Drag-On Dragoon Volume 2 Original Soundtrack features the best music of the two volumes. Here Takayuki Aihara and Nobuyoshi Sano still strive to make their own unusual music. The tracks here are far more distorted and twisted (especially those from Sano) and more have choirs in them.
Aihara starts off the soundtrack with the secondary character’s warring themes, being Leonard, Arioch and Seere respectively. Leonard’s themes are comprised of quick violins and loud orchestral bursts from time to time and also have this slightly mischievous feel to it. Those from Arioch feature an unpleasant sample which is looped constantly, it has to be some sort of trumpet, but whatever it is, it almost ruins the tracks. Those from Seere are a lot more enjoyable, they feature the most orchestral loops thus far, something to come out of a medieval action-packed film.
The Ninth Chapter and Tenth Chapter tracks feature Sano’s most creative works, as he lets himself loose completely. “Ninth Chapter Closing” starts off with a smooth strings passage but quickly gets swallowed by repetitive trumpets and odd electronic effects which sounds like those old trains that move slowly across the railtracks (Don’t ask, just listen to see what I mean). “Tenth Chapter In the Sky” has to be the weirdest track on the entire disc, it starts off with thundering drums and violins followed by those weird electronic sounds, and by the end, we have a choir, but distorted…not just slightly, to the point that it’s actually freaky to hear, and it goes on backed by the drums, the SFX, the trumpets, MY GOD, what an insupportable cacophony! This lasts for nearly a minute, and it left me just awed at Sano’s unique approach to music.
One piece that needs to be mentioned is the ending vocal theme, “Route B Staff Roll – Exhaustion.” Eriko Hatsune’s voice seems to float above the pulsing music and help bring beauty to the piece as it is repetitive. Sano has taken the liberty of playing with the volumes and distorting her voice every once in a while, it creates an interesting effect and is overall a decent vocal piece.
To conclude this review, I must warn again about how experimental this soundtrack is, you will likely be disgusted if you are either not open-minded enough or are not familiar with the composers’ background. If you feel adventurous, this is a sure winner in my book.
