Posted 2005-10-26, evaluated by the judges panel

OCR newcomer Revolver Project, aka Ty Scheuerman informs us that the Mother is, in fact, in control. Most likely he's referring to Mother Brain, but let's not rule out Mother Teresa, Mother Jones, Mother Earth, or Nanny from Muppet Babies, who - while admittedly not a real mother - certainly had both the qualifications and an amazing pair of striped socks. Regardless of maternal identity, this is some nice industrial Metroid mixage, reminiscent of KMFDM in a lot of ways, most specifically the precise, chopped and aligned electric guitar. Sascha Konietzko meets Samus Aran? Might be the closest thing you'll get, who knows... it's late and it's been a rather disappointing evening, so I'm gonna take the easy out and let the quotes do the talking - the ReMixer writes:

"The mix is definitely my own sort of take on the theme.. the flute and strings and choral hits you hear were all created in a (somewhat) faithful sense, but were used primarily to link the track more closely to the original. I just recently returned to the mix after about 10 months of having it sit around, because I wanted to wait until I sort of knew what I was doing. I know the guitar can become somewhat repetitive (or at least it did to me while I was mixing), but I used to support the somewhat "inhuman" theme I had going in my mind while I was working. The two voice samples you hear in the song are both from the Hal 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Oddysey. I've heard that they're a little hard to understand to some, but they seem as clear as I possibly could make them since I returned to the mix. The words spoken are "This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error." Later on in the mix is "I know that you are planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that is something I cannot allow to happen." At the end of the mix, I just wanted to return to the original mix, and tone down the noise, because I think the original melody is really ingenious, and I just really had to make sure it made it into the mix somehow unspoiled by all the noisy guitars and drums."

Can't go wrong quoting from Kubrick films, doncha know (although some of the judges could live without the quotes or were indifferent) - TO writes:

"Scary start going there. Good synth coming in over the distorted percussion and guitar (nice by the way.) The rhythm guitar coming in sounds very eerie and powerful, the reverb is almost a little too much, but I'm willing to give it as it makes the mix sound.. larger, so to speak. I can really dig the industrial sound here. The distortion is overbearing in some sections, but it's done well overall. I was cringing expecting the mix to be a whole mess of these distorted sounds. But after 2 minutes we head into the cream of this mix. The clear guitar, wonderfully clear industrial hits. powerful synthwork still working with that crunchy sounding distortion bordering on being over the top. The sound here is another hit or miss mix. You either like this stuff or hate it. This is produced well enough that I'm pleased with it."

This reminds me of the heyday of Wax Trax! Records, back when "industrial" was a relatively new genre and hadn't splintered off into sub-genres. I definitely had what I would refer to as an "industrial phase", where all I listened to were Pretty Hate Machine-era Nine Inch Nails, Front 242, KMFDM, etc., and while I think I ultimately prefer more melodic/harmonic action than industrial usually encourages, I still love the smell of napalm in the morning, so to speak. Revolver Project provides that smell, and the ballistics report indicates that most anyone seeking a rippled, stark metallic landscape of Super Metroid goodness should sign up for the firing squad, post-haste.