And now, something a little different.

I return! From a week's holiday on the Jurassic Coast. And I return with an urge to try something a little different. Not too different though, this is a games blog after all, although this post will perhaps stretch the definition a little. Outside of playing games all the time, I'm a big music fan, and I'm beginning to find myself owning a couple of videogame OSTs. Before I started the blog, I'd always wanted to try writing an album review, and here I find myself with an opportunity.

I'm a big fan of Bastion. Its beautiful art style, story, soundtrack and narrator come together to create a game with a unique bluesy atmosphere. An atmosphere that manages to overcome the title's slightly repetitive dungeon crawler gameplay. It's a game that it's just enjoyable to spend time with, whilst you have a story told to you by a man with a voice so smooth, it feels like he's having sex with your ears while wearing a condom made of the finest blue velvet.

The greatest contribution to the feel of Bastion is made by its unique soundtrack. I liked it so much that I asked for the album for Christmas.

Open the beautifully adorned case and slide the CD out of its sleeve, into the stereo and touch Play. The CD spins up and the hollow sound of someone playing the blues on an acoustic guitar in the background spills from the speakers. After a couple of chords, you are greeted by the honeyed tones of Logan Cunninghan as Rucks on Get Used To It. He delivers a short monologue on how 'the folks of Caelondia could really carry a tune' then the strumming drops away and the track cuts to the breathless minute and a bit of strumming, hammer-ons and pull-offs of A Proper Story.

If Get Used To It and A Proper Story serve as the introduction to the album, it is the third track, In Case of Trouble that really sets the tone of the rest of the disc. It begins with a lone guitar playing a mellowed variation of a prominent guitar lick from the previous track. The song begins to build as the sound of a Cello swells in to accompany the guitar, and before you know it, composer Darren Korb has layered in strings and a complex yet sympathetically programmed beat that sounds for everything like it was pounded out on wood blocks.

That wood block beat is an early pointer at the instrumental range of this album. Either Korb is an outrageously talented multi instrumentalist, or he is a fabulously talented synth programmer. I suspect it's actually a combination of both, and while the core of most of the songs is based around guitar, the sheer number of other instruments in use, as well as the various guitar effects and tunings, merits comment. There are hazy opium den sitars over a reverb drenched blues lead, backed by something that sounds for everything like a harpsichord on The Sole Regret. On Slinger's Song a banjo played with a slide teases out a riff over a spaghetti western guitar accompaniment and subtle pulsing bass. Elsewhere, there are furiously played strings, Indian tabla drums, wailing overdriven guitars and something that sounds suspiciously like a harp. And that's just for starters. There are all manner of sounds on here from instruments I couldn't hope to name. It's hard to believe this is all the work of one man recording in his flat.

I would go as far to say that it is this sheer sonic diversity is what makes this album a compelling listen in its own right, not just as a good videogame OST. It's endlessly interesting.

 

Of course, any discussion of the Bastion OST wouldn't be complete without mention of it's twin centrepieces, Build That Wall and Mother, I'm here. A pair of ballads as stripped back as it is possible to be, just a lone voice and a guitar. They are sung from the perspective of two characters in the game, one, a folk song about the differences between the two peoples of Caelondia, the other, the voice of an outcast yearning to return home. The two songs are beautiful, and as good as anything by any mainstream artist.

 

One final mention goes to The Pantheon, a good old fashioned blues number with Logan Cunningham's buttery voiced Rucks on lead vocals. It's a fantastically strong way to close out the album, with Rucks sounding almost like a gravellier Chris Rea.

 

I love this album, and would heartily recommend it to any music fan be they gamer or no. Every track has something different to offer and you notice more and more with repeated listens. Buy the game, play it through and soak in its world. Then buy the album and let its sounds take you back there.

 

Three thumbs up.