has worked on many Atlus projects alongside Kozuka, composed this piece. I should note that overall, the ratio for composition is 60% Kozuka, 35% Konishi, and 5% “other.” So it’s important to recognize that Konishi brings a lot of life to the Shin Megami Tensei V soundtrack as well, though I’d argue that Konishi’s contributions are more tonal and less experimental than Kozuka’s. “Quest -fertility-” serves as a prime example for this argument! Konishi has this funky rhythm guitar running throughout the piece, with melody trading between a bright piano and a sawtooth wave synth lead. In terms of chord progression, the music honestly doesn’t go anywhere, just a two-chord vamp. But some of the best VGM follows this pattern (see Mitsuda’s “Secret of the Forest” from Chrono Trigger, and consider the 8-Bit Music Theory video deconstructing nonfunctional harmony and two-chord trades!).
Now, battle themes! A part of me wants to argue that Shin Megami Tensei V‘s 23 battle themes are overkill. The other part of me offers the counterpoint: “Don’t you hate when you hear the same battle or boss battle music again and again?” Good point, me! Sticking to disc three, I’ll point to the last track on the disc (track 24), “Battle -dancing crazy murder-.” This song is a winner based on the title alone! This battle theme is one of many where Kozuka utilizes the human voice to great effect. Through simple chants, spoken word samples, and some pitch-bending effects, it’s hard to say if the voice we’re hearing is still human or if it is, in fact, demonic. Put all of this against a killer dance beat, and you have yourself a great SMT battle theme!
For something a bit more substantial, let’s move to disc 5 track 13, “Battle -eon-.” This is one of the final battle themes in Shin Megami Tensei V‘s base game (that is, excluding Vengeance). It’s also a hefty nine minutes in length. Large swaths of this track are driven by the rhythm of percussion alone, with anything remotely tonal coming from heavily processed and distorted instrumentation. Eventually, however, the cacophonous storm passes, and in its place we have some more of Kozuka’s excellent vocalization samples. In this particular piece, I am reminded again of Yasunori Mitsuda: this time, in Mitsuda’s use of Bulgarian choirs in Xenogears (cf. “One Who Bares Fangs at God”). If you liked that kind of vocal work, you’ll love what Kozuka has pulled off in this battle track, among many others across the OST!
Though I’ve described some of my favorite tracks here, I can safely say that these aren’t cherry-picked to hide lower quality music from you, dear reader. On the contrary, after multiple listens, there are only a handful of songs across the OST’s 117 tracks that I find either so dull or dissonant that I would want to skip over them. As an experiment, I loaded up the Shin Megami Tensei V Original Soundtrack on shuffle, as I expected I’d be satisfied wherever it landed. I first hit “Empyrean,” the opening track of disc five, which uses this incredible rhythmic technique in percussion where each beat is split into smaller subdivisions, so the drums hit once for beats one and two, three times between beats three and four, twice on beat five, and faster and faster until you get this flurry of hits on beat eight before the pattern repeats. And all of that lovely complexity has more great vocals atop it!
Continuing this experiment: “World of Shadows” (disc 1 track 21) is a beautiful piano piece with some synth choirs and ethereal noise as the only accompaniment. “Quest -disorder-” (disc 4 track 15) — a Konishi composition featuring a clever mix of dulcet glockenspiel and crunchy synth bass. One more! “Tokyo -Impatience-” (disc 2 track 16) offers a simple upbeat groove from Konishi, putting that rhythm guitar to work, sparsely decorating with piano. I kept shuffle on and went through ten more songs. All ranging between good and great. Using random sampling, I demonstrated to myself that while they’re not all S-tier compositions, it’s rare that I run into anything particularly weak or unappealing.
Ultimately, given the perpetual war between law and chaos embodied in the SMT series, this random sampling method is a great way to crystallize my opinion of the soundtrack in this review. Perhaps because of its length, it may not be as easily remembered or celebrated as Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. Given the choice, however, I prefer Shin Megami Tensei V over SMTIII or any other in the mainline series. One must develop certain musical tastes to truly enjoy what Kozuka and Konishi have done here. Once acclimated, however, I could see this album quickly becoming a favorite for any listener. I know that, in my own strange journey (pun intended) navigating through this soundtrack, I have come to greatly appreciate this fantastic 2022 OST! As for what’s next? I’ll be listening to the 2024 add-on four-disc OST, Vengeance…
