ReMix:Zombies Ate My Neighbors "Eighties Ate My Zombies" 4:30

Mike Norvak (Miguel Ángel Ramírez López) follows up a 2017 Duke Nukem 3D debut with this atmospheric, 80s/cinematic/horror interpretation of Zombies Ate My Neighbors, featured on his Sample & Horror album:

"Back in 2010, I began doing remixes of two songs from the SNES game Zombies Ate My Neighbors. Originally, it was intended to be a full remix album of the entire soundtrack. Unfortunately, I lost one of the songs and never finished the other. The survivor track was the main theme of the game. It had a breakbeat base that never managed to convince me.

For this 2020 take, I reutilized the original project files but changed the tempo up from 140 BPM to 155 BPM and gave it an eerie, 80s, new wave, jazzy, out-of-Blade Runner feel. Back then, Fernando Calvo from the Duke Nukem 3D community helped me to arrange some orchestral elements that you can hear at the track's end. I'd like to thank Fernito for that excellent approach! Don't forget to download Sample & Horror, where you can find this and other tributes to 80s and 90s horror media."

This is our fifth featured ZAMN mix - Protricity's "Neighburgers" is a notable favorite from the early days - and our first in seven years. Glad to see the game's theme-appropriate OST back in the spotlight, and cool that Miguel went with an FX-laden homage, since the game itself is every bit its own homage to horror/sci-fi of earlier decades. The end result is a genre-mash & essentially split into two sections, bifurcated by a nice narrative FX interlude of sorts. It's the type of creative & enthusiastic arrangement that would fit right in on a Candy Corn album, which is pretty high praise. Larry Oji writes:

"Pretty cool approach that beefs up the source tune nicely. It stays comparatively conservative for the first half before going in a more liberal and original direction for the second half, helped in part by Fernito's contributions late in the game at 3:23. For me, this ReMix is more of an approximation and blending of the genres that Miguel cited in his submission letter rather than a ringer for any one particular style, but there's definitely nothing wrong about that approach at all. The unconventional nature of the Zombies Ate My Neighbors soundtrack leads to equally unconventional arrangements, and I like the zombie chimera that Miguel's animated here. :-)"

So do I; it might have seemed a bit bizarre for a different game, but it works hand-in-decomposing-hand with the ZAMN OST; enjoy!