Style: VGM, heavily distorted techno
Primary Emotions/Themes: The very fabric of life is being torn asunder right in front of my eyes
Thoughts: There are few albums that capture the state of a shattered mind as well as this one does. The music contained within this record is a collection of songs that take typical techno beats and rhythms and distort the ever living hell out of it. Combine this with an atmosphere that wishes above everything else to be tranquil and you have an album that is utterly unique.
Oxygen Ocean is the first proper song on the album, and it contains everything that I love about Heaven Will Be Mine. It starts off slow with a techno beat, but something feels just a little off... the beat feels just a little distorted and disturbed. It continues to build and a clean yet simple melody joins the beat. The melody again feels like something is slightly off... like we are only seeing a portion of the sound. A darkness is looming under the surface.
As the song progresses we get small glimpses here and there of that very darkness that lies beneath. Sometimes, just sometimes the full distortion comes out. The beat will sound completely off for a split second, and then it will contain itself once again. It's not until nearly the end when all the melody is stripped away before we hear the true beat... a mass of distorted sounds that have no rhyme or reason to them. They are truly unhinged. Then just as quickly as it came, they are stripped away only left by a pathetic melody before the song ends.
This is the way of Heaven Will Be Mine. A massive beast of an album that is contained by the smallest of threads. Sometimes these confines fade and the beast within is let out. These moments are truly frightening, yet they remain some of my favorites on the album.
This Jekyll and Hyde dichotomy is something that I have heard in other albums before, but none do it as well as this... at least not that I'm aware of. This is one of the few video game soundtracks that I have in my collection that works exceptionally well as an album on its own. It is not required to play the game to truly enjoy this music for what it is, the music is more than capable of petitioning the listener on its own merits.
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