Death Smiles Original Soundtrack
Catalogue Number   CVST-0008
Publisher   Cave
Composition   Manabu Namiki
First Printing   May 26, 2008
Price   3675 Yen

Thanks PV for grabbing this tasty morsel of news. Namiki fans, mark your calendars.

*marks calendar*

-Mike

*marks calendar*

-Abe

*marks calendar*

*puts text between asteriks*

I about shit myself when I saw that!!!! I'M LAUGHING SO HARD RIGHT NOW BUT TRYING TO KEEP IT QUIET BECAUSE MY WIFE IS ASLEEP!!!

*cough* ahem

That was so excellent. Best joke ever.

*marks calendar*

The samples I've heard were great and the Halloween theme should make this very interesting indeed. Nobody does Cave soundtracks as well as Manabu Namiki.

Awesome.  *double marks calendar*

The game is pretty fun too, got to play it in some tokyo arcades last week.   (Although the difficulty seemed quite easy compared to other cave shooters).  Could barely hear any of the BGM due to all the other ambient noise, but yeah it's Namiki = WIN.

I don't see it listed anywhere at Cocoebiz.  In fact, I haven't seen anything in the "Coming Soon" section for a while.  Is that bad news?

Play-Asia will stock it.  But I'd rather buy from Coco, if given the choice.

I think Kahori is just busy. However, Cave stocks are so limited that VGM World might not get a chance to stock it at all.

*pre-orders it, waits anxiously for DVD pre-orders to open*

I received mine a couple days ago, and I've been listening to it almost non-stop.  It's not the serious, ass-kickin' stuff that we got with DAIOUJOU and KE-TSUI, but it's still very enjoyable in its own way.

The Stage C-1 music (track 8)... It's like some kind of high-energy synth-jazz thing, and doesn't sound like anything I've heard from Namiki's older soundtracks (except for maybe a couple tracks from Garegga, but that's a stretch). I hope I'm wrong about that, though; I want more.

DeathSmiles OST gets the Recommended stamp from me.  I still don't see this at CocoeBiz, so you may want to get it from Play-Asia while you still can.  As it was said, Cave discs don't last long, and they're gone when they're gone.

EDIT: And Namiki still makes the best "stage clear" music.

Oh you mean you don't like waiting 5-15 days just for the damn thing to ship? I see...

I got my copy yesterday and have given the WMAs I ripped from it several plays through. I love it, although I'm strangely put off by the live guitar work. I guess I'm just used to Namiki's previous synth-only recordings. Everything on this album is a step up, production-wise. Hope it's a sign of things to come.

Heh... I just noticed a riff on track 11 that I heard on the Neo Contra soundtrack. The crunch guitar synth tone is nearly identical, too. Namiki is a Fujimori fan, I guess

I think Manabu Namiki is one of the biggest fans of game music out there. He's been trusted to analyse and port sound for various Sega Ages 2500 games, Konami Arcade Collection, and Namco Museum DS. He'd definitely need familiarity with the originals to do that!

I'm late on jumping on the Deathsmiles bandwagon, but after hearing it, I concede: it's a ridiculously awesome album.  Mad props to Herrkotowski for hooking me up. :)

Goth-techno power rock riffs laced with a sprinkling of playful yet precociously-dark overtones.  Burning Halloween Town and Hades Castle are my faves, but Crossing the Ravine comes in a close third; Ravine, with its straight-faced techno beat backdrop, crystal-like chimes, voice samples, and bagpipes (!), is the very definition of an experimented sound done right. ;)  And of course, being the sucker for vocals that I am, I love "Period" and the Mad Symphony "Death Smiles" Image Song.  An instrumental version of the latter would seriously kick.

I only wished Namiki did a little more with Hell's Emperor, rather than going for a straight rendition of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.  Can you imagine how AMAZING the piece would sound had it been graced with more of his arrangement style?

I'm glad you liked it Angela! I'm just glad I was able to score a physical copy of it when it went on sale. Cave soundtracks sell out so fast and once they do, they are never reprinted. It's a shame, but I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles.

After seeing this thread and recalling I enjoyed a Cave album a few years ago (Ketsui), I decided to buy the Death Smiles OST. Yeah, that was fun. So I searched google until I found it for free. It's worth much more than what I paid for it. Although I'm not very familiar with Manabu Namiki, Death Smiles immediately reminded me of Ketsui. So he is fairly consistent.

It's like some kind of high-energy synth-jazz thing, and doesn't sound like anything I've heard from Namiki's older soundtracks (except for maybe a couple tracks from Garegga, but that's a stretch). I hope I'm wrong about that, though I want more kasey kahne calendar.