The ultra-talented Never Say Neigh crew is back with another, albeit more compact than the last, face-melting compilation album! The shorter length makes it easy to digest in one go and each track has something standout about it. AJ Young’s Old School has a killer drop mixed in with some recognizable OG brony media samples, SKUNKED’s Wrath has some fantastic strings and sound design throughout, Suskii’s F*** You Up has an extremely unique groove in its last drop, and much, much more. This is definitely one of the premiere pony releases this year!
Asides
Pinkamena Party – PONYDOME VII: INJECTED WITH PONY | Compilation Album | Multi-Genre
Ah, the 7th Pinkamena Party Crew project. This time coming in the brand of Ponydome VII: Injected with Pony. Ponydome comes with 50 individual tracks and includes the PPC’s BronyCon 2019 performances. Here are some quotes from my favorite moments of the aforementioned performances:
“Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pieee!!! PINKIE PIE! PINKIEeeEE PiEE!!!” “Ponyponyponyponyponyponyponyponypony.” “The year was 20 A.D., B.C., simultaneously. For the first time and the last time and the first time only, pingpingpingpingpingpingping.”
The fourth live jam entitled Applejack! also contains a spontaneous freestyle section from community veteran MicTheMicrophone. The album is fitted with a consistent intro, all the way from the think breaks and the atmospheric chords of En Vogue pts I and II to the piano funk of Lickety’s Split. After that, bring yourself to an amen-populated Hooverville with Enuna’s tracks Hooves for the Hoofed and Filly Meal Friends. For only the hardest floors, break necks with the eery Promenade and the ever-inventive diatonic gabber kicks of Pink Elephants at the Rave. Back to back acid tracks Oh Shit! It’s Paw Patrol and cmap.exe provide some very unique atmospheres to the album. For more unique emotions, follow the [non-]fiction of One Night in Cherry Jubilee. There are so many inventive bangers on this compilation that I wish I could cover them all in only this small paragraph. Instead, I strongly recommend listening on your own. If you like EBM, Hardcore, and supporting charity then you won’t be disappointed.
One Track Mind – End is Neigh | Album | Synthwave / Ambient
One Track Mind introduces a collection of eleven undeservingly discarded electronic tracks. The strong sub and morphing resonances of the prelude track gives a taste of the wonderfully crafted ambient pieces in this album. Then the octave-switching neck-breaker known as Drama that follows gives you a taste of the synth-wave roots. The masterpiece Some Days, being my personal favorite of the album, incorporates a spatial piano playing tense chords and high melodies with a swingy drum track following it. The ending to Some Days also creates a near-perfect transition to the next song (both title-wise and sonically). For more ambient brilliance, follow the filtered saws and synth swells of Lethargy and the impactful basses of Hiatus. For more retrowave action, mosh along to the dark Deicide and the hopefulness of Neo-Canterlot! Varnished with consistently good intros and a piano composition as the outro, this solid Bandcamp release will surely be enjoyed by ambient and synth-wave listeners alike!
Evgeniy Doctor – Shards Of Memory EP | Various Genres
A new stunning and complete experience from Evgeniy Doctor, this 4-tracks EP is quite heartfelt as it is a tribute to the impending closing of FiM (but remember, not of MLP nor the community!). Of various genres, the tracks made with love are expressing much emotion, from the Ambient Magia Ex that builds the epic experience to come, to the Psytrance Last Minutes that is almost 8 minutes long, to the deep Voices Of The Past that is a collab with One Track Mind, to a powerful Orchestral finale in Time To Become Infinite. Both very impressive and conveying much feelings, this whole EP is a masterpiece!
Shards Of Memory EP is available from both Bandcamp and Mediafire!
Narokath – Dead Wings of Grace | Album | Progressive Metal / Orchestral
An interesting concept album, coming from the swedish one-man-band Narokath. An album telling a double story between two worlds: an individual and personal point of view about life and feelings about it, where each listener is invited to do their own understandings of it and a story set in a darker world of Equestria.
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Royal Canterlot Symphonic Metal Orchestra – Pillars Of Equestria Part One | Album | Symphonic Metal
Music making is a really tough gig. You need a lot of elements. Things like a creative mind for music. The passion and drive to make something come to life. You need to be full of imagination and huge ideas. With all the right things and some hard work, you get something like what L-Train has just made. OH MY CELESTIA PURE METAL GOODNESS!
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Crashie Tunez – Interconnect | Album | Nintendocore / Cybergrind
noise.horse has brought to the fandom a lot of interesting material from the hardcore/experimental scene in the brony fandom. This time the label lead by Kakofonous A. Dischord, released an interesting project done by Crashie Tunez.
Crashie Tunez is an interesting musician in our fandom, because he brings a new and weird genre – Nintendocore. A really interesting genre.
The album is full of bangers, I really handbanged in some tracks, my favorites were The Stray, The Ruthless, The Unforgivable, Demon’s Redemption and Flight Zero. Some really interesting audio textures and the vocals of Crashie were well performed!
Keep doing the good work Crashie! Also, noise.horse is offering solid versions of the album!
MC-Arch – You got me, I got us | Album | Hip-Hop / Audio Drama
“This review is dedicated to a person that embodies the very believes to his core of what being a brony honesty is. That person is the one and only Joey-O. If anyone lives by the messages of this album laid by MC-Arch. It’s you, Joey, I know you’re resting up good. I and MC-Arch could not think of a better way to show how much this fandom loves you. Then to honor you this way.”
-DrakeEmberHeart
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The Experimental Bronies & noise.horse – Out of Limit 4: The Philosophy of Time | Compilation Album | Experimental
The Experimental Bronies have once again teamed up with noise.horse to release their fourth entry in the Out of Limit project! There is plenty of interesting and unique tunes by several artists in this one ranging from more ambient and mysterious tracks to dark and filthy tracks as well as some good ol’ hardcore tracks. Viricide Filly’s track, Seconds Into Centuries, I Let My Hair Grow was one of my favourites and I go more in detail with it in the above post, however there are many other cool gems such as Smallish Season by Detra x Danger, which is a very intriguing and groovy twist on lo-fi and hip hop-esque music while Tripon’s Cascade is a very energetic and complex neurofunk style track with their signature style with some complex sampling and abstract design decisions that make for a refreshing listen. All in all if you’re tired of hearing the ‘same old, same old’ and looking for something odd and refreshing, noise.horse has just what you are looking for!
Direct Current – Chroma.Voltaic.Friendship | Album | Chiptune / Orchestral
How does this dragon pony put this next review of music into words? The very concept of Sunset Shimmer, and Sci-Twi being transported into cyberspace for a friendship problem. Their mission? A super AI that pulled them to this mess. It sounds like a very unique idea even for this fandom.
It works simply because it’s Sunset and Twilight, the geniuses of the group. So the music here by Direct Current is an EP of four songs of Chiptune/8-bit & orchestra joy. It’s very unique, that he’s found a way with these songs to make it feel like Equestria girls. The story told through Direct Current’s music is blissful and imaginative. You feel the equestrian magic happening in the first song, Sunset, and Twilight going into the internet only armed with the magic of friendship. Once there, you can hear in the melodies. The frustration of these two not understanding how an A.I could have this kind of issue at all. I love how I close my eyes and seeing this as this tune plays, this tone of deep thought. It fits right into what Sunset and Twilight are as characters. It’s believable seeing them butting heads over this.
The 3rd track comes in with this uplifting melody of the girls figuring out things for this A.l. The tides are turning in the girls’ favor. You can feel this in the music. that big powerful music number that happens in moments like this. The EP closes in a way that sounds epic. Much like a classic video game when you have beaten the odds. The music is so charming and gentle. The gamer inside of me is yelling for pure joy, I grew up on music like that. I like to add that Direct Current somehow got an 8-bit sounding guitar riff to make me smile so big. I didn’t expect that. This is one of the most clever and creative pieces of music I’ve ever heard in this fandom to date. You can listen to it here on his BandCamp, or start Here the singles on his youtube channel. Go listen, it’s different in a very good way.
Horse Music Herald 