We all like fighting games, right ? No, we don’t…. How do you generally feel about a fighting game’s music ? It’s usually bad, right. Ok, for those of you who like hard rock music, were you aware of a series of fighters with a great metal soundtrack ? No, huh ? In that case, welcome to Guilty Gear 101. Guilty Gear is a series made by a company cally Sammy. The composer, Daisuke Ishiwatari, also serves as the game’s character designer, director, etc… His name is a good reason for the series’ success so far.

General review : Most of the album is very fast-paced and heavy on electric guitars, bass guitars, drums, all that you’d expect from a hard rock album. However, Guilty Gear X : Heavy Rock Tracks takes it all to a new level of brilliance, most soundtracks during 2001 were created with synthetizers, while Ishiwatari decides to put more effort in his creations, he quickly gives a call to a japanese rock band called « Lapiz Lazuli », and asks them to perform the score using live instruments. This result is amazing. Ishiwatari also goes further than the usual rock band and implements musical instruments not usually associated with hard rock. Would you beleive an organ and even a saxophone and a bit of jazz piano ? Yup ! The organ is first heard in « Holy Orders (Be Just or be Dead) », after a few notes, the electric guitars start ripping through the track, and the organ keeps on backing the guitars in the background throughout most of the track, it gives a heavy religious feel, with is ironic as some people consider rock music to be satanic :P « The Original » starts off with some percussions, then the electric guitars make their entrance, backed up by saxophones, giving it a obvious jazzy feel, which is very unique and cool. After a while, the jazz piano has a cameo before the guitars and saxophones come back for another round. For pure hard rock goodness, « Still in the Dark » is a sure winner, you get nothing but guitars all the way till the end, this track even puts some songs from Iron Maiden and Metallica to shame. It’s that good !!!

Want this CD ? Why the heck wouldn’t you want it ? Unless you totally hate hard rock, you MUST have this CD. If you like Guilty Gear games, you MUST have this CD. If you like music at all, you MUST have this CD. Period. :P It’s readily available at all import shops for around $30 which is a fair price for such a flawless CD.