ReMix:Mega Man ZX "The Chill of the Rain" 3:51

Hearing Mega Man ZX's "Misty Rain", it's very apparent how the melody could work well for a vocal arrangement, so make way for Cyril the Wolf & his sister EsperPhoenix as Vent & Prarie for their pensive MMZX rock duet! Cyril took a long while to get focused for this one, but when the time came to finally make things happen, he looked to family:

"I'm back on my Mega Man lyrical nonsense. Another track from Mega Man ZX that took way too long. It took me a bit to get my head around this soundtrack. After experiencing some intense burnout following COVID-19 and the release of two albums in 2019, this took probably 18 months to work on and release. As always - the lyrics tell the story of the game, but trying to pull back the shiny cartoon veneer to add even more pathos. In this case, I was able to enlist some help from my sister, EsperPhoenix, to help me finish this on the second voice (Prairie) after several vocalists gave up on me (understandably) due to the timeline in which this took to complete. Overall, it's helped me rediscover aspects of sound design, mixing, production, and performing that I probably would not have overcome. Even submitting here, the song has been on my YouTube for almost 3 years... I'm finally happy to have this out. After a lot of life changes, it feels good to finally have something else out. I hope to pick up speed with this.

The story has a nice bit of meat to work with lyrically though, so enjoy this. The story is very plain in the lyrics (and very anime) - young kid (Vent) gets drafted into a war. Prarie (the rebel commander... sort of, it's actually slightly more complicated, but deal with it) is asking why this kind of awfulness happens over and over again, and Vent is asking himself if he's even worthy to be any kind of champion when he has tragedy from long ago. I tend to play as Aile, but, obviously, it was easier for me to write it as if I were playing the part of Vent (even though I don't have nearly the boyish voice one would expect). I tried a lot of new things with this from how I sang the vocals (handheld SM58!!!) to reverb tricks and mixing techniques... also recorded acoustic for it, which is a pain.

There's a couple interesting things about this that get me every time I listen - and one of them at 3:14 is purely accidental... apparently, when you sing with a sibling, you can create some extra overtones that sound like a phantom 3rd vocalist. Every time I heard it, I looked through the entire list of recorded tracks and could never find this third higher harmony that randomly appears there and throughout the rest of the tune.

Just adding more Mega Man vocalizations to this archive, hope y'all don't mind."

When you need to emote on the conflict and despair of these dystopian Mega Man plots, vocalize away, we need the outlet! With the X over Zero: Mega Man Metal album already under his belt (including a previous collab with EsperPhoenix), Cyril's super-familiar with lyrical Rockman rock arrangements, having already made tributes to the main, X, and Zero series before finally arriving to ZX. :-) The judges noted some instrument balance and pitch issues that would have been nice to tweak, yet were unanimously on board with the ambitious premise and strong instrumentation, including prophetik music:

"opens with acoustic and vocals. [...] the vibrato on the first sustain is beautiful. drums and pads come in at 0:15 and it's kind of a lower vibe here. it builds into 0:33 where the vocals come in for the first time. vocals are obviously low but sound great. [...]

vent's entry is as expected. [...] as usual cyril's tone is super dope (the first two lines are very nice). [...] there's a bit of a break right after it with some great bass work, and it builds up into a solo section. [...]

the last two lines of the combined section before the refrain (and the demons/but they wither) are probably my favorite part of the track. the track ends suddenly after the unison refrain.

[...] the band sound overall is great and the track overall has some great highs and a good shape. when the track works, it works really well."

Judge Hemo was down with the emo as well; like me, Hemophiliac hadn't heard this source tune before. You can count us as early entrants in the lineup of many others who'll eventually have Cyril & Esper's rock refrain introduce them to the catchiness of this Mega Man ZX theme:

"Oh wow, this source is lovely. I haven't heard anything from Mega Man ZX before, so this is a nice surprise. [...]

Guitar and bass are fantastic, and are mixed perfectly with each other. [...] The source is well represented and has plenty of the Cyril funky bass I expect. Very cool."

Judge Chimpazilla mentioned that, though "the arrangement is really good", this ended cold, but that's the chill of the rain getting her, as there's nothing inherently wrong with a(n intentional) quick conclusion. ;-D Sudden endings just mean we hit the play button again. Loop Cyril and Esper's singing sibling strength over & over again and never lose hope in the fight against the oppressors!