Deep Space Disgrace
Reader review by Kunal Majmudar
I happened upon this CD whilst casually browsing at Tower Records. When I saw it I couldn't believe it! All of those super-cool intros to the shows on Toonami on one CD? I couldn't wait to hear how the short-lived arrangements were stretched into full-length songs. Unfortunately, this CD was not worth half the excitement, nor half the money (I think I paid about 16 bucks for it). The sad truth is that this whole CD is uninspired, unexciting, and just flat out bad.
The melodic ideas themselves are not half bad, but the dull beats and mono-chromatic chords kill whatever sense of dynamism there might have been. Sound effects play in the background without ever really surfacing and the only thing that really stands out is the bass lines, which surface from the sonic cesspool every once in a while. The animated host of Toonami (the robot in the spaceship) comes on and says a small blurb at the beginning and end of the CD, but the voice itself is marginally recognizable, drenched in echo and octave shifts.
Not to that there are any *good* tracks, but there are a couple of songs that are half-decent. "Dragon" is a decent song (it's the intro clip to Dragonball Z). There is a tad too much bass, but the drum loops are more complex than in other songs, which makes this song quite tolerable. The other song, "Arabic", is another Dragonball Z intro clip. This is definitely the best song on the whole CD, with the clean guitar melody driving it.
All in all, this CD is worth about two bucks. Don't waste your money on it. If you want ambience or techno phonic break beats go for something like the Baroque OST or even the Bouncer OST if you're a bit more open-minded. Bottom line: the ideas are bland, the melodies are bland, and even the bass lines are bland. Go spend your hard-earned money elsewhere.