Hi everyone, I’m Rick, and that’s the new Japanese Breakfast album Sable.
Korean-American band/solo artist Japanese Breakfast is back. 3 months after the release of their 3rd album, the successful Jubilee, Michelle Zauner and pals are back, now with the soundtrack of the brand new exploration game Sable. Being their first (and knowing most artists, probably last) soundtrack for anything ever.
I Admit, when i first saw this album on the upcoming box on RYM, i didn’t have much faith about it, i wasn’t hyped about Sable, in fact, i didn’t even knew it was coming up, i never heard of this game before, i spend the time before reviewing it looking at trailers of the game, and seeing if it worked on my PC on maximum required (it doesn’t), i haven’t played the game, but HOLY FUCK! IF IT DOESN’T LOOKS GORGEOUS. I got very interested in the cel-shaded graphics that look absolutely amazing, as does the promotional cover, the game looks pretty fun as a casual exploration game, looking at images and videos, i got a little hyped. And i got even more hyped when i started listening to the soundtrack.
The album starts and wait...THIS HAS VOCALS???? BUT IT WAS MARKED AS INSTRUMENTAL ON RYM??????.
Ok, the entire soundtrack except 3 songs are instrumental, the “instrumental” tag on RYM should be marked when the entire album has no vocals (unless it’s non vocal singing or samples), but anyway, this isn’t exactly a problem, as the singing is great, Her voice is amazing, she sings in a tone that works very well in the music, the lyrics are also pretty decent, albeit minimal, being very fitting in the desertic scenario of the game, talking about things like discovering the unknown, and going to places you never went in an adventure, it’s really fitting.
Of course, after these 3 songs with lyrics/vocals (“Main Menu”, the gorgeous “Glider”, and “Better the Mask”), here comes the soundtrack part of it, and after listening to it, i went from “wow that game looks cool and gorgeous” to “OMG. I NEED THIS THING IN MY LIFE.”
It’s not the first time a soundtrack makes me want to play a game, my initial introduction to music was to VGM’s, back in 2011/2012, the amount of games (especially old games) that i know just because the soundtrack slaps is enormous, this isn’t different, with the problem that i’m not a 10 years old child with a multi-console emulator on PS2 anymore, i’m a jobless, grown ass adult with a steam and a gaming laptop that is good, but still can’t run most modern games on maximum, and this looks like a game you need to play on maximum to really feel it, so i’ll wait for it to be released on PS4, so maybe i can buy it and play on my sister’s house.
Going back to the soundtrack, what makes it stands out for me is just absolutely how it fits like a glove in the atmosphere the game seems to convey, this adventurous, epic feeling that most of the tracks do blissfully well, which is not only epic and calls for a big adventure, but it’s also relaxing, Sable doesn’t appears to be a game for “LE EBIN HARDWARE GAMERZ” but a game for you to play when you had a stressful day at work and now you just want to relax and play a cool RPG/exploration game for a couple hours. And what is more fitting for a game like this than a banger soundtrack like that? What games like Journey and Minecraft without amazing songs to follow you with? They would be very boring right? so that’s why everything here works.
Also, the thing that makes it so good is just how well produced it is, the soundtrack is full of ambient sounds that fit really well in the game, like the boat sounds in “Exploration (Ships)”, most of the songs fit really fine in what they’re supposed to be. “Campfires” sounds like a good song for when you’re tired in the middle of the night and just want to rest, make some food in a campfire and sleep to be ready for the next day. Also, the instruments, most necessarily the percussion is also very well produced, example being the percussion in “Chum Lair”, that i admit, gives me shivers, songs like that, “Glider”, “The Ewer” (Both day and night) and “Eccria” (also both day and night), are what made me love this album so much.
Musically, this album is perfect, it has only one problem, that is the same of every soundtrack, you see, the album has 32 songs and 96 minutes of duration, like every soundtrack listened as an album, after 15 or 20 tracks, the album kind of starts to drag a little to the ending, you start getting anxious, looking how many tracks are left, and this unfortunately also happens in Sable, it’s not as bad as others, it doesn’t features very small tracks of when you do some action, like in many soundtracks of games like Final Fantasy and Persona, it’s also not 6-8 hours long like the official soundtracks of games like that, but still. as an album, it gets a little boring after a while, but outside of it, it’s just banger after banger.
Sable is a great soundtrack, that is not only fitting for the desertic nature of the world of the game it comes from, but also gives it life, if you never heard of the game, and just saw the name of Japanese Breakfast and got interested as a fan, i think you probably got at least a little of curiosity to get this game. Just like i did, i’m probably buying it or asking my sister to buy it, as for the music, it’s stunning, beautiful, and amazing, and while it’s not perfect as an album, it is totally perfect as a VGM, my score to this is a…
SCORE:8.5
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