Wednesday, December 11, 2019

MIDI Week Singles: "River of Knives" - Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (NS)


"River of Knives" from Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice on the PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch (2017, 2018, 2019)
Composer: Andy LaPlegua
Album: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Original Soundtrack
Label: Ninja Theory
Publisher: Ninja Theory
Developer: Ninja Theory





What I love about this song is how quiet and serene it is at the start along with the "ahhing" vapers of voices that take advantage of the stereo audio, similar to how binaural audio is used throughout the game.  But then about halfway through the song, you get guttural singing that fits very well within the game.  I am pretty sure this song crops up earlier in the narrative, but it wasn't until maybe halfway through the game that this song really struck me.  There is the section after you fight your way along the bridge over the River of Knives towards Helheim, you pass through a door and are immediately attacked by one of the larger Northmen, the Keep Guard.

When I was playing, this song from 1:24 seemed to come up right at the start of the battle with the Keep Guard and continued through until the Keep Guard was killed, even though the battle continued  on against other weaker Northmen.  In the song though, the singing starts around 1:04 and really comes to the fore at 1:24, but then stops a fades out about 30 seconds later.  I did watch a walkthrough of the PS4 version and the music was not synced up the same way it was when I played through.  I do not know if this is something that happens only on the Switch version, or if I happened to do something that made it happen, but whatever the reason, hearing the vocals loop through the entire battle with the Guard Keep was particularly epic, making what could have been another run-of-the-mill battle into something that seemed a lot grander.  The other possible but less probable answer is that I was able to defeat the Keep Guard in fewer than 30 seconds.  I prefer to think of the more dynamic and epic possibility, because Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was just that, epic and moving, to say the least.



~JWfW/JDub/Cooking Crack/Jaconian
All is Calm

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