Celebrate Halloween In Style: Symphony of the Night EP by Bad Dudes and Friends (Review)

What a horrible night to be without some happenin’ tunes to listen to. Well, the Bad Dudes have your Halloween evening covered with Bad Dudes & Friends Castleviana: Symphony of the Night – Resurrection, featuring over an hour of arrangements from the amazing Symphony of the Night soundtrack (don’t tell me you don’t like it), along with a number of other Castlevania classics.

It’s currently available for a voluntary donation at the OneUp Studios website, so I recommend heading over for the download. Or you can spend your Halloween listening to something lame. Would you be curious if I told you that Joshue Morse created a 13-minute long Symphony of the Night medley that is completely awesome?

That’s what I thought. Read our impressions after the jump.

For the first order of business, here’s the track list:

01. Diggi Dis – Prayer
02. Anthony Lofton & Joshua Morse – Illusional Hop
03. Diggi Dis & Joshua Morse – Two-Step of Gold
04. Diggi Dis – Wood Striking Partita (Interlude)
05. Diggi Dis – Wood Striking Partita (Main)
06. DCT & Joshua Morse – Apparitions of Clock Tower
07. Anthony Lofton & Joshua Morse – Take Back the Tears
08. ktriton – Wet Dreams
09. Vampire Hunter Dan – Danse Finale
10. Tim Sheehy – Nocturne
11. Diggi Dis – Empty Frame feat. GumShoe
12. zykO – Lament of the Shapeshifter
13. Mazedude – Drax of Holy Spirits
14. posu yan – garlic
15. Joshua Morse – Heart of Vlad

I’ll start by saying Diggi Dis and Tim Sheehy both had some amazing tracks on last year’s Halloween EP that are still on constant rotation on my iPod. This time around, we get a hefty load of smooth jazz from these two Bad Dudes and a number of their buddies.

Anthony Lofton and Joshua Morse make magic when they work together (check out their Ragnarok Online: Hybridism release), and they do no less here. Both “Illusion Hop” and “Take Back the Tears” (an arrangement of “Bloody Tears”) take a hip jazz approach, complete with moving beats, fat grooves, and impressive solos.

Diggi Dis teams up with Morse on “2-Step of Gold,” a heavy electronic track with awesome bass. “Wood Striking Partita (Main)” by Diggi Dis is subdued, but the snappy percussion and wavey synths definitely give you something to bop your head to. For his last piece, Diggi Dis teams up with GumShoe for “Empty Frame,” which is, of course, the popular “Lost Painting,” which comes as half synth pop and half rap.

I dig ktriton’s “Wet Dreams,” with electric piano chords and excellent jazz percussion. This is as smooth as it gets. Tim Sheehy returns with an upbeat take on “Nocturne,” which is some of the best I’ve heard from him. I really like the reinterpretation. One of my favorite arrangers, posu yan (formerly po!) fits right in with the jazzy nature of this release, offering a light drum ‘n’ bass take on “Vampire Killer.”

I’ll end with Joshua Morse’s 13-minute epic, “Heart of Vlad.” Thought you missed out on some of the awesome songs from the Symphony of the Night soundtrack? The piece starts with the popular “Dracula’s Castle” before jumping into a completely funky version of “Marble Gallery.” Next up, one of my personal favorites, “Rainbow Cemetary,” which I was surprised to hear.  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Morse visits “Crystal Drops,” another one of my favorites that never seems to get any love. From here, a number of battle tunes ensue, ending what is surely an impressive piece of music.

So yeah, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go check this out. Well, I’d understand if you were upset that they skipped “I Am the Wind,” and it would have been awesome to have heard a reference to the absolutely amazing hidden track that was on the game itself. Oh well, I guess we can count this one as a failure, but if for some reason you want to hear it anyway, go check it out here.

Are you one of the haters who isn’t into the Symphony of the Night soundtrack? Are you digging Joshua Morse’s 13-minute long track?