Music info: VGMdb
Listening: Bandcamp, iTunes/Apple Music
Info
Serenade was(?) a prog metal band of three Japanese video game fan arrangers that was mainly active in the mid 2000s: pianist Azu♪ (whose biggest claim to fame these days is probably writing a few tracks for Taiko no Tatsujin), guitarist/bassist Godspeed (now better known as a composer under his real name, Masahiro Aoki), and rock organist supply (who seems to have vanished off the internet a few years ago). They were never super active, contributing one-off game arrangements here and there and releasing an album of them, shifting horizon, in 2005.
After releasing the original album moonshine in 2007, they went dark for six years; I don’t know if they’ve ever commented on why, but I expect it’s not a coincidence that that roughly coincides with Aoki’s university graduation and employment by Capcom in 2008. In 2013, they finally reunited for what’s as of now their last album, the three-track growl. Aoki said in an interview that their goal for this album was “to make an even more hardcore album,” and the result was the heaviest their music has ever been (parts of the track “craving” border on djent), with plenty of dramatic piano to balance out the guitars. There’s also a noticeable improvement in the album production from moonshine, which you might expect given the whole thing where one of the members took a break for a few years to do this music thing professionally. A fun, tiny slice of what the doujin scene was doing a decade ago.
Recommended track:
- “thread safe” (composed by supply) leans jazzier than any other track on the album and has a nice acoustic guitar solo, also the title is a programming term for reasons that aren’t clear besides that someone is obviously a nerd
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