ReMix:Half-Life 2 "Portal Storm" 6:04

Wow. After a quiet 2017 & 2018, Redg (Brent Wollman) hits us with his heaviest, most accessible mix to date, embedding his signature sound design tricks into a badass metal take on Half-Life 2's "LG Orbifold" theme:

"Some cool leads and solid production. This was one of the first tracks I sat down with and really focused on the mix. I spent a stupid amount of time tweaking this thing trying to learn the secrets of \M/ production. I think it probably makes the cut."

I think the judges had an easier time grokking & approving this mix than Brent's more avant-garde/experimental pieces, and I'm guessing he'll find some new ears with it as well, as the presiding aesthetic is a relatably aggressive & dark metal cut. In-game vox/fx are sprinkled about, mostly in the intro, and he still works in some slick psychoacoustic warps & transitions, but the bones are more familiar and orthodox than many of his previous arrangements. It's a good look, and it gives his sonic attention to detail & knack for twisted, tortured, metallic textures a more familiar context. Gario writes:

"To be honest, I think this a a great arrangement for such a limited source, and the production values are really good, to boot (some great use of stereo seperation throughout, making the track sound very full). The performances are great, and the SFX are well used."

Sir_NutS hits all the highlights:

"Damn, this song has a perfect buildup to some face-melting goodness at 0:56. I wasn't expecting this going in that hard but I was pretty happy it did. There's an ample expansion of the original source here, and I'm honestly impressed that you managed to make such a long track and it never gets into repetition or staleness issues. The soloing is intense, and I loved that ending. Production is clean and full, the drums are punchy and each instrument has their own space to fill."

What he said. Just to be clear, I'm a big fan of Redg's more difficult, less traditional material as well, but I think he strikes a nice balance here which maintains his sound design strengths but pairs them with genre-forward structure & flow. Great stuff, takes you for a ride, and creatively extends the source into a brutal maelstrom of metallic mayhem!