New 'The Black Mages' Album!!

[postalblowfish7]

The Black Mages are releasing a new album!! For those not in the know, The Black Mages is a sometimes amazing, sometimes corny overproduced prog-metal band the plays music from all Final Fantasy games in new 'rockin' ways. And of course they're legitimized by having Nobuo Uematsu not only be the man in charge, but the man on the boards as well! The big center piece of this album will be a 15 minute long rock/opera version of "Maria and Draco," the full blown opera from FFVI. I, personally, am most excited for "Distant Worlds" from FFXI - the song already had cheesy synth guitar, it sounds right proper with RL cheesy guitar lol.

Click here for a video digest of all the tracks.

Click here to visit the official website.

[kilo]

Oh my god, this is the best news I've heard in a while! Nice find. I absolutely love their first two albums. I hope they keep making these for a long time.

PS check out what Nobuo wrote about the track 'LIFE'. Deep!

In this album, there is a track which wasn't used in the videogame of FINAL FANTASY.
It is "LIFE" which is included as track#10.

About 8 years ago, I met a boy named "Yoshitaka Tagawa" who was 15 years old then. Yoshitaka(who is the big big fan of FINAL FANTASY) got acute myeloid leukemia from his childhood, and it was difficult for his doctor to expect how long he could live. I wish him to get better and presented him the song "LIFE". After I presented him that song, he started to participate in a lot of events of mine from far Kyushu with his mother. When I first met him, he seemed to lack energy, but while meeting him for a several time, he got energetic and smiled a lot. In fact, I met him at "PRESS START CONCERT" last year, and he was full of vigor. Everybody around him was thinking confidently that he is getting better, but on Jan.25th 2008, He suddenly passed away. I was really sad and was full of regret. I thought that the delightful things must have waited for him in his future. But no one can predict what's going to happen, he passed away.

Is Life unequal? No, I don't want to think like that. I expect Life to be fair and each of us has a equal role in their life. We also want you to know the meaning of his 22years life and decided to include "LIFE" in this album.

How hard the life is if someone whom you love or someone who is important to you passed away suddenly. If I had known this would happen, I would have given him more opportunity to have fun, and I would have invited him to the recordings and the concerts more. But after the sad thing happened, It's too late even if I thought so. If you have a family, friends, girl friend or boy friend whom you love, please send them your love and express your hearty thanks to them as much as you can at this moment. Yoshitaka let me know about the importance of it through his own experience.

Thank you, Yoshitaka. Rest in peace.
I'll always remember you with your wonderful smile.

Nobuo Uematsu

Edit: I just got the album! Listening to it as we speak. So far so good~

[Sean]

Requisitioning this as I type.

I really enjoyed the first 2, though it had it's moments where Nobuo would pull out an organ solo and totally ruin the song in my opinion, (a la Matoya's Cave)

Pretty excited to hear they made another album.

Che: That little tidbit you quoted was really awesome. The more I read about him, the more I respect Nobuo as a person instead of just a composer.


Edit: I liked Life. >.>; I tend to get lost a lot in listening to a lot of the Final Fantasy Piano Collection albums, though. Nobuo's piano music is great. Listening to Darkness and Starlight now as I go lay down, I'll leave the album on repeat whilst I sleep. <.<;

[bosola]

*fan-girl squee* The Black Mages?! Their OTT riffs and sometimes silly renditions of otherwise heartfelt songs (such as their absolutely fantastic 'The Skies Above' ) feel so close to heart:

Orchestral + slightly 80s rock music + japan-o-weirdness = me in musical form.

In short, I cannot wait.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by bosola

*fan-girl squee* The Black Mages?! Their OTT riffs and sometimes silly renditions of otherwise heartfelt songs (such as their absolutely fantastic 'The Skies Above' ) feel so close to heart:

Orchestral + slightly 80s rock music + japan-o-weirdness = me in musical form.

In short, I cannot wait.

fyi it's already out.

S and I were discussing it last night, and after I listened to it a couple more times through, there's nothing that really grabs me as "outstanding" not even the rock opera was all that great. The remix of Opening from FFVII was my favorite song on the album.

I still think their best work was done on the first album. I also can't understand why they would remix an FFXI song when Nobuo didn't write the music for it; albiet it's an amazing remix, easily my second favorite on the album.

[Fluffy]

Originally Posted by Sean

I also can't understand why they would remix an FFXI song when Nobuo didn't write the music for it; albiet it's an amazing remix, easily my second favorite on the album.

Nobuo Uetmatsu actually composed Distant Worlds, but it was arranged by Naoshi Mizuta.

I haven't looked very much into The Black Mages. I've heard a bit of them and it's pretty cool, but some of it I don't like so much. I think I'll look into it.

I actually did listen to the Distant Worlds track on this album and I liked it. I think I'll check out some more.