POWER SHOT!

When a Mega Man arrangement soundtrack pops up on my radar, I've got to give it a listen. When the album in question is by Joshua Morse, well, then I really have to give it a listen. I don't think Joshua has carried an entire Mega Man album by himself since 2011's Mega Man: The Robot Museum, an arrangement soundtrack that I listened to countless times. I've since heard a few tunes from Josh here and there, but it sure is awesome to see him helm an entire Mega Man remix album again. POWER SHOT! released on May 5th and like Josh's previous Mega Man album, I have no idea how many times I've heard this one.

Mega Man music makes for some fine rock arrangements. Having said that, if you're expecting to jam out to some metal tracks, you won't find that here. For the unaware, Josh's specializes in jazz, dance style arrangements, which is what you'll be getting here for the most part.

Similar to The Robot Museum, POWER SHOT! is also a relatively short album. At 10 tracks, its only a little bit beefier than it's cousin. Where POWER SHOT! differs is game representation. The Robot Museum had a single track from the console versions of Mega Man 1-8 and a bonus track from Mega Man & Bass. POWER SHOT! sometimes uses more than one track from a game. Mega Man 3 gets two arrangements as does Mega Man 5 as well as Mega Man & Bass. I should also mention that any track that was arranged in The Robot Museum is not represented here.

The album starts off with one of my favorite tracks from the original Mega Man, Fire Man. Intro is a bit bleep bloppy but I dig it and the transition form retro to modern sounds is smooth. Its pretty common for people to pick Mega Man 2's music over the first game, but I still firmly believe that the first Mega Man has some rocking tunes and I'm always down for a hot Fire Man remix. Another track I've always loved is the Museum theme from Mega Man & Bass, a game that some find to have one of the weaker Mega Man soundtracks, but again, is one I really enjoyed. Not only does the opening stage to Mega Man & Bass get a phenominal remix, so does another favorite of mine, Ground Man, which happens to be the closing track for POWER SHOT!

One track that has always been one of my least favorites is Plant Man Mega Man 6. It isn't that I find the track to be bad or anything. I just don't think there's anything special about it and it comes off bland to me especially compared to other songs in the game. So I'm actually surprised that I ended up enjoying the remix of Plant Man on POWER SHOT! as much as I did.

The more I listened to POWER SHOT!, I think I noticed Joshua used some sound fonts I recognized. The Genesis/Mega Drive has some pretty heavy drums and Capcom's CPS-II boards were known for their distinct guitar whales. You could easily identify them in Capcom's mid to late '90s games such as X-Men vs. Street Fighter. If Josh did indeed use the samples I think he did, my hats off to the man because I love that hard Genesis percussion and those CPS-II guitars.

POWER SHOT! makes me feel like I'm discovering Mega Man: The Robot Museum all over again. I was even tapping my foot and bobbing my head as I was doing this write up. If you're looking for some more chill Mega Man arrangements or just want some dang good Mega Man music, give this sucker a download or take it for a test listen on Bandcamp. The album is a name your price deal so you can get it for free or give Josh some moola. I'll be excited for whatever else Joshua works on but I do hope to see more Mega Man related projects from him down the line.

Get POWER SHOT! here.