Better late than never, eh? NB: A small part of this review was also written by Spectra.
Hey kiddos, it’s Reverie, and while I’m busy being sad and hating myself that I haven’t been working on the Top Ten listings that much due to school and graduation and all that, I’ve written a comprehensive review, going track by track through ALL of the new Vylet release, entitled Super Pony World. Since we don’t want to exclude some of the deluxe version material, this is going to cover all of the base tracks plus a couple of the original pieces from the deluxe version. So, let’s hop right into it after the break!
The first track – entitled The Start Button is Overrated, Press Off – starts off the album on a rather upbeat, energetic tone. Not too long of a track, just long enough to set the tone that this is a video-gamey album, and it does it in all the right ways. It really just builds hype again, even after one and a half years of hype being built.
One Up! continues this theme, yet drops it nearly halfway through in favor of an awesome progressive drop in the classic Vylet style, as well as a few vocal lines to build the SPW world and the character therein. Groovy and energetic.
Flying Kites and Something Normal is a dope track, featuring the usual suspects of Cadie, Sylver, and Sound Bandit. Energetic and upbeat, it continues on the world building theme, though on a much calmer and almost romanticized level.
The world building through lyrics comes to a close for a while in Kingdom Finality, a very Porter Robinson-esque sounding track (something that certainly is a theme throughout this album as Porter is one of Vylet’s biggest influences). Almost sounds like One Up! part two, in that the lyrics have some similarities, as well as the rhythm and beat.
Dragon Riders is certainly the club banger of the album. If you don’t know what I mean by that, listen to it and you will. This track mixes epic orchestral sections along with crazy, jumpy pulsing beats to really make you go crazy. Honestly one of my personal favorites from this album. This also starts the quite obviously vocal-lacking middle section of the album.
Kapow! was an older Vylet single that made it onto this album due to thematic reasons, seemingly. I’m assuming all of you have heard this track, so I’m just gonna go ahead and skip over this one too.
Everglade is by far my favorite track on this album, no joke. It combines deep basses, complextro, orchestral elements, and dubstep into one absolutely crazy final product that is hard to stand still to.
And with Knock Knock, act one ends. This one almost sounds like Shadient co-produced it, with incredibly original sound design, fat basses, and almost a violent clicky, tight, I don’t even know how to explain it synth.
Interlude and Ego Guideline Club are essentially one song, with Interlude meant to separate out act one from act two. Ego Guideline Club, featuring Dead Critic, was kind of disappointing in some regards, at least to a long-time Vylet fan like me. While the sound design that Vylet and Dead Critic have been doing is much better than what Vylet was doing back in 2014/2015, this track almost feels like Yay Intensifies Part 2. A little bit disappointing for me, but a great track nonetheless.
Lily’s Shop! is a jazzy, fun track that serves as a nice reprise from the songs that came before it. Our first relatively chill song of the album, and boy is it great. Not much to say on this one.
And with Arcade Runway we’re right back into the energetic, uptempo beats. This one’s pretty cool, with interesting chord progressions and the classic Vylet synth design.
Mr Whiskers (feat. K y u n n) is kinda self explanatory.
Solitary Domino is a jazzy romp. It’s majestic. Also a little too short for my tastes, but hey, that’s just me. Maybe you’re into that.
And just like that, Destined a Fatal Flaw (a reprise of a lyric from Vylet’s classic song Fall to the Clouds) comes along and crushes all of our hopes and dreams with a depressing, ponderous drag through your own emotions and sadness. Like dude, Vy, chill out…
… and then we’re back again with Vylet’s collaboration with the one and only PON3, Her Majesty! It’s lit dude, and we’ve already released it to the public over on Vylet’s YouTube channel. Go check it out and listen for yourself!
World 8, interestingly the 17th track, is a lot like Everglade in that it combines plenty of orchestral elements with some somewhat background electronic sound design. Not much to say here.
S’All Good (&^u^), featuring Tsukii, is literally Flicker by Porter Robinson, with horses. You’re welcome.
Rayna’s Song actually features Pinkie Rose doing some random vocals, and seems kind of like a part two of Lily’s Shop! It’s jazzy, summery, and really really chill. This song also ends the happiness that we’ve experienced throughout act two. Now it’s time to move onto soul-crushing act three! Oh boy!
Act three kicks off with another two-part song, Return and Victory in Canterlot. This is an energetic dubstep/complextro track that takes a lot from the second drop of Everglade, in my mind. I find myself coming back to Everglade a lot, haha. This orchestral and EDM mixture is certainly an album theme.
Little Dreams was a Vylet single a while back that has made it to be a prominent feature on this album. This also brings back lyrics, finally! You’ve probably heard this before so I’ll move on.
Song of Home incorporates a bunch of interesting bits, including radio broadcasts like the one we heard back in Knock Knock, as well as a poppy, happy feeling that builds over time into a swelling combination of sound design elements. A great track that I somewhat forgot about before making this review, to be honest. 😦
Remember the Day When the World Fell Apart? was a previous hype-building track that was released a couple months back. It’s a chilling, morse-code filled track. The morse code has already been decoded on Vylet’s upload of this song, so if you want to check that out you know where to find it.
The Replacer is a bouncy progressive house track that has some fantastic vocal production. The piano melodies later on in the song add a lovely new level to this song too.
Then comes one of the most touching pieces, only available on the bonus version. I Am Brave… is a little piano sonata with accompanying strings composed by Vylet. Sometimes music speaks louder messages without lyrics – definitely the case here.
Malignancy continues the free-time beauty of I Am Brave… as a beautiful ambient piece which has various sounds swell and fade in volume. Whether or not you like ambient music, you can’t deny how awesome this kind of song sounds.
The Great Unknown takes us back into Vylet’s Porter Robinson-esque sounds with a huge synthpop banger. This is not the kingdom we made.
The Butterfly sees another venture into orchestral music, but with a sweet chillstep beat adding a new layer of smoothness halfway through the song. Again, this one is only on the deluxe version.
And finally, Zräos’s Kingdom – an epic 12-minute track ranging through a variety of genres and styles. I’ll leave this one as a surprise for you, since it marks the end of the main story that is told by Super Pony World.
A year and a half of songwriting, producing, and organizing collabs and it came down to this. It’s definitely the biggest solo album to ever be featured on the Horse Music Herald, if not the biggest to be made by anyone from the fandom scene. A huge congratulations to Vylet for finally releasing this, and to everyone else featured on the album, you all deserved it!
You can purchase Super Pony World from Bandcamp; either the standard version (which excludes a couple of tracks features in this review) or the deluxe version (which also includes a ton of remix tracks and WIPs). Vylet has already uploaded many of the songs from this album onto his YouTube channel, and you can expect more to come!
Horse Music Herald 