Undertale "Death by Hammer (Mettaton vs. Smithy)" 4:49

Toby Fox dropped Chapters 3 & 4 of Deltarune this month, so let's celebrate by scrambling the letters and rolling out a bouncy, beat-driven undertaking of Undertale's music! minusworld tagged in some of DoD's heaviest hitters for this track also integrating Super Mario RPG!

"The squad:

• * minusworld - guitars, bass, drumkit programming, arrangement, production
• * Logan "Biggoron" Tucker - organ, synth/keys; solos at 2:31, 2:58, 3:58
• * Joe "newmajoe" Newman - alto saxophone, bari saxophone, auxiliary percussion, additional saxophone arrangement; solos at 3:18, 3:44, 3:58"

minusworld's mashup was a fun fusion of several styles, resulting in a big boss blending of Mettaton & Smithy:

"My entry from Franchise Fusion Month at Dwelling of Duels in June 2024. I was originally going to take a break from this competition because none of my fusion ideas really jumped out at me... until I was on an 11-hour drive without an audiobook to listen to. Left alone with my own thoughts (scary!), I had a revelation: I noticed "Death by Glamour" and "Fight Against Smithy" both used orchestra hits as a pseudo-melody and had basslines that would mesh well together. The part I kept hearing in my head ended up being 1:26-1:39 in this track.

This kind of music isn't my bread and butter; I knew I would need Biggoron's help, at a minimum. Even though it was the middle of the month and halfway through the competition, I reached out and surprisingly, he was willing! Biggoron suggested I contact newmajoe, who also came aboard! Biggoron and newmajoe are DoD's dance and funk legends and often come as a pair, so, much to my surprise, I was able to work with them both for the first time on this track. They were both awesome to work with (and just, in general, awesome) and added a ton to the arrangement. Joe did extra auxiliary percussion that I never planned for, and arranged all the bari lines as well as additional alto lines. He threw like 200% at this and it's better for it! Thanks again, Joe!

A cleverer arranger than me (or one without twin toddlers ':-B) might have been able to weave the themes together in a more natural way, like jnWake's "Ambience of the Forest" from the same DoD month. I am neither, so, to sketch an arrangement quickly, I decided to make the arrangement a "versus", where one theme is featured, then the second, and finally a solo battle into a conclusion.

In practice, this ended up being "Mettaton" with "Smithy" cameos, "Smithy" with "Mettaton" cameos, and then an all-out brawl until the end. :) I had to draw on the "Armed Boss" theme as well, since "Smithy" itself doesn't have much melodic content. Though simple, I'm happy with the arrangement outcome because I feel it celebrates these beloved VGM OSTs without straying too far from their identity. [...]

Anyway, I hope you enjoy our take on these treasured VGM tunes!"

The full arrangement breakdown's included in the MP3 comments, so swing by there for minusworld's complete lay of the land. Judge prophetik music praised minus and his pair of musical compadres in his rollercoaster play-by-play:

"opens with an organ flourish that goes immediately into a funky, piano-driven beat around mettaton's intro. the melodic stuff from mettaton is in by 0:20. it's a little helter-skelter because the lead instrument is similar in timbre to the sax part, but once i got my head around it, it sounded hectic and fun. bass here is [...] doing cool stuff. 0:46 is the B theme and it's a feel change after the opening section was all over the place - more focused. there's another shift at 1:13 and we get joe slaying it on the sax - tone fits this genre so well!

there's some transitional elements and then smithy's here. bari also sounds great here. there's some comps in the saxes and then we get a synth cameo with some very familiar descending scalar work, followed by some actual solos. 3:24's sax lick is actually insane and i love it. sorry, minus, but mettaton wins this one. there's some more dueling despite us knowing who wins in the end, and then a mettaton recap. there's one more repetition of the groove and then it's done on a few hits.

what a ride! this is a banger from start to finish, at no point was i feeling like something got stale. for the time frame you described, this is superb work."

Fellow judge and DoD stalwart jnWake offered his own play-by-play, with this synth-featuring favorite (a bronze medal for its duel month prior to its further sprucing up here!) also tickling Wake's fancy:

"Definitely remember this banger from DoD! [...] this begins with an organ duet doing the melody from the intro of Smithy's theme but we quickly shift to Death by Glamour. There's a surprising amount of stuff crammed in here between Tuck's synth lines, guitar lines on the left ear and sax lines on the right one. Even Armed Boss sneaks in on distorted guitar at some points! I love the percussion work, you can tell Tuck's influence on the track! At 0:43 we move to a different section from Glamour. Synth work here is awesome with a synth bass, orchestra hits and, of course, a synth lead, which all sound great. [...] Around 1:00 the instruments start playing lines from Armed Boss in a very seamless transition between sources. At 1:12 we get the iconic Glamour transition into an epic sax lead. [...] We keep covering Glamour material until 1:39, where we have a very sudden transition into Smithy, repeating the intro line on sax. This leads into a more standard cover of Smithy, with (once again) awesome synth work. At 2:11 we move into the second section of Smithy, but there's some Glamour quotes on top that fit surprisingly well. 2:24 features those weird neoclassical licks from Smithy on a fun guitar/organ duet. Track then keeps using the Smithy bass but starts layering more Glamour lines on top. At 3:05 there's a somewhat abrupt transition to a guitar solo over Armed Boss' backing. On 3:18 it's turn for the sax solo over a Glamour backing. Solo duel features a second round of guitar/sax and then at 3:58 there's another duel involving all 3 performers. This lasts until 4:13, where we repeat the Glamour melody from 1:12. After that comes the finale, which features the intro lick from Glamour with some Smithy lines on top. There's tension created by some dope sax harmonies and then the song ends.

On the arrangement side this is fantastic, a really fun "versus" arrangement with both themes sharing the spotlight. Although the structure tends to shift from one source to the other there's more weaving of the themes than your write-up suggests (although I appreciate the compliment hehe). No question about source usage here, both themes are very clearly present, with Glamour being arguably the main one. [...]

On production this is also solid. Percussion is punchy and the synth work is phenomenal. [...]

Overall, awesome track! Great arrangement, great performances and great production. Definitely deserves a spot on the front page!"

The saxes handling the Mettaton theme at 2:51 were my favorite part; pretty much all the newmajoe stuff was hitting hard with great musicianship, and of course for all 3 artists you can say the same thing regarding their insane performance skills. Anything where the themes were being doubled sounded incredibly fun. Strong sound choices and infectious energy throughout by this titanic trio of technique, minusworld, Biggoron & newmajoe! Since Toby Fox worked on Smash Ultimate, I'd love to hear an Undertale/Ultimate combo arrangement from this group one of these days. As evidenced here, when two VGM tracks comfortably go together like peanut butter & jelly, we're ALL eating good! :-D