CEONSS

On the road again?
Got some time?

Then this song is just perfect:



Like some youtubers said:

Miauz,
as for maps taste, we both probably are pretty far apart from each other
But we seem to like the same music
So this great one is just for you and me:

And btw Nick,

-Nick- wrote: ↑Tue 5. Jul 2016, 22:15 When talking to a fellow sabbath fan and they ask me 'What's your favourite song, or one which you will never get tired of' i always say this one. Most fans tend to choose a song from the ozzy era, cause that's the 'best'.

it's true: Ozzy simply is irreplaceable
Gonna see him live next February, I'm quite impatient

Sabbath!!

laboRHEinz wrote: ↑Sat 21. Sep 2019, 01:45 Gonna see him live next February,

He really doesn't dissapoint. I still can't get over missing sabbaths last gig together in Birmingham. Hoping they do a one off gig, would love to see them again.

My favourite song of there last album, 13.

laboRHEinz wrote: ↑Sat 21. Sep 2019, 01:45 Miauz,
as for maps taste, we both probably are pretty far apart from each other
But we seem to like the same music
[...]

I think the same in both points.

-Nick- wrote: ↑Mon 23. Sep 2019, 13:52 Sabbath!!
My favourite song of there last album, 13.

Loner, really great one
'13' was a masterpiece anyway, every single song!

-Nick- wrote: ↑Mon 23. Sep 2019, 13:52I still can't get over missing sabbaths last gig together in Birmingham. Hoping they do a one off gig, would love to see them again.

same here!!!
I even never saw them live, always missed their gigs for various shitty reasons (<-- I really want the puking smiley back, cause no other one would fit better right here!)
I still absolutely want to see Sabbath live at least for once in my life!

Fortunately, there seems to be a slight chance:
https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/tony- ... ery-short/
perhaps in 2022 at the Commonwealth Games:
https://www.iheart.com/content/2018-06- ... till-here/
if so, I definitely would be there!

This fit well the upcoming Halloween party

Well, we've made it to the peak of 2019's spooky season, and this year also happens to mark the 30th anniversary of the game franchise most associated with otherworldly, evil abominations and the banishing thereof - Castlevania! So let's talk about some good CV music and, specifically, metal arrangements of it.
Remember some 25-30 years ago, when Konami wasn't the sad joke that many consider it to be these days, but a respected developer/publisher, known to deliver great games across a number of franchises - Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, licensed titles like TMNT, to name a few from my childhood - whose dynamic and thrilling background music would often become as beloved as their finely-polished gameplay?
Well, central to this stellar track record that lasted for over a decade was the Konami Kukeiha Club (meaning the "square wave club"), the dev's in-house sound production staff, and its culture as a group. Besides tackling the challenge of creating complex n' memorable tracks within the various consoles' constrictive processing and storage limitations, the KKC's composers and musicians would usually also be celebrating their craft and favourite tracks by regularly releasing arranged versions of that music; and this culture has been their hallmark for decades. Various subgroups among the KKC would occasionally also form, jam out or collab during their off hours, leading to offshoot projects with their own album releases centered around specific games or music genres.

One such case was the Naoto Shibata Project, a dozen-member studio band headed by Konami's resident bass guitarist of the same name, that across 5 "Perfect Selection" albums in the 90s (and some Best of compilations later on), composed n' performed dozens of hard-rock/metal arrangements from their games' fan-favourite source material. Among them, there were two DRACULA BATTLE albums that focused exclusively on Castlevania tunes, but, IMO, the first one, 1994's "Perfect Selection: Dracula Battle", managed to deliver brilliant quality across almost all its tracks. Take a listen through a few of 'em below to see what I mean.

Castlevania II, Belmont's Revenge (GameBoy) - Ripe Seeds
Played the first GameBoy CV when I was a toddler, found its music pretty captivating. I was only ever able to experience the sequel in my mid-20s via PC emulation, and I found its soundtrack tonally much more energetic (upbeat even?) but just as interesting.



Castlevania Dracula X - Rondo of Blood (TurboGrafx-16/TurboGrafx-CD) - Cross a Fear
Never got a hold of this one - haven't even watched a playthrough of it, come to think of it - but just listen to those riffs!


Castlevania (NES) - Vampire Killer
Anyone who's ever shopped for CV remixes knows how well-covered this track is. Slower tempo'd arrangement here, but everything comes through clear n' crisp and the original, connective parts make perfect sense.


Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (NES) - Beginning
First track in the album, and not only did it need to honour an eminently memorable CV3 tune, it also needed to do justice by the musical dark magic Konami pulled for CV3's Japanese release back in '89, embedding a VRC6 co-processor chip in each cartridge (for a freaking NES game!) to allow more room for two extra sound channels, making for a mind-blowing audio experience at the time. (NA/EU markets only ever got the vanilla, 4-channel version, sadly.) Even more riffing to enjoy here.


Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES) - Bloody Tears
You always close strong, and that means you always close CV playlists with CV2! No CV track more popular than Bloody Tears, and this arrangement's as good as it gets. I happen to have some personal history with this track, seeing how I came across it on some guy's VGM remixes & misc. stuff FTP subfolder way back in 2008ish, simply named "Bloody Tears Rock Remix 2", and that's how I grabbed it, kept it (or slightly renamed it), knew it as and played it endlessly for seven freaking years! No Shazam back then, you see. Then in ~2015, I came across some random YT video that contained another track from this album that also happened to sound brilliantly similar, and, thankfully, the source was listed.
After more than a decade's worth of experience in listening to & collecting VGM remixes, I'd finally found a copy of the Dracula Battle album, went through the entire thing, and easily proclaimed this track the best damn Bloody Tears arrangement anyone's ever made. Enjoy these 3min50secs of pure (ba)roque bliss - I wish I was as lucky to be hearing it for the first time again as some of you .



My only criticism of those folks' work is that they rarely delved into the source material of Super Castlevania IV, but that's alright. After a couple o' decades of only giving it sparse n' piecemeal attention, the remixing community finally came up with the right remedy and gave CV4 the love it deserved a few years ago. Perhaps I'll get into that next year. Hope everyone had a nice Halloween !

What an album