Symphony of the Fight by The Mad Gear (now known as Super Mad Gear!) is perhaps the most unlikely collection of music ever to grace Middle Tennessee. On the surface, the band is a comedic visage of a rock band, but it’s only partly true. The Mad Gear is a video game soundtrack cover band—a surprisingly good one. Symphony is purely instrumental; however, so don’t expect 8-bit arcade noises. The guys are capable musicians who meld hard rock and classic video game songs in a way that is almost theatrical. At first listen, some will probably scoff and ignore. It’s a niche that mainly true gamers and retro-heads will appreciate.
What started as a cult-like tribe is now a massive ecosystem of loyal fans. The gaming experience birthed a lifestyle that was once too radical for mainstream culture. These days, it’s ingrained into it. The Mad Gear, as goofy as it seems, is a good reflection of the trend. The band is made up of a laughable cast of characters that includes Shreddy Krueger, Rex Skeleton, Big Vig, Miles Strongarm and Bruce Iron, and contains the standard lineup of instruments including guitar, bass, drums and keys/synth.
All the songs featured on Symphony of the Fight are covers of themes from popular video games like Donkey Kong, Mega-Man and Super Mario 64. Super Mad Gear takes computer-generated video music and brings it alive with acoustic drums, electric bass and heavy guitar leads. They also make use of saxophone and various horn sounds. Overall, they’re good at what they do. If you played video games back in the ’90s and can appreciate a satirical rendition of a modern American rock band, then you might enjoy Symphony of the Fight.
The Mad Gear took the fundamental bones of rock ’n’ roll and built upon classic themes from the biggest legacy franchises in the gaming community. Unfortunately, the project is overshadowed by countless other video game soundtrack covers, all of which range from hip-hop to smooth jazz. A quick search on the web yields many other cover versions of video game themes.
The members of The Mad Gear are solid musicians, so the professional sound quality of the album isn’t a shocker. The album has all the basics going for it, aside from a lack of progression. It’s hard to create much of a sense of progression on a cover album like this, and the instrumentals get increasingly predictable with every passing track.
Considering the band operates in a very specific niche genre, and the difficulty of modern instrumental albums in general to pick up much momentum in today’s climate, the odds of mainstream popularity are stacked against Super Mad Gear.
But the band’s shining quality is its fun demeanor, a great trait that’s sometimes hard to find in the music industry. The Mad Gear is a sort of break from the serious personas of other bands out there. Symphony of the Fight is an oddly shaped gem of its own. The album is available for free on themadgear.bandcamp.com. To learn more visit madgearband.com.
