Welcome back to Bandcamp Buried Treasure! I wanted to keep mixing it up like I've been by featuring Sovereign today. For one, I grew up on a lot of video game soundtracks and this reminds me of those in the best way. Also, the music is damn awesome. Anyway, you know the rules of the article by now:
- I hunt down awesome artists on Bandcamp that have their album up for Buy It Now/Free Download and give them a write up. I'm not explicitly telling you to download the album for free since I'm a big supporter of buying your music, but I like the option for my readership to be there.
- The goal is to introduce you to smaller bands or obscure side-projects you might not have heard of. Anything to expand your musical horizons by just a little bit each week!
- And of course, for there to be a conversation about similar bands or bands you think I should be covering. I check the comments section!
Like I've been saying, I switched the format up a bit with two new sections, titled "The Basic Idea" and "Why I Love It." The former is a short news-style lead that paints a vivid picture of what you're about to hear to get you interested and help you understand a little why I chose the record, while the latter serves simply as a review piece.
Go hook up your SNES and dig the power glove out of your closet, because it's time for Sovereign.
The Basic Idea
If Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu never bothered to get into video game music and instead picked up a guitar, some plug-ins and a synth, I'd imagine what he would have written would sound a lot like this.
Why I Love It
I guarantee there are a handful of readers that didn't even make it to this section because the music sounded "fake" initially, or like it was mainly programmed MIDI sequencing with some guitars throw in. Well, yeah- that's what I absolutely love about this record. You can turn that shit up and it's heavy, it's beefy and it's got a blunt bite to it. At the same time, it works as a soundtrack to a fictional game and can be enjoyed solely on the compositional merits alone.
There's a very… old-school, lo-fi quality t this record that I can't quite place. I think it's a combination of the keyboard patches sounding very Super Nintendo and the drums not overcomplicating the situation or taking up much room in the mix. Considering all of the guitars are playing by Jorge Paula Pinheiro and then the rest programmed by the man as well, I'm impressed as all hell. Pinheiro has crafted a debut record here that nails a very specific sound that, when explored further and expounded upon, is really going to go somewhere interesting. Though for a debut, Sovereign is great- there's a lot of different sounds and styles on here that keep me interested but he never really falls into the pitfalls of any specific genre. Sovereign is something that should be on everyone's iPod.
