Volcanic rituals
Right before our arrival at a white Christmas setting we need to traverse the depths of hell in order to appreciate it better; things are about to get hot, even though Samus is in full armor, so put on your Varia suit and enter at your own risk cause this is war.
Continuing on the theme of the alive, breathing creature concept originally conceived by Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka for the original Metroid, Kenji Yamamoto takes over the reins of the series and cements once and for all what we think of as Metroid music, a sci-fi series action packed and exploration landscapes populated by living alien organism, ancient alien civilizations long gone and a score that blends seamlessly with the environmental sound design.
Musical Analysis
The Norfair Ancient Ruins track, also know nowadays as the Magmoor Caverns theme is a climax of sorts for the game Super Metroid where the breathing of the creature gets progressively more intense and time is ticking up for our heroine as she gets deeper into her enemy’s lair while he waits for the final showdown, creating a sense of anticipation; the planet has finally fully woken up. The theme is driven by a steady beat, hearing the beating heart of the creature as if you are inside its belly and being tossed around; this is what you hear inside a boiling cauldron. The theme for these subterranean temple ruins built by the ancient Chozo has the appropriate blend of intense and ominous, being based around a Phrygian profile figure that keeps ascending higher and higher, enhancing the sense of danger, as Samus gets progressively lower and lower.
By now identified as the lava level theme for the series and, appropriately for one of the staples of threatening geography in video games, the cue is based around the heavy percussion beat meant to sound as a scene straight from some kind of ancient ritual, like the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom tribal scene, with Yamamoto in this particular iteration creating a sense of huge frame drums being played by combining drum kick samples at different pitches with low pitched wooden stick sounds, as if a cannibal tribe is playing big drums hitting both the membrane and the rim at the same time—or maybe the composer just exported the track and forgot to turn the metronome off—you can even use this reliant beat to learn to time your bomb jumps. The sense of ancient temple lair is always brought to Metroid courtesy of its use of mixed choir, which is a tradition that started on Super Metroid, particularly a sample associated with the series since this very entry which is the Galeere” sample, which is included in State of the Art (Volume 1) sample library and is very recognizable seeing as how it is kind of the equivalent of an orchestra hit sample but with human voices. The breathing or volcanic core about to explode-pulsating sound is made from the horn sounds that have a slight portamento that mimics this throbbing sensation.
Musically, the song is divided in four different sections; the intro, the steady ascending section based around transpositions, the climax section of descending scales and one interlude section where the energy and intensity go down, as if recharging for the climax section. The ascending section is based around a melody line made of two phrases that both end on the tonic, the first one reaching it from a lower register than the second. This single motif begins in C Phrygian and then keeps climbing to Eb Phrygian, Gb Phrygian and then A Phrygian where the climax takes place. This mode is always called upon for many lava biomes to give that exotic, not as strong but still Middle-Eastern feeling from hot places and cultures where fire is worshiped. Yet, from the underlying harmony we can see and hear that this is not your standard Phrygian mode, but its more exotic counterpart, the Major-Phrygian, also known as the flamenco mode due to its omnipresent use on that style of music; at your disposal whenever you find yourself in either in the heat of a desert or a volcano, the Phrygian major profile sound is what happens when you play a Phrygian melody on top of the major chords born out of these notes; normally the tonic chord of the Phrygian profile is minor. This creates the I to bII vamp which on closer inspection is a motif very much associated with the Metroid sound, just like the I to bIII which comes from the main theme of the series. You will hear a I to bII across many Metroid tracks and, since we are right now in his domains, it is not surprising that this profile and pair of chords is also the basis for the Ridey’s Theme, a creature named after the director of the Alien film that directly inspired the Metroid series (the Ridley battle cue is also based around the transposition of the vamp).
The horns add an additional pedal B note that adds some dissonance to the piece, making it more ominous (it creates a minor second interval on the I chord and a tritone on the bII chord. The fourth bar of the intro emphasizes this tritone of the Db7 chord). This major chord based vamp also adds a shade of heroic determination and hope to conquer this lava world.
The melody is played by the choral hits accompanied and harmonized with monolithic parallel fifths on the lower voices played by the horns. The piece is homogeneous in the sense that the choirs and horns are enough to provide most of both the accompaniment and melody. The piece is then transposed to a different key, always jumping to the bIII chord which is the other staple chord from Metroid music. These transpositions are enough to sustain a long section that repeats the same melody, with the composer using different configurations of the orchestration to create variety throughout the climbing; for example, to create more intensity, the accompaniment first plays every measure and then every two beats when it gets to the Eb profile. When it reaches the Gb profile more horns are added to carry the melody. For when it finally arrives at the A profile, it adds another instrument, a bass synth that first plays the root notes before playing a more elaborate bass line and countermelody at the climax.
The climax consist of the choirs condemning the player with two descending phrased through the Phrygian profile, at a faster pace of one note per beat; until this point the rhythmic profile of the melody was based around a dotted quarter note, here they are standard quarter notes. The only difference between the new pair of phrases is the way they go down in the scale, first phrase reaching a F note from below and the second one reaching the F from above; a tiny difference that creates enough variety alongside the chord changes that modify the flavor of the overlaying scale. The chord pattern in the Phrygian major remains unchanged except for the fact that the bass synth and the drums play with more intensity. For these parts the clave sticks are removed.
The interlude is a reprise of the first section, reiterating the main motif of the track in a more simplified manner, with less notes. The second phrase uses the fifth note of the scale, E, to pivot even higher to the original profile C Phrygian. The tension keeps ramping up at a faster pace, the instruments getting more intense in their playing and adding more layers until a second climax comes up faster, omitting the Gb profile part and going straight to the A Phrygian descending section. There is one last instance of the interlude before the piece loops.
The Lower Norfair theme cemented its place in the series when it returned in its first foray into the 3D world, which did not happen in the N64 era like it did for its colleagues but until the GameCube, and managed to capture the spirit and tone of the series in a first person view. The track has continued to see use in many other Metroid games or whenever a Lava themed course related in any way to the Metroid series appears, including Nintendo Land and Super Smash Bros. It is a track that fills you with determination to conquer the hot lands that Samus Aran traverses, which is a nice complement for our next track based around snow.
Help to keep the rites going around here by supporting the shrine:
Media Files, requests and support for more interactive content
Thou shall donate since this is a cult and you are now a sheep
Help staying awake analyzing game tracks and writing posts or else everything will end up being written by A.I
- Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Dancing Mad
Stairway to hell This one goes out for the masochists who want to spend their evening watching an entire opus that some other masochist painstakingly spent his time making with the primitive sound chip of the SNES (WARNING: the Visuaizer Music Tracks channel, Video Game Music Shrine and Google LLC… Read More »Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Dancing Mad - Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Kefka’s ThemeUncomfortable laughter After spending some time with the playfully sinister circus music of the Banjo-Kazooie series, finally we arrive at a character who is the personification of that idea and actually lives up to the sinister moniker, seeing as how this nihilistic psychopath who looks like a comic-relief jester is… Read More »Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Kefka’s Theme
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Cauldron KeepOminous stakes The sense of dread around the imposing tower’s lair of the villain sitting atop the highest peak of the Isle ‘o’ Hags is captured by this depressing track that receives the frantic chord change treatment of Grant Kirkhope but within a minor key context; if the C major… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Cauldron Keep
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Jolly Roger’s LagoonSeamen port Finally, the developers fulfilled their promise and managed to complete the legendary lost game known as Project Dream…sorta. There is a reason that game was called that since over at Rare some of its lead members always had a thing for pirate adventures, being featured on the 8-bit… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Jolly Roger’s Lagoon
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Hailfire Peaks (Lava Side)Duality of bear The duality of man, or rather of bear and bird. Because a series based around the contrasting personalities of its main characters sooner or later had to tackle such a level; the true twin peaks. Because why waste two levels with the generic lava and ice biomes… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Hailfire Peaks (Lava Side)
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – WitchyworldCursed clowns We are entering a Banjo-Kazooie spree. It seems that the respective safety authorities have been bribed since now we get to enter the famous park operated by the witch Gruntilda, who truly appears to be a tycoon outside her fairy tail home at Spiral Mountain. This is the… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Witchyworld
