Gotzan Diener OGM is a quirky little album that is half arranged and acoustic guitar for a more laid back piece of music in places.
"Main theme" however has a very oriental flavour for it in terms of percussion, instrumentation and tune. It has some excellent little stand out touches and has beautiful streaming drum loops throughout and is a different but very pleasent experience.
"Princess Sorceress" starts off the guitar section. The tune and playing is very laid back, like a sunday morning stroll. Its very chilled although the tune isn't shockingly strong during the first half of the song, it does grow on you quickly and the middle section is funky.
"Sword of Fate" didnt grab me as a song at all. It uses a string synth from a keyboard in short stabs throughout the song (like a horror movie) and its awful! The song could have been twice as good without that, but the tune lacks stability and hook.
"Graveyard Labrynth" is a downbeat and darkened song that is thoughtfully played and slightly eerie because of its haunting use of a guitar in the background supporting the main tune. The other end of eerie is more manic and that's where "Rim~Goddess of Persistance" takes us for a screechy violin piece on top of eastern pop music madness with an organ going metal at every oppertunity. Each contrast the other but both are superb songs.
"Crystal Reef" returns to the guitar but with a sitar setting out the main tune in another dark and damp tune of moody excellence which reminds me of a seperated twin of Final Fantasy 8's "Find Your Way"! "Rebirth" starts off with a heartbeat before the song starts. A contrast of angelic harps and flutes set of against harsh synth noises to make a mean with a twist song before it builds up to a lovely climax like an orchestra.
That build up leads us to "Devil Temple" which i demonic enough with some mental freakout use of sound effects to twist and compact the instruments at points in the song to send the listener into a frenzy. Its very unique and it works very well in between all different climaxes that make this a real stand out piece!
The closing track "Misa" is returns to the oriental flavour set on the first song with a catchy number that wouldnt be out of place in something like Shenmue or Suikoden!
Gotzen Diener is an album that branches out in all different areas of music during its 9 songs. Almost all of them successfully capture whats great about video game music and so I must recommend this to everyone. Give it three lisens and I'm sure you'll share my sentiments!
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