Beautiful melodies at the beginning. I love how the instrumental swells into :40 and then dramatically dies before the vocals enter. It's such an effective way of building anticipation after the intro. The vocalist did an amazing job. The thematic content is giving me Lord of the Rings vibes, yet the quality of the vocals makes me feel like this could be in a Broadway musical. The shape and arrangement of the piece are probably my favorite elements of it. There's such a wonderful sense of storytelling to the energy and directionality of this track. The climax at 3:40 feels like heaven, and the dream-like bells at the end leave a lingering sense of hope, matching the theme of the lyrics. The mix is flawless as usual. The orchestral instruments are lovely - I particularly liked the strings and piano towards the beginning and the horns at the climax. It makes my day every time to see a new track from you guys. Sorry I didn't get around to reviewing this earlier. I'd love to see more of you guys around the Grounds in 2019. Well wishes from across the Atlantic! ^_^
Author Comments
Hey hey!
This is an arrangement of the song "Fear Not This Night" that comes from the game Guild Wars 2. The original was composed by Jeremy Soule and Ree Soesbee with vocals from Asja Kadrić, and this arrangement was written by me and Echo with vocals from a very talented singer we know who wishes to remain anonymous!
This project was a long time coming. We've been wanting to get an arrangement out for this song for literal years, but it kept getting pushed back by other things. Eventually, we finally decided to sit down and finish it. Forty hours later, and here we are!
This song uses East/West libraries for most of the instruments, with Omnisphere for the more electronic influences. It also uses three pianos, making this one of my most piano-heavy pieces ever.
Hope you guys enjoy! This took a lot of work and I'm really happy with how it turned out.
LYRICS:
Fear not this night
You will not go astray
Though shadows fall
Still the stars find their way
Awaken from a quiet sleep
Hear the whispering of the wind
Awaken as the silence grows
In the solitude of the night
Darkness spreads through all the land
And your weary eyes open silently
Sunsets have forsaken all
The most far off horizons
Nightmares come when shadows grow
Eyes close and heartbeats slow
Fear not this night
You will not go astray
Though shadows fall
Still the stars find their way
And you can always be strong
Lift your voice with the first light of dawn
Dawn's just a heartbeat away
Hope's just a sunrise away
Distant sounds of melodies
Starring through the night to your heart
Auroras, mists, and echoes dance
In the solitude of our life
Pleading, sighing arias
Gently grieving in captive misery
Darkness sings a forlorn song
Yet our hope can still rise up
Nightmares come when shadows roam
Lift your voice, lift your hope
Fear not this night
You will not go astray
Though shadows fall
Still the stars find their way
And though the night sky's filled with blackness
Fear not, rise up, call out and take my hand
Fear not this night
You will not go astray
Though shadows fall (Still the stars find their way)
Fear not this night
You will not go astray
Though shadows fall (Still the stars find their way)
And you can always be strong
Lift your voice with the first light of dawn
Dawn's just a heartbeat away
Hope's just a sunrise away
this brought a tear to the eye.
jk but its still amazing wish i could wright lyrics like that.
Wow I love this
Wow this was some intense stuff and the "VOCALS" are very nice, this whole piece kind of reminded me of the old "NIGHTWISH" with the opera singer as lead I think her name was Tarja or something but i love nightwish and I love this one, A great track if you ask me this brings a little something different that not everyone can truly understand and you made it very clear The progression is very nice in this piece, your techniques are a Goldmine, You have a mystical piece here and its tracks like this that dont come around everyday and im blessed to be able to find a nice and mystical peice such as this one.
~~THINGS TO IMPROVE ON~~
No changes on this one because it was a beautiful vocal piece and the music was just as good, make more of this soon, you have an instant fan here.
~X~
Love it! Reminds of Enya! I almost got tears while listening to this! In addition, it is technically clean and the flow is smooth. The orchestra is really moving and the voice are perfect! No flats and sharps. Also sounds like a theatrical performance! Good job! Deserves to be frontpaged!
Thanks for the heartwarming comments! Glad you enjoyed it :).
Such a great rendition of a song that I've...never actually heard before! But man, there's some really fantastic music in Guild Wars 2, so I can totally understand the appeal. Lately I've been playing a lot of Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, so this is pretty much right up my current Fantasy-related alley. That gorgeous, rich Orchestral sound never fails to delight the senses, and the vocals are so beautifully sung and harmonized that I can scarcely believe this isn't the original version. Your mixing and mastering is still as skillful as ever, nay—even better than before.
I happened to read Bosa's review before composing my own, and while having the original singer would have been pretty cool, it would have ultimately spoiled that whole "redone from the ground up" vibe. And while she chooses to remain anonymous, your vocalist has most definitely earned her time in the spotlight...whomever she may be.
Thank you once again for a tremendous musical journey, Step & Co. While your frequency of submissions may indeed be low, I would deign to believe that the overall level of quality goes up in direct proportion. At least, that's what I tell myself while I'm waiting.
But hey, my own paltry 4 submissions in 2018 barely beat out yours, and you just may end up passing me by sooner or later. Life is all about seasons, and sometimes even the music needs to take a back seat. Best of luck to you, Echo, and your mysterious songstress in the future, my friend. Excelsior!
ChronoNomad! Wow, I cannot understate how much I've missed your reviews. Incredibly eloquent and a pleasure to read as always!
Guild Wars 2 is a game I've been playing for a long while now, and it really does have some gems in its soundtrack. Fear Not This Night is an old track written by Soule that was released with the game's release, and for a long time I've wanted to give it a spin myself.
The vocalist is insanely talented and I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to work with her. I agree that getting the original singer wouldn't have been the same... Or rather, it would have been too much of the same. It's good to change things up from the original!
Confession time, these vocals are five-year-old recordings. I actually got started on this track way back, five years ago. It was at this point that I asked the vocalist to record the vocals, which she did for me and they're the vocals you're hearing right now.
But back then, I got sidetracked due to uni work and ended up abandoning the project for all this time. This honestly made me feel terrible, because one of the things that drives me (and I'm sure ANY musician) nuts is getting work done for a project and then that project never seeing fruition (it's happened to all of us at some point I'm sure!). It was therefore incredibly hypocritical of me to not do anything with the vocals for so long.
Eventually, I decided to set things straight and dedicated time with Echo to get the track done, partially because I've wanted to work on the track for so long, and partially because it really was about time I did those vocals justice. The singer was incredibly understanding about the whole thing, but I definitely consider it pretty unbecoming of me that I took so long to get the project done.
I'm super glad you enjoyed the track, especially the mixing/mastering! I feel like technical things like mixing/mastering are easier to forget or lose your grip on if you spend a long time not composing music than compositional techniques and inspiration (or at least that's how it works for me), so I'm happy that my layers of rust aren't showing.
I can't thank you enough for dropping by. Hope you're doing well yourself!
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