ReMix:Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos "Kastle Rock" 4:10

First off, check out the official Deus Ex Facebook page right now - we're (gradually) releasing a FREE Deus Ex EP, Sonic Augmentation, in partnership with Eidos Montreal!! This is a relatively short album, but it's been in the works for a long time, and we thought it would be cool to try something different with the release; sharing/pimpage appreciated, and thanks to our friends at Dtoid for already doing so!

Now, not to be confused with Casterly Rock, Castle Rock Entertainment, or Fraggle Rock, this badass rock/metal arrangement of Solstice comes to us courtesy Prince of Darkness, who we last saw in February of last year with his 11+ minute FF6 opus, 'Prancing Dad' - 22MB of awesome. Tony writes:

"This song was assigned to me by the winners of the MAGfest-sponsored auction that happened a year ago where several of us prog-metal remixers (norg, Stemage, Snappleman, virt and myself) auctioned off our remixing abilities, and the winners chose a song we got to remix. All the proceeds went to help the Japanese after that disaster. I agreed to do two songs, and this was one of the them. The Solstice theme is a pretty tall order, and literally because the song is already about 3:00 long, much longer than practically any synthesized video game song I’ve ever heard, so I had to totally change the approach to my arrangement. It went from the usual method of putting a lot of my own spin onto the song to add time, to making Tim Follin’s music come to life. This theme is a favorite of many people and considered to be “the best NES theme ever” to others.

This is probably more a conservative arrangement than anything I’ve ever done. Yes, I have added a cheesy orchestra, but all the melodies and stuff are intact and nearly the same as they were to begin with. Overall, I knew I had to do it justice, and I’m hoping that I captured the original vision that Tim had for the song, since he had to fit it into 3 synthesized instruments with noise and percussion samples."

At just over four minutes, this is certainly shorter than its immediate predecessor, but it still feels QUITE epic, largely due to the innate compositional complexity that Tony alludes to above & captures both faithfully and raucously. There are orchestral components, but this is primarily screamin', angry metal - a wee harpsichord comes in at 2'07" and then gets completely pulverized ten seconds later at 2'17"; forgive the expression, but I didn't know you could so thoroughly bitchslap a harpsichord until I heard this mix. There are changeups, solos, an over-the-top epic conclusion, and shreddage aplenty. PoD's got an impeccable reputation for amazing mixage, and while this is less interpretive than his other work, he still puts his unmistakable spin on Tim Follin's formidable original. Great source, great cause, great arrangement.