Master Cyrus is finally here with a KICK BUTT battle theme. As per VGM tradition, so many battle themes are in duple time, so it's really refreshing to hear such an intimidating battle theme written in compound time (12/8!) The Team Plasma Battle Theme from Pokmon Black and White also comes to mind as another compound battle theme, let me know if you know of any others!
Cyrus is such a cool villain, maybe my favorite from any video game! I will admit, the rest of Team Galactic (maybe with the exception of Charon) is kind of comically bad... but Cyrus has such a serious and intimidating air about him. One thing I really respect about him as a character is that he knows exactly what he's working towards. Even if his goal of a completely new world starting from a blank slate could be construed as foolish by some, I really respect anyone who is able to set a long term goal, and work tirelessly towards finishing that. Life lessons with Cyrus, I suppose?
This arrangement was really really challenging to write! Cyrus' theme has been on my list of songs to do since the beginning of the Year of Sinnoh, and I could never quite figure out how to arrange it. I didn't really have a sound in my arsenal that could match the epic slap bass sound that is used in the original track. I ended up compromising a little bit, and decided to use the low register of the piano layered on top of a fingered electric bass for it. Low register piano stuff can take up a lot of space in a mix, but that riff was really important, so it made for a good choice! I can't forget to mention the excellent chorals that Julia provided for this arrangement! I think choir, in the right circumstances, turns the intensity up just another notch, and that's exactly what this arrangement needed. Sammy's (Spiro's) guitar is a great fit for this arrangement, and that metric modulation around 2:38 was really fun - I wanted to reference the USUM version of Cyrus' battle theme, which is in 4/4, and I needed to get from 12/8 to 4/4 somehow!
\"Battle! (Team Galactic Commander) \" from \"Pokmon Diamond / Pearl / Platinum\" composed by Junichi Masuda
0:00 An ominous intro!
0:43 The Cyrus riff...
2:40 Metric modulation!
3:44 Piano solo!
4:47 Giant C major chord ending!
