Thought I'd start up a discussion thread for the upcoming Peace Walker soundtrack. 

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Soundtrack Info courtesy of VGMdb and SEMO:

METAL GEAR SOLID PEACE WALKER ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
Catalogue Number   GFCA-215
Publisher   Konami
Composition   Akihiro Honda, Nobuko Toda, Kazuma Jinnouchi
Vocals   Donna Burke, Nana Mizuki
First Printing   April 14, 2010
Price   2940 Yen

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It's unfortunate that the GEM Impact folks don't appear to have a hand in this one, but the presence of Akihiro Honda is most welcome.  Also, the HEAVENS DIVIDE / Love's Deterrent Power CD single is out now.  What do you think of the songs?

HEAVENS DIVIDE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cKxBjVLQU4

Koi no Yokushiryoku / Love's Deterrent Power:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3rPP1V38Qs

boycotting all MGS music until the original MGS theme is brought back.

Weird that it's only a single disc, considering that I've heard this game has more content than any other MGS game to date. But I suppose they need room for VA, and I doubt Kojima would ever settle for sequenced music on a disc-based platform.

The fact that the CD single for Heaven's Divide has a strip-cover is pretty weird.

Not going to happen.

GEM Impact might still have some involvement. I'm trying to confirm but might have to wait till soundtrack release day. Sure hope so as I personally think the current Kojima Productions team suck.

When you can jiggle Rosemary's boobs via the Six Axis controls in MGS4, nothing should surprise you about this series anymore.

Not sure how I feel about no Hibino and crew on the soundtrack, but I love the HEAVENS DIVIDE single.  Donna Burke's singing voice has that beautiful yet haunting quality to it.  If Mary Elizabeth McGlynn ever decides to ditch Silent Hill, Donna Burke could replace her in a heartbeat.  In fact.. trivia time.. Donna Burke actually did the voice for Angela from Silent Hill 2 and Claudia from Silent Hill 3, and I must say, she did a hell of a job with both of them.  I'd definitely like to hear more of her, both speaking and singing.

Yeah, I'm really liking Heavens Divide myself.  It feels like a spiritual successor to Calling To The Night, but more contemporary with the added beat and acoustic instrumentation.  Dig that epic flourish that opens up the chorus, too.

The lyric is pretty well written, but that "tiny souls" bit feels awkward as hell.

Gave the Original Soundtrack the once over, and I've gotta say, it is a MASSIVE disappointment.  The entire score is a middling, uninspired affair, with each track seemingly more generic sounding than the last.  As per the course for a Metal Gear score, there's a decent balance struck between the low-key mood building themes and the action ones, but any resemblance to the series' known substance and style has been completely drained here. 

HEAVENS DIVIDE (which luckily features the full five minute version) really is the only beacon of light in this otherwise dreary offering.  There are two others, but I would consider them more like thin rays of the faintest kind.  The sole Hibino-contributed track, Little Brother, features a wonderful piano excerpt of Heavens Divide toward the end, the only song that ever reprises the theme throughout the entire soundtrack.  The other is Zero Allies!, which proves to be a strong representation of the Peace Walker Main Theme.  All the same, the PW Main Theme doesn't hold a candle to the original MGS Main Theme (which yes, is naturally MIA here), or even the MGS3/MGS4 Metal Gear Saga Main Theme.

Will the music work contextually in the game?  Possibly.  Will I be listening to this on an even semi-regular basis?  Not a chance.

Weak links again were Kazuma Jinnouchi and Nobuko Toda in my opinion. I enjoyed the contributions from all other composers, including Akihiro Honda's vocal themes and the guest compositions by GEM Impact and Soundelux. Pity they are amidst quite a lot of filler.

Angela, how would you compare this score to the previous PSP titles, i.e. Acid, Acid 2, and Portable Ops? I like Portable Ops a lot, but not so much the other two.

Portable Ops was terrific.  It always felt like a part of the main Solid music series, making for a worthy follow-up after the stellar MGS3.  I had posted some impressions of the soundtrack in this thread.  The Acid scores aren't quite as high up on my list, but they're certainly more enjoyable listens than Peace Walker.  The stylized, punchy techno certainly gave the series its own flair, though I felt the first Acid was more consistently Metal Gear than the second.  The latter tended to veer into too much filler-heavy ambiance.

And just because I'm feeling so nostalgic, I'm re-posting that Portable Ops rendition of the Metal Gear Solid Main Theme from the other thread.

MGS: Portable Ops / Metal Gear Solid Main Theme:
http://www.mediafire.com/?zggtjyjzmy1

'm trying to confirm but might have to wait till soundtrack release day

Hibino is only credited for one track, as a collaborator at that.

I was also surprised to see Bemani's/Guitarfreaks Hideyuki Ono credited here...

He confirms in an SEMO interview to be published early next week that GEM Impact's role was similarly expansive as MGS4 and they were responsible for about an hour of cinematic underscoring. Pity not more of this made it into the album as Jinnouchi and Toda's music is really quite dull in this soundtrack.