So I've had a couple of days to listen to this now and I've come to the conlcusion that this is indeed the better of the three albums that the Black Mages have recorded.
Tracks that instantly stood out to me are:
Distant Worlds - Incredibly Melodic with some great power-ballad rock
Showing the last 5 reviews, out of a total 7 reviews. Please note that opinions expressed in any review are those of our customers and do not necessarily match those of the Play-Asia.com team.
James BLonde(12) on 22, Jun. 2008 06:48 (HKT)
An interesting concept... All of this music is all completely original. In their previous albums, they covered a bunch of FF tunes. This is particularly very good. You spoony mages! ;)
Spoom(1) on 27, May. 2008 08:41 (HKT)
Lackluster Unfortunately, I have to agree with the negative reviews of this album, especially in comparison to their previous works, to both of which I would enthusiastically have given five stars.
Darkness and Starlight takes good songs and makes great rearrangements out of them. However, the album is definitely missing the rock / metal vibe that their previous albums had, and suffers from the lack of it. The Black Mages seem to have resequenced much of the songs programatically, adding only the guitar tracks when necessary, and only sometimes. What Uematsu et al need to realize is that these guitar tracks are the rocking highlight of their albums, and the immense amounts of synth that this new album contains acts only as a filler, which is very unfortunate.
The Skies Above had several awesome tracks, not least of which is the title track that takes the Zanarkand theme from Final Fantasy X and rearranges it in a highly creative, unexpected way. In contrast, the songs on this album seem to be simple rearranges of the Final Fantasy tracks that they cover, not varying much from their original source other than containing updated instrumentation.
If you're a fan of The Black Mages, there's still a bit to like here, and I'd still probably recommend it. That said, OCRemix has many better rearrangements of the source material than this disc from the original composer, and for free to boot.
bennyboocore(1) on 25, May. 2008 12:31 (HKT)
Upsetting I beg to differ this is the worst Final Fantasy album/compilation I have ever listened too
Even being from the black mages after 4 years of wait this album was very dissapointing.
I am hearing more computer then music it actually sounds like a better quality version of classic songs but sounds worse if you catch my drift.
Worst Black Mages album I was expecting so much more.
Rhythmellon(5) on 29, Mar. 2008 13:42 (HKT)
Black Mages 3rd coming is a charm I got the disc yesterday and I love it!!!!
Do yourself a favor and get this CD NOW!!!
Marouku(4) on 28, Mar. 2008 02:56 (HKT)
Fantastic CD Nubuo Uematsu and the rest of The Black Mages have outdone themselves yet again with this masterpiece. As a huge fan of the music of Final Fantasy, it is always a delight to hear the songs in a harder, very cool style.
They may make us wait a while, but The Black Mages certainly deliver on an epic level.
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(3.5 out of 5)
