Video Game Music: The Black Mages III: Darkness and Starlight

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April 5th, 2008 posted by Tom in Reviews

The Black Mages return with their third manic instrumental representation of classic Final Fantasy compositions.

Album Information

Title: The Black Mages III: Darkness and Starlight

Band: The Black Mages

Published by: Dog Ear Records

Tracklist

1. Opening ~ Bombing Mission 4:39
2. Neo EXDEATH 4:39
3. The Extreme 5:51
4. Assault of the Silver Dragons 5:01
5. KURAYAMINOKUMO 4:56
6. Distant Worlds 7:32
7. Premonition 5:23
8. Grand Cross 5:34
9. Darkness and Starlight 15:32
10. Life ~ in memory of KEITEN ~ 1:38

At first impression, Nobuo Uematsu’s progressive metal backing band performing classic Final Fantasy songs as revamped, chaotic shredfests may seem somewhat pretentious. However, if you keep in mind that the intention of this project isn’t necessarily to inject new life into the songs, but rather to turn some of the old, classical-meets-electronica styled compositions from the Final Fantasy games into something different and fresh, then it becomes a welcome novelty. This is the essence of The Black Mages, Uematsu’s side project of sorts.

Terrible cover artwork aside, the third album from The Black Mages is their least surprising work to date, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing - after all, there is only so much musical innovation that can be used when replicating already existing music, especially so with The Black Mages, a band unlikely to deviate from their current formula. This album has nothing similar to the ingeniously inventive blues rearrangement of “Matoya’s Cave” from The Black Mages II: The Skies Above, but it is a cohesive and strong effort nonetheless.

Their first two albums were dominated with fast-paced, aggressive themes, ideal for the transfer to electric guitars. The band is evidently very secure performing these songs, so this album is also unsurprisingly dominated by urgent sounding compositions. For example, the all too familiar opening from Final Fantasy VII (Opening ~ Bombing Mission) and the underrated yet excellent final boss theme from Final Fantasy IX (Grand Cross) both make welcome additions to the collection, though there is nothing new to listen to here.

However, the defining track of this album is far from a metal battle theme. Darkness and Starlight, a grandiose 15 and a half minute extended reconstruction of the opera from Final Fantasy VI features dramatic choral and opera singing, startling majestic grace and fulfilling crescendos. This song alone is a clear display of The Black Mages’ capability to perform anything from Uematsu’s fan-sanctioned back catalogue, while adding the right amount of flair to it, making it more than a carbon copy with added guitars. It is a shame, therefore, that much of the album is dominated by work which could easily have been released on either of the first two albums.

To conclude the album, an original piano piece called “LIFE” follows, and while it is reminiscent of some popular piano themes from the games, and is a beautiful, easy-listening song, it is completely out of place on this record. It is, however, difficult to criticise the decision to include this upon reading the story of the song.

Despite this, the album is possibly their most thematic and impressive work to date, though unfortunately by now the appeal of rocked out Final Fantasy songs isn’t quite as strong as it was upon the release of the first two albums, but the time gap of four years since The Black Mages II: The Skies Above may attribute to that. Despite the idea being somewhat gimmicky and dated now, this is worthy of sitting in the collections of rock / metal enthusiasts as well as Final Fantasy fans - this is more than a collector’s item.

Rating: 7.0