Bloodborne "Fight or Flight" 3:20

TheManPF's here to trigger our acute stress responses with Bloodborne symphonic metal! I knew I never liked him, but a couple of other mean folks joined him to scare us!

• Arrangement, sequencing, mix, and electric guitar by TheManPF
• Bass by Zach Chapman
• Violin and cello by Shea's Violin

Maybe they're not mean, maybe TheManPF coerced them! I've talked to both Zach and Shea on Discord, and they're perfectly nice, yet the all-corrupting dark cloud of TheManPF must have influenced them. (It's the only thing that makes sense!) Let's see how TheMan explains himself within the backdrop of arranging this Velasco tabasco (read: fire!) source tune:

"This arrangement was originally released through Dwelling of Duels in October 2024, in a competition where it came 7th place out of 26 total tracks.

Coming in hot from DoD's Aliens Month, did you know there are aliens in Bloodborne? Apparently, a lot of people didn't. Anyway, I've been wanting to cover this game for a long time, and Amygdala has always had one of the most badass themes in my opinion, and had it stuck in my head pretty much all year, so when this month came, I went "Aaahhh, screw it, I'm just gonna do it and see what comes out".

I'm going a bit back to my roots with this one, this is straight-up symphonic metal, it's the genre I've done the most and I feel most comfortable in, and it's from a Fromsoft game also, of which I have had toooons of covers done in this same style for YouTube a few years ago. It's been a while since I've done one of these and I think I improved my sound a lot since then, so I was interested in seeing how one of these would come out now.

Zach is bringing in the fat end, as always. You know he has to be here, he just has to, he's pretty much my other half now. He's also another massive sucker for Bloodborne and everything Fromsoft.

Shea helped me in this one ripping some SUPERFAST violin and cello lines. This is a very orchestral and horror-y track that needs those Psycho-strings to really work, so I'm glad she managed to pull it off.

I did guitars and etc.

Happy Halloween 2025, if this passes."

Halloween, you say? Why hold it until then, when we can line it up with Doom, and one other spooky-ooky game coming up next... muhahaha! Maybe I'm the one being corrupted, you never know! Judge prophetik music's more on the light side of the ledger, yet even he was captivated by the dark drama on display:

"opens with some big stabs and a bit orchestral crescendo. lots of shea right off the bat. i really like the more traditional-sounding tone that shea takes in here, lots of bow noise and portamento. 0:32 is where it takes off with the whole band sound. [...] there's a lot going on! i appreciate that this is symphonic metal and not symphonic rock - there's some pretty intense drum work and rhythmic orchestral/guitar elements. the riff at 0:47 is great.

there's a few stabs at 1:22 and a short flourish in the keys, and then we get into mixed meter time as only TheManPF does regularly. i think the mixed meter really helps keep it feeling like it's a shanty or something, there's a lot of added intensity just by making it not quite what you expect. theme's back at 2:07 with some crushing guitar work to help support it. 2:26's melodic representation in the bass instruments is a nice change too, and makes the subsequent guitar lead much more heroic. [...] a big sfx hit and a few more orchestral stabs, and it's done.

overall the sound is *slammed*, but i honestly found the noisy, aggressive, brash mastering to be fitting given the approach. there's a lot down low and it does sound a bit muddy in some places where the orchestra, guitar chugs, bass, and kick are all fighting for screen time, but for the most part TheManPF does a great job keeping this listenable while still maintaining a raw edge to the track. excellent work. this is a ton of fun to listen to."

Love the overall forcefulness here, and so did then-judge Flexstyle, who said "This hits all the right notes. [...] Great instrumentation, good rhythm section, metal horns for days." This sounds like an epic arranged version for a New Game+ battle for where the difficulty's been ramped WAY up! Great pressure-cookin', tension-ridden energy from TheMan, Zach & Shea. :-) It's grandiose and epic for sure! \m/