The Black Mages - “Battle With the Four Fiends”

Nerd Alert day here on the blog: today’s artist is the Black Mages.  They are a Japanese progressive metal group; but the main twist here is that they’re headed up by Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu.  So of course, they play nothing but renditions of songs from the Final Fantasy series.  Of course, I love Final Fantasy, and the music was one of the most memorable parts of the series for me, so I’m happy about this whole concept.  I can still hum from memory a good amount of the earlier games’ songs from my youth.

This particular song is from Final Fantasy IV (released as Final Fantasy II here on the SNES in 1991).  This is one of my favorite games of the series, and the music is super dramatic; in this rendition, and basically all of their renditions, the Black Mages take the basic theme, reiterate it, then go wild with blazing guitar and synth solos.  It’s really interesting to listen to, if you’re into that kind of thing.  Really powerful stuff.