I’m here today to spread some goddamn gospel right now – The Protomen is one of my favourite bands of all time and it should be yours too.
Let’s back up a bit; so I’ve noticed that a lot of what I write, besides reviews, have been music and film related – Feeling that I’ve left out games in other articles for so long I’ve decided to talk about a holy mix of both video games and music The Protomen.
The Protomen are a band based off of the Mega Man series because, well, duh.. Look at their name! They have around 4 full-length albums and a couple singles out from their upcoming album which has been in production for a long, long, long time.
I’ll mainly be discussing these two albums right here:
Act I and Act II: The Father of Death
I’ve blasted these albums through my speakers way too many times to count, not only because it’s absolutely banging music, but because they retell a darker and much more interesting story of Mega Man through these songs.
I’ll use the descriptions used on the unofficial wiki to give you a summary of the stories told in these albums.
Act I: “In Act, I, the band’s first album, Dr. Wily is represented as an Orwellian ruler over a dystopic City, full of humans who are too scared to stand up to his control. Dr. Light creates a “perfect man, an unbeatable machine”, Protoman, to fight to free the City, but Protoman is destroyed by the overwhelming power of Wily’s armies. Defeated and despairing, Dr. Light then creates a second son, Megaman, who he attempts to dissuade from battle. Megaman runs away from home and confronts his brother in an apocalyptic concluding battle.”
Act II: The Father of Death: For the band’s second album the group, working with Meatloaf producer Alan Shacklock, devised a prequel storyline to Act I. The second act details the rise of Albert Wily to power, the rivalry between himself and Thomas Light, and the tragic events which brought the City under Wily’s control.
So these descriptions tell you pretty much everything about these albums regarding their stories, and also thematically… But just reading a description of a story is way different from actually experiencing it. – I’d suggest you take some time to sit down and listen to these albums front to back and enjoy yourself just an amazing musical experience.
Now I can certainly say that, yes, this band is certainly not for everyone. It’s a rock opera / 8-bit jumble of musical styles with a lot of hard rock thrown, and that’s more apparent in Act I than in II. II sounds more like it’s telling the story first and the music second, and yet it threw out some absolute fire tunes while they were at it.
Now, one thing I might add which I mentioned before is that the story is still incomplete – The third act is still being made with only a few singles from it released; bear in mind that Act II came out in 2009 so it’s been quite a while… But during that time they did release two other albums – One, a tribute album to legendary British rock band Queen where they cover their songs, and another cover album called The Cover Up, which is just a bunch of covers of a ton of 80’s songs, but there’s some kind of underlying story hidden in there – Now, I haven’t listened to this album as much as I have the others, but it’s widely debated whether or not it’s some kind of side story between Act II and I.
The most recent thing of note that they have released is a short film / music video for Light Up The Night, which is a single from Act II.
But I think I’ve rambled on about The Protomen for long enough; this article is simply a recommendation for people who have never heard of them before and I hope with this, a lot more people can get turned onto this band so they can join us in the suffering in wait for Act III!
Just real quick, I’ll recommend some of my favourite songs from both Act I and II – It’s better if you listen to the entire album all at once first but these are banging tunes on their own nonetheless.
Act I
- Unrest in the House of Light
- The Stand (Man or Machine)
- Sons of Fate
Act II
- Father of Death
- The Hounds
- Breaking Out
- Light Up the Night
You can check out their Spotify here:
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