Random Encounter

http://orlandoweekly.com/music/music-amp-nightlife-reader-39-picks-1.1345195?pgno=1 - Orlando Weekly

If you've ever wondered what it would sound like to hear a dude shredding Sonic music on an accordion, you owe it to yourself to check out Random Encounter. Hell, even if the mere thought of a dude wailing hedgehog jams on a squeezebox never even remotely entered your mind, you still owe it to yourself to check out Random Encounter, because it's pretty fucking awesome.

Random Encounter is a four-piece rock band out of Orlando that sounds like what I imagine you would get if you crossed old-school Nobuo Uematsu with They Might Be Giants, an electric guitar, pirate music, a hand grenade, and some sort of audio equivalent of George A. Romero's most recent Day of the Dead film. In their debut album, "Unavenged", they perform classic, very well-executed rock covers of iconic video game music, coupled with uplifting original tunes about impending zombie and/or nuclear apocalypses, and the occasional tune describing the band's intense fiery hatred for the medieval Russian lich Koschei the Deathless. Koschei was a villain from Russian folklore who was famous for hypnotizing virgins and princesses into falling in love with him through some kind of weirdo diabolical mind-control roofie-colada. and then turning their would-be saviors to stone whenever some self-righteous heroes inevitably showed up at Koschei's evil castle looking to save his girlfriend, so he's a pretty good guy to hate. Plus, according to the myth, you can't kill Koschei because his immortal soul is kept in an egg inside a duck that was eaten by a rabbit, which in turn was buried alive inside a casket under an oak tree on a glass mountain, (it's like the Russian stacking-doll version of Achilles' Heel). Since it's not fucking likely that anybody's going to be tracking that duck-rabbit-egg thing down anytime soon, we should probably do whatever we can to support people looking to remove this undead motherfucker from our particular quadrant of reality.

As I said before, one of the first things you'll notice about Random Encounter is that their lead singer rocks an accordion. Now, before you talk any shit about the accordion, think about this – you wouldn't have thought that a damn flute would have made Link more badass, but then the next thing you know you hit B and our favorite Triforce-hunting elf-man is busting out cryptic tunes and fucking tornadoes are flying in out of nowhere teleporting him all over the damn place. It's kind of like that here – you aren't sure what to think at first, but you quickly realize that listening to this guy wail on the squeezebox is a hidden gem akin to finding the Master Sword buried in a cave under a tombstone in the cemetery. In addition to being fucking awesome, it adds a layer that lesser (non-accordion-wielding) bands lack, and the sound he gets out of it is perfect at capturing the feel of the 8-bit jams they're covering. Plus it makes everything sound like pirate music, which rocks. It's like all the awesomeness of playing Castlevania on the NES in Port Royale in the 17th century without all the syphilis or cutlass wounds.

The tracks on Unavenged run the full spectrum of pump-up music, running from a Final Fantasy battle track awesomely-titled "Still More Fighting", to a spastic tune called "Mother's Brain" that sounds like something from Suicidal Tendencies or another of those old-school punk bands. The album also features classic covers from Chrono Trigger, Zelda, Sonic, as well as Castlevania's epic "Vampire Killer" theme – a track that is pretty much universally-recognized as required listening any time you're jamming pointy wooden objects into the aortas of hideous bloodsucking nosferatus. And speaking of vampires, the entire album was mixed by Rob Kleiner of Tub Ring, a man who was nominated for a Grammy for his work on one of the Twilight soundtracks. I guess it's one of those "know your enemy" situations – you can't properly mix/master a track about hammering tent pegs into Dracula's face until you've actually had a chance to delve into the inner psyche of angsty teenage vampires in suburban Washington state.

But Kleiner isn't the only reinforcement that Random Encounter brought in to assist them on their mission: Unavenged features guest artists from across the U.S. (and Korea), including conscripting the services of one of The Protomen to help them record the Gerudo Valley theme from Ocarina of Time. The excellent post-apocalyptic style album artwork from [???] depicts the band fighting off an unstoppable horde of zombies, and honestly any time a band artistically volunteers to drop themselves in the middle of a teeming of throng of undead you kind of have to appreciate it. Well, I guess I'm assuming it's the zombie apocalypse we're looking at here... if not, they're just being mauled by a horde screaming fans and responding by stabbing them with swords, which is probably less cool (especially if you're a fan).

- Ben Thompson, badassoftheweek.com - Ben Thompson