A while back, I wrote an article on Blake Robinson and his Symphonic Orchestra albums. Specifically, I had issues with the branding of his albums; that of “symphonic.” You can read the article HERE. I felt that his albums played on people expectations of orchestral game music and capitalized on its popularity. All his albums include orchestral instruments and the word symphony on their covers, which lead you to the impression that this is orchestral music. Considering that all the albums use samples, Blake does use the term “synthetic orchestra,” I find the premise of his music to be, at best, troubling, and at worst, outright deception. However, this is not to say that I haven’t found enjoyment in his full orchestrations of Chrono Trigger and Banjo Kazooie, although, they are overly long. I have also never played a Metroid game and there are few orchestrations out there to listen to, a track here and there. So; I am very curious about this album and how it will measure up, in terms of quality, with Blake’s other albums, with the original compositions by Kenji Yamamoto, and whether re-creating the entire soundtrack actually works. Find out what I think after the jump.
