We're coming out of lurk to do something we haven't done in a while: review a release. This one warrants it. No album in recent memory has combined our passion of import retrogaming with synthwave like this.
Gunblaze Assault, the latest from Miami Nights 1984 dropped today, and it's the perfect soundtrack to weaving your way through a deadly curtain of high-caliber enemy fire in a mech STG that never existed, but really needs to.
Gunblaze Assault, the latest from Miami Nights 1984 dropped today, and it's the perfect soundtrack to weaving your way through a deadly curtain of high-caliber enemy fire in a mech STG that never existed, but really needs to.
Summoning the style of 90s video game soundtrack legends like Yuzo Koshiro and Hyakutaro Tsukumo, MN84 has forged a concept album that could easily be mistaken for the actual score to the lost Mega-CD sequel to MUSHA Aleste. From the title screen stinger to the game over melody, even the menu screen music bumpers are somehow intact here, blending both retrogaming and retrosynth into a seamless package.
As an album, Gunblaze Assault keeps itself short and sweet while at no time deviating from the stated mission of creating an intense OST for a lost Japanese mech-based shump. While I'm sure they'll be some who consider this theme to be more of a gimmick than an fully-realized Synthwave album, MN84's ironclad adherence to a solid concept, right down to the sublime album art and promo material, is *exactly* the kind of unwavering creative vision that we need to rescue a genre currently adrift in a vast sea of indistinguishable laser grids and neon sunsets.
I've been ranting for years that Synthwave is the perfect scene for hardcore concept albums outside of the nostalgia trap of "Wasn't the 80s cool?", and listening to Gunblaze Assault confirms the fact that this fully armored synth attack is precisely the type of robot hero we need.
Lock, load, and listen now:
