Mike Drazka - Angels Of War (song review) |self-released, single, 2012| 
Any music placed in video games or movies may have a better chance for exposure as well as recognition. It becomes memorable too, even though the composer stays in the shadows of the game at first. Similarly, music themes mixed with pictures and action bring far more vivid impressions in contrast to listening to a song without any additional multimedia content. Stunning, atmospheric music has enriched games such as Quake or Fallout which still inspire millions of gamers as well as fans of soundtracks, regardless of how old both of those games have become through time.
"Angels of War" is an instrumental song composed by American songwriter and self taught multi-instrumentalist Mike Drazka. He has already placed his music into various forms of visual media such as TV, radio and internet multimedia sources including Oxygen Network, News12 Networks, MSG Networks and The Motion Picture Association of America with the award winning documentary Flight 587. However, this list of successful achievements doesn't make him stop crafting the sound of his compositions even better.
This new song would be a good fit to an action movie trailer, TV series or advertisement, but placement in a video game would be an ideal match. First of all, Mike operates within several musical genres, from rock to metal through orchestral, acoustic and techno. "Angels of War" is a heavy track due to its looped guitar riffs and sampling, thus it tends to bring industrial rock and industrial metal music scenes into the limelight. Such heavy guitar driven music has been successfully utilized with a lot of video games because of fast rhythms and aggressive riffs that have the ability to change the rate of the human heartbeat so they become one with the sound (and action!). The same thing happens when music is designed to play a game of hide-and-seek with human brainwaves. For some this technique may work, for some it does not since we're talking about individual perceptions.
Additionally, the rhythm of "Angels of War" is dynamic, so it makes the song promising if geared for specific types of video games that include a lot of running and jumping or similar character action.
Secondly, the song has atmospheric parts in the background based on angel-esque voices and violins that are interlaced with the main theme. This makes the format not only accessible for use with PC, Mac, Xbox and mobile platforms, but even more types of multimedia.
Finally, the composition is short (lasts slightly over 2:30 minutes), sleek and tight, yet powerful at the same time which glues the guitar and drums together based on the overall arrangements. This molds the song into one wisely composed soundtrack.
If you are in search of hiring a sound designer to create some interesting themes for your documentaries, performances, presentations, computer or mobile video games, ads as well as multimedia website content, then you should contact Mike Drazka since his musical and technical skills seem to fit this position very well.
(Katarzyna 'NINa' Górnisiewicz, Fabryka Magazine, May 15th, 2012)
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