Red Flag - Fear Series Box Set Disc Eight - The Spider And The Astronaut

The Cast
The Mission
Spanner In The Works
Spiders Waltz - Spatial Mix
Discovery In Space
Honour Bound
Ace The Hero
Spiders Waltz - Dreamy Mix
Amazing Spider?
Fly In The Ointment - NME Mix
Victory March - NVS Mix
Spiders Waltz - NRG Mix

This disc was the most unusual of the 10 discs in the Fear Series Box Set. The main portion of the disc is taken up by the narration of a story, created and read by Mark, with scoring and sound effects by Chris. It's the story of Ace, a astronaut who goes on a dangerous mission, and his friend the Spider. I won't give away too many details.

 Interspersed with the story are 2 remixes of the track "Spider's Waltz". The Spatial mix gives the track a very expansive, ambient feeling in the intro, and reduces the emphasis on the percussion that was so prominent in the original. The Dreamy mix goes even further on the ambient leanings of the previous mix, with a piano backing serving as the new backbone of the track. 

Two newer tracks and another mix of Spider's Waltz close out the Cd. "Fly In The Ointment (NME Mix)" is a really neat track. Several neat sounds here, including some cool bass guitar sounds throughout the track, metallic sounding drums, and several synth squelches in the song. It's a awesome dance oriented song, and really worth hearing. "Victory March (NVS Mix)" is very reminiscent of the "Coda Concerto" instrumental that closed out the "Fear Of A Red Planet" album. It's enjoyable, but nothing too special.

The final track, the NRG mix of Spider's Waltz, incorporates elements of the previous two mixes back into the original song, extending it out and giving it a minute and 1/2 ambient outro. Pretty neat.

Overall, this is a neat cd, but the story portion doesn't hold up as well to repeat listens as the rest of the disc. I really, really like the track "Fly In The Ointment", and the rest of the disc is OK for occasional listening.

Added:  Sunday, July 14, 2002
Reviewer:  Jason Baker
Score:
Related web link:  Official Website
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