ReMix:Seiken Densetsu 3 "Gate Total Peril" 4:46

This is one of the most genuinely frightening ReMixes I've heard in my entire time running the site. From Seiken Densetsu 3: Songs of Light and Darkness comes a three-way collab (Usa, TheDeath, Jackson Lawhead) that's the stuff of nightmares: rabid, brutal metal laced with sinister microtonal gamelan work & a maliciously cacophonous electric guitar solo? I didn't necessarily expect such an aesthetic from the album, but this lands solidly on the "darkness" side of the problematically-labeled moral spectrum... it's evil, and it knows it's evil, and it rather relishes being as such. In a musical and real-world innocuous way, of course. Album director Rozovian writes:

"The source might be the most epic fight music on the soundtrack, and it's given a hard rock treatment here. This was one of the last tracks to be finished for the album. It's got Usa, who co-founded the project and mastered the album, and it's got Meteo's brother on guitar and TheDeath on orchestral parts. It's full of cool details. The guitar melodies, bass lead-ins, creepy breaks, the buildups, the sound design... it's an amazing track. But the best part, for me at least, is when the bass first comes in. It's this wonderful foreshadowing for the rest of the track.

It's got all the epic flavor of a final boss battle, so here it is. Welcome to the end.

This remix was submitted without a title, so I named it something fitting the pattern of the source."

It *is* an amazing track; if this is a boss battle, though, it's one where you don't stand a chance. I don't hear "clash of protagonist/antagonist" so much as a "omfg this antagonist is going to destroy you" vibe. The odds are NOT ever in your favor, so to speak. Usa (Daniel Lippert) did a fantastic job mastering the entire album as well as helming this arrangement:

"This one was a three-way collab including Jackson on guitar and TheDeath for the orchestral parts of this track. I did the synths, drumming work, gamelan orchestra, bass, and percussion on this, as well as the mixing."

A job well done, by all involved; spoiler alert, but the guitar shriek at 3'41" is one of my favorite moments in a mix, period. If you need some blood curdled or hairs whitened, that's your moment of Zen right there. If this mix were an informercial the product would be "Absolute DESOLATION and Abject TERROR: Now with Gamelan!!" - and I'd buy that product, yes I would. Brutal, unapologetic, malevolently imaginative, and quite a ride - kudos to Daniel, Javier, & Jackson for an absolute highlight of the album!