History Repeating, Mega-style

Is what they say true? Does death wear blue?

The Megas are one of those bands that you WANT to like. They’re a group of obviously enthusiastic, sincerely nice guys who just so happen to make some very fun Megaman-based rock and roll.

The Megas take the base music from Megaman games, rework it to suit their alt-rock style and add fantastic lyrics which mostly deal with characterization of each Robot Master and the main characters like Megaman himself, Dr. Light and Dr Wily. Their first album, Get Equipped, was based on Megaman 2, the UNARGUABLY BEST MEGAMAN GAME OF ALL TIME (I said unarguably, so you can’t argue with me. Shove it, Megaman X) and it was good, very good.

They stepped it up from “very good” to blow-you-away awesome with Get Acoustic, which is exactly what it says on the tin – an acoustic version of Get Equipped, with a programmed “Monsteropolis Orchestra.” Get Acoustic is really impressive; the music has an epic feel to it and the lyrics suit it well, telling the story of a young robot man drafted into killing other young robots all on behalf of their guilt- (Dr. Light) or anger- (Dr. Wiley) wracked “fathers.” In conjunction with Entertainment System, they also released a 4 song EP called Megatainment, which covered some tracks from Megaman 1.

This year saw the release of their next full-length album, History Repeating: Blue. This is the first of two albums (Blue and Red) based on Megaman 3. I really loved Get Equipped and Get Acoustic was even better, but I think History Repeating: Blue might be my favorite Megas work to date. They’ve refined their lyrical style – Get Equipped had some clunky and awkward lyrics among excellence but History Repeating doesn’t repeat those mistakes. They’ve taken their characterization of Megaman, the Robot Masters et. al. to a whole new level and even introduced some SUBTLY to songs based on video game level music about 8-bit characters from a platformer.

The over-arcing theme of this album is about the principle characters getting tired of this fighting – it’s the third go-around, after all. History Repeating Parts 1 & 2, Gamma Unchained, and (I Want to Be the One) To Watch You Die (an aside – The Megas win gold at the Song Title Olympics) all touch on the primary characters’ feelings of weariness, frustration and sorrow at their war. This album has a great cohesion of theme and sound which was something Get Equipped lacked (though to be fair, Get Equipped made up for it with a variety of sounds and more character-specific themes instead of the over-arcing ones). All together it lends the album a mature edge that makes it feel more like the two-part video game rock opera it’s meant to be.

On an all-around great album, there are really some stand-out tracks.

Walk Away From Light is from Snakeman’s perspective and here comes some of that subtly – it’s all a song about tempting (snake, temptation, ba-da-ba-da-pish) Megaman away from Dr. Light by pretty well reasoned arguments (“Hey what do you say?/You say don’t take their lives/They don’t deserve to die/And who does?/Do you think it’s us?/And what of the one/Who calls us sons?/You gonna kill him too?/Because who are you?/You’re a man’s metal son/The same as every one of us”). The lyrics are snappy and well-paced and fun.

Previously released as a single in 2010, You’ve Sparked a War has been remixed for History Repeating, which included adding a militaristic, Now We’re Serious intro. This version is far more epic and bracing in scope than the original single’s more intimate, less-polished version. Both are great but this one suits the album perfectly. It is, obviously, Sparkman’s theme and perspective.

While I’m making a bunch of noise about character-themes and subtly, don’t think that The Megas aren’t self-aware in their work; Don’t Mess With Magnetman reminds you that you’re listening to video-game rock based on Megaman with a fun, catchy tune and hilarious lyrics. The song is a heartfelt plea of love from Magnetman to Roll (“I tell her I think she’s the one/her answer is her brother with a loaded gun”) demonstrating the humor that Get Equipped was rife with (“Sure, my dad wants to take over the world/but can you let that get between us, girl?”). The fact it leads into the somber, death march intro of the new version of You’ve Sparked a War just adds this great level of thematic dissonance.

All around, History Repeating: Blue, is a great album from The Megas and I’m very excited for Red to be released, which shouldn’t be very far off. If you haven’t listened to The Megas before, start right now, start with History Repeating: Blue and  be prepared to get hit right in the face with a power shot of rock.

The Megas, being awesome, have put the entirety of History Repeating: Blue on youtube for your listening pleasure. If you like it, you can (and should) purchase their discography over at The Megas’ website.