Review Summary: Dreamin' my heart.
What a strange, unorthodox experience Gitaroo Man is. This PS2 / PSP musical rhythm action game involves the coming-of-age journey of a kid called U-1 - aided and advised by his quasi-robotic talking dog, Puma, and a pink-haired rocker named Kirah - who uses the magical powers of a “Gitaroo” in order to conquer evil and free the people of Earth from the iron fist of the musically-inclined Gravillians and other low-key villains (including flamenco-inspired skeletons, a hammerhead sharks, and some piano-UFO hybrids), led by the pompous Emperor Zowie, who can summon his own chorus and may or may not be based off of David Bowie.
And that’s the best I can do. In a few words: love, guitars, robots, growing up, the end of the world, and adolescence. Is it weird? Absolutely. Is the music good?
Absolutely. Gitaroo Man is an odd hodgepodge of all sorts of genres – garage rock, AOR, electronica, IDM, prog rock, funk, etc. – that absolutely should not work together as well as they do. In fact, the eclecticism of Gitaroo Man’s OST works in its favor rather than detracts from it. It’s perfectly suited to the game’s otherworldly tone and overarching mood. For this, we can thank the musical minds of COIL, who led the musical production. There’s the hard-rocking, speak-sung “Twisted Reality”, the ridiculously groovy, urban “Bee’Jam Blues”, the garage-rock inspired “21st Century Boy” and “Soft Machine”, both of which would fit perfectly in something like FLCL. The soundtrack encompasses many, many genres, from the reggae sound in “Nuff Respect” to the thrash-inspired drumming tour de force that is “Tainted Lovers” to the storm of metal that is “Resurrection”. There’s definitely something here for everyone, a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.
As a cohesive whole, the album doesn’t work. Each song feels completely different and discrete from one another, and the album comes off as uneven and inconsistent as a result. The flamenco riff in “Born To Be Bone” is absolutely amazing, but it’s placed right next to the thrash-y “Tainted Lovers”. These songs sound like they were written by completely different people, and this is a problem that pervades the majority of the soundtrack. “Flyin’ To Your Heart” is an electronic rock gem, driven by a powerful mezzo-soprano vocalist and a ferocious synthesizer riff. Pure techno. Directly afterwards is “Bee’Jam Blues”, which sounds like it was ripped straight out of
Hey Arnold! Gitaroo Man flies from genre and genre and doesn’t do a very good job of transitioning between modes: when it gets metal, it does so fast, and then shifts back into bright synthrock so quickly that it might as well have never changed. It’s very schizoid as a result – it lacks a core, lacks a clear-cut, central sound to drive the whole thing.
Not a single word of what’s been written obviates how fantastic each individual track is. “Boogie For An Afternoon” is a thrilling, hip-hop inspired masterpiece that pops along with ebullience and swagger; “Flyin’ To Your Heart” and “Tainted Lovers” have some of the greatest musicianship on the album, the latter in particular featuring some fantastic interplay between distortion-heavy guitars and wild drumming; “The Legendary Theme (Acoustic)” is a marvelous acoustic instrumental, soulful and quiet, a nice break from all of the crushing metal and electronica that came before it; “Born To Be Bone” is a flawless, should-not-work-but-it-does mix of IDM and flamenco. The soundtrack is operating on a level of ambition not seen in many games before and after its release, and any flaws it has are a result of that ambition. It's better to reach for the stars and fail than to use mediocrity as a crutch. As a whole, it doesn’t work cohesively, which keeps it from being truly terrific, but at its best moments, it works with flying colors.
