If you've never heard of The Black Mages, then you're missing some of the best officially licensed video game arrangements ever made.
The Black Mages are a progressive metal group formed by Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu. He came together with fellow composers a few years back to create this game music arrangement band, and since then they've performed several concerts and released two CDs. It may be hard to imagine, but these Japanese Square Enix employees have rocked many a face off.
They're set to do it again with the upcoming release of their third album, The Black Mages III: Darkness and Starlight. This CD should hit Japanese store shelves on March 19th of this year.
If you're a Black Mages fan, this is probably already on your radar. If you're new to the group, you might want to check out the teaser Web site from Uematsu's record label. On it you'll find a teaser trailer as well as an audio sample of one of the tracks, "Bombing Mission," from Final Fantasy VII.
[Thanks to M4G for the heads up]
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
9:57 AM on 01.21.2008
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<3 some Black Mages.
On the other hand: Crap, these suckers are expensive to import.
BM2, however? featuring dudley do-right on "to zanarkand?" uematsu is way off his prime, and the sample of "bombing mission" doesn't give me a lot of hope.
...obviously I am a Black Mages nut
listens to Dancing Mad over and over
the greatest 11 minutes of my life
But seriously, The BM's rock, I have their first two albums. Doesn't looks like there is a track list though...
And now that I've listened to the demo, I hope they rock a lot harder...I wanna hear Uematsu-san growl hahahahahahaha.
Is my initial thought.