Overview

In 1998, First Smile Entertainment released a vocal image album to commemorate Super Robot Taisen F. It portrayed the lead characters of the game with a series of brand new vocal themes sung by a diverse cast of singers. The album falls down for a number of reasons...

Body

The opening track "Grungust Slice!!" makes very clear that this vocal album is set within the Super Robot Taisen universe. The instrumentals here offer a very distinctive blend of retro jazz and rock influences that entirely fits the rest of the series' music. The vocals provided by the Metal Brothers add to the extravagance with their passionate performance inspired by Hironobu Kageyama. They don't interpret the most exciting or memorable melodies, but still offer quite a lively performance.

One of the most interesting tracks stylistically is "Night of the Egoist". It reflects the flirtatious attitude of Irmgard Kazahara fairly well with its flamboyant instrumentals and seductive lyrics. The rhythms are particularly compelling here, almost having a hip-hop vibe, while the electro dubs are a refreshing change from the generic J-Rock. That said, the vocals sound rather unbalanced with the instrumentals, except in the more sentimental interludes, making the track rather unfulfilling overall. Indeed, the production values of this entire album feel quite low and dated, especially for the late 90s.

For the most part, the album has a very youthful sound. The sweet-hearted nature of Grace Urigin is reflected with naive, somewhat annoying, vocals and unobtrusive pop backing. Her counterpoint Arwynn Dorstein is represented by a similarly tacky theme that could easily fit in a high school musical. Yet more sentimentality is heard in the duet "Era of Valor", while "The Future Is Now!" takes first place for the most annoying vocal theme of the series with its screechy female vocals that fail to reflect any of the depth and mystery surrounded the featured character.

Summary

This isn't a particularly enjoyable image album: the stylings are consistently derivative, the melodies are generally bland, the production values are often crude, the performances can be abrasive, and some tracks don't even fit the vocalists. It's not a complete train wreck, but pretty much everyone can safely skip it. Only those with a massive affinity for Super Robot Taisen F should consider purchasing it.