Customer Reviews

Elf-Titled

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you don't already know what the Advantage do, one look at the record cover and the song titles should pretty much spell it out for you: they cover 8-bit Nintendo songs. Mostly with only 2 guitars, a bass, and drums (exclusively with those on the first album). This disc features slightly more obscure games than the first album (Solar Jetman and Guardian Legend vs. Mario 2 and Zelda on the first record), but some are arguably more rewarding than the more easily recognizable tunes. I forgot just how awsome the music for the first level in Batman was. The Ducktales moon theme is incredible, as is just about any piece of music from Mega Man 2 (greatest game soundtrack ever? Certainly on the NES, I'd say).
Even if you didn't play the games and don't get the instant nostalgia kick the more memorable tunes give you, the songs are still worth listening to for two big reasons:

1) These songs were composed to be looped endlessly without getting annoying, so this is some high quality, complicated melodic music condensed into a minute or two.

2) The musicianship is incredible. All of the string work is ridiculously complex and precise, while Spencer Seim of Hella gives his guitar virtuosity a break and plays drums, which is really the secret weapon of the Advantage. Most NES games only had enough memory to allow the melody and harmony for their music, remaining completely bereft of any kind of rhythmic elements. Seim, however, tears it up; the drumming oftentimes becomes the most propulsive element of a song.

If you're a fan of NES games and/or post-/math-/whatever-rock, then you should definitely check out the Advantage.

I think arguably it is. The CastleVania & Contra songs they picked are pretty much the best ever released in the series, and the music for Megaman games were always well put together. And even you haven't heard the music before (never own or played Wizards and Warriors) the songs all seems to stand much better on their own than the song selected for the 1st album. Fans of Castlevania/Megaman/Double Dragon should pick this up.

Being a fan of both Generic and The Advantage, I can say I was not disappointed with the new release. The production quality is way up on this second cd too. Highly recommended to anyone that is into the video game music genre and likes straight covers.

I never had a whole lot of time with the 8-bit generation, but I know how great Mega Man, Super Mario Bros., and Contra are. The music to these games are more memorable than anything today (maybe because they repeated to infinity). While the titles on this album are much more obscure, they still sound just as great as any Super Mario Bros. theme. And really, you don't need to have even played the games in order to appreciate the covers present here. To the untrained ears this sounds like a great indie rock band, but you do get a sort of feeling hearing a song from your childhood.

So, in short, while the titles on the last album were more varied, this CD is no sloppy sophomore (or however that expression goes).

Anyone who has played just about any of the games showcased in the tracklist knows the music in these games was sensational, and given the fact that the music was produced by the NES soundchip is even more remarkable. So for someone to come along and recreate these renditions with full, genuine instrumentation seems like a splendid proposition. And it is, by the dozens of other people who actually know what they're doing. The Advantage's self-titled album was mediocre, because while not necessarily flawed it was simply a pedestrian effort in which they added nothing to the original composition (and I'd still rather listen to the original anyway). This time around they actually seemed to have gone out of their way to ruin all of the songs they are attempting to arrange by having dominant, horrible drumming that drowns out the original melody. Every song sounds like someone is banging on a garbage can lid every couple of seconds. It's unforgiveable and unlistenable. Make no mistake, their original CD had drumming as well but it actually flowed with the songs. Due to the fact that the guitarists are usually playing the right notes, however, I gave the CD a "2". Still, even without the horrendous drumming this would be a rather uninspired effort. If you've never heard a game music cover band before, you might be able to find some enjoyment out of this CD, otherwise stick to good cover bands (minibosses, OneUps, and Chromeloden) or better yet import albums like the Konami Battle CDs to see how this type of music is supposed to be done.