ShrikeArghast

I'm sorry that my feelings on this song as so contrary to those of the rest of you, but this is just a bad track. She cannot sing. It can't be said any more plainly than that: she doesn't have talent. Oh, sure, she's in key, but that's about it. To put this into perspective, she's a week one American Idol cut. No, she doesn't even make it past the first round. No trip to L.A. No second look. The song would be better off without her. If that fact sticks in your craw, so be it. Not every review has to be sugar and lolly pops. I believe the 'house special' here on OC is honesty, and that was it.

The track I am requesting from The Lord of the Rings Online is The House of Tom Bombadil, which can be found here: http://www.visionsofthering.com/files/MEO_Shire.mp3 This is easily the 'most requested' track in LotRO, yet the full version has never been released (and yes, that's obviously only half a song). So, my request has several advantages: A) It will please a large crowd. It's got an open ending that nobody has ever heard, so it's essentially a half-written book - you get to decide where it goes.

I've always loved Schala tracks. This one reminds me a LOT of Jon Hallur's work in EVE Online. Fantastic stuff.

I originally learned brass on a trumpet, but was lured away to baritone and eventually landed on the french horn, so I love listening to these instruments do their thing. Props.

I really wish this hadn't ended up being the only thing we ever heard from DragonAvenger. I love this song... it's dopey and makes me think of my grilfriend.

Everything pixietrcks does always sounds like a whine to me. I don't know what it is - whether she sings slightly off key, or if it's the tone of her voice, or what; but when she sings, I feel like I'm listening to a nagging ex-girlfriend croon at me over the phone. The rest of the song is top notch, aside from the drums which, as most other people have noted, are kind of overpowering. Otherwise, it moves slowly, is recognizeably faithful to the original material, and has smooth audio. 8/10 on everything but the vocals, 4/10 on the vocals themselves. Sorry, not every review can be ultra positive. *Edit* Actually, what I said about the vocals is not entirely true, because I really enjoyed the singing in Journey's End, just not in this mix.

It took a while to get used to to the vocals, but after 3-4 listens, they really grew on me, and now I cannot imagine the song without them. 9/10 - I've listened to it about 12 times now... great song.

My only gripe is that I wish you folks had gone a little heavier on the Stormwind theme. I can pick it out in there, sort of lurking under the surface, but 90% of the time its hidden underneath the Guild Wars theme... ... not that that's really all that high of a crime. Jeremy Soule is certainly a superior artist to whoever composed the SW theme - it's just that I wanted to here more of the competing product. By the way, I love the ironic blending of these two games. WoW - the juggernaught, breakthrough MMO - combined with Guild Wars, the much-halooed 'boy who would be king' sequel-in-playstyle to Diablo II, that WoW's detractors claimed would sink Blizzard's product in a matter of weeks. That, of course, didn't happen, but I love hearing these two rivals thumping along with one another in the same tune. It's like forcing Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter to duet on a piano.

Part of the problem with a lot of Magus remixes is that they lose a lot of the underlying 'heavy on the brass licks' sound of the original. This one doesn't. That alone is enough to set it apart. My only real complaint is the slow pacing of the song, which - I think - somewhat detracts from the rushing, desperate movement of the original. Top notch otherwise, and clearly the best of the Magus remixes by leaps and bounds. Everything from 3:00 on is just gold.

This is one of the best vocal remixes out there today. Flawless is a word that comes to mind.

It was alright. Its uniqueness amongst other songs is what holds it together. Few people are bold enough to expose their voice on here - as if the results would inevitably be booed of the proverbial stage - and so mixes of this sort are quite rare. Personally? I didn't much care for it... but not because it lacked qualities that I look for in a song. No, this just isn't really my kind of song. I understand what others are enjoying it, but it wasn't my cup of tea... and, as a previous poster stated, I could only really listen to it once.

This was always one of Sierra's better efforts. The game was so simple and intuitive that you could just pick it up and play it after a year of not having done so and remember everything in under a minute. It didn't hurt, of course, that the music kept the game in your head. I still hum this crap all the time, even though I haven't touched the game in well over a year. Excellent mix.

Everything from 2:31 on is so sweet it just makes we wanna cry. It's a fact, djp, that I typically don't like your work. Akin to CotMM, I usually just don't agree with your style (production values, overall quality of work, etc are never in question). This, however, is a fantastic mix. It may be your best work. 9.7/10

I like this mix, though I kind of wish you hadn't told us that you were trying to write lyrics to accompany it, as when I listened to it, I found myself hearing where they would fit. Still, the overall quality and concise simplicity of this mix shines through, vocals or not. 8.8/10

The guy at the end says 'Gannon did it,' but it all runs together and sounds more like 'Ganno'd'it' so you really have to strain to hear it.

This is a song that just completely went under-the-radar for me. I was only browsing the site today when I stumbled upon it and realized I didn't recognize the name. This is easily the best Zeal remix out there. It isn't overdone, it isn't grinding, and it isn't melodramatic. What it is is highly emotional, but in a subtle way that doesn't cause you to weep openly when you listen to it. I guess the best way to describe it would be melancholy-- kind of like drifting memories of the once-glorious-yet-now-fallen Zeal Kingdom. That's the way I want to think of Zeal, and that is the element that this mix so perfectly captures.

I don't know about these other yutzes (esp. Protricity, who frankly sounds like he's crying because he aint this creative), but I loved it. It effectively captured the mood of the originally piece, while still being good and 'hammy' with the intro. I also think the sound quality was spot on. Overall, B+ performance. This makes my playlist, so keep 'em coming.

Honestly, I didn't care for this mix nearly as much as Sonicade's 'You Are Not Confined.' To me, Sonicade's effort had this raw, uncut feel that this track seems to lack. While this is a good piece, I am not 100% on whether or not it really does justice to the original song in the 'grinding rock' manner that the original track aimed at being. If you tear that badassness (yes, I am making up words now) out of the song, it kind of detracts from the whole feel. So in conclusion, it makes the playlist, but it's certainly not the greatest mix of this track that I've heard.

This is one of the better remixes I have on my playlist, and although it's been there for nearly half a year (these days so much of what is there is not yet on OCRemixes, a telling sign that perhaps the jury has grown a bit too voluptuous feeding on these tracks-- it's time to cut the fat from this process and get these songs through the grindery a bit faster), it's certainly one I enjoy listening to again and again. Both parts of the movement capture the true essence of the original tracks, while adding an element of what can only be described as 'spice' or 'flavoring' with the altered tones of more eastern intrumentation. So just to sum up; excellent song, but it should have been here a long, long time ago.

I agree with Pretzel that, while this mix only works on one level, it works on that single level very well. The drums are awesome. I'd like to add, though, that I often feel that, in their efforts to further individualize their work, that many artists' recent submissions to OCRemix have sometimes faltered in their focus. Many of these folks of late seem to forget that they are remixing rather than composing new music, and this is a key notation made all the more obvious by this particular remix which, if nothing else, definately holds true to its core.

I really, really like it, and the more I listen to it, the more I enjoy it. I agree with the above poster in that there need to be more SOA themes on this website... short of perhaps Chrono Trigger, this game had more great rythms than any other game I can remember playing. If I might make a suggestion for any would-be SOA remixers out there, check out Gilder's Theme. It's short, to the point, and quite subtle, but I also think it has great potential as the song could go so many directions with the right mixer at the helm. Check the MP3 out if you get a chance.