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Lonesome October Nights $1.00
Average Rating:4.0 / 5
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Lonesome October Nights
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Lonesome October Nights
Publisher: Bailey Records
by Derek K. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/19/2006 00:00:00

As a single piece of music for your horror-themed game (or just a horror-inspired scene in a non-genre gaming session), "Lonesome October Nights" by Bailey Records definitely sets a mood of ominous mystery and eerie atmosphere. Its running time is short in length - just one-minute-thirty-seconds - so a DM or GM using this piece of music can trust that it will take little time for the track to hit the right mood after just a few introductory seconds.

After the first fifteen or twenty seconds - past the sweeping introduction - the track starts to pulse just a bit, and an enterprising GM may even be able to use an audio editing piece of software to pull this soft pulsating out as an individual loop to play over and over again during longer, darker scenes in their game or campaign. (Of course, this audio manipulation would definitely need to be for the purchaser's own private, gaming use.)

Unfortunately, as a track overall, "Lonesome October Nights" doesn't loop very well. This doesn't make this a "bad" track, per se, but it does limit its use, and a GM might need to use this entire piece of music sparingly. The track could have been extended a bit, especially after the first twenty seconds, to make this a truly useful piece of background audio for your horror-themed game.

However, if you're a GM that creates the table-top RPG equivalent of a "cut scene," this music may accompany this bit of exposition just fine.

"Lonesome October Nights" is a cleanly-presented .mp3 file, and comes packaged with .pdf and .doc advertisements for other products from Bailey Records.

<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: This is a slick, well-produced piece of music that is professional-sounding and presented. The price is also quite affordable.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: It's just a tad bit too short to lend itself to repeated use.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br><BR>[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]<BR>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Lonesome October Nights
Publisher: Bailey Records
by Andrew B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/13/2006 00:00:00

This product is an MP3 audio file of a song called Lonesome October Nights. According to the information accompanying the download, it was originally part of a CD soundtrack for an independent Call of Cthulhu-inspired film entitled The Charnal Gospel. The original CD has apparently sold out, and the company has decided to release individual tracks for download via RPGNow. For a roleplaying gamer, these songs are meant to be used as genre specific background music, helping to set the atmosphere for a roleplaying game session.

Lonesome October Nights is 1 minute and 30 seconds long. It begins with an ominous rumble, accompanied by a rapid, insectoid screeching. As the screeching fades and the rumble builds, a soft chiming rhythm begins. It is reminiscent of the Tubular Bells theme from the Exorcist, only slower, quieter, and more suppressed. As the song progresses to the end, the sounds grow in volume and begin to blend together, rising in volume until finally fading out at the end.

Whew! I now know why I'm not a staff reviewer on an independent music website. Music may be a universal language, but it sure is hard to describe. To put things into less abstract terms, Lonesome October Nights is good background music. What little recognizable tune it has is very brief and highly muted. That's a good thing, as you don't want your players humming along with the music while they're battling the minions of Hastur. Background music should stay firmly in the background.

Lonesome October Nights is also creepy, which is the whole point of the composition. Relating it to Call of Cthulhu, it immediately reminded me of the Insects from Shaggai. The industrial buzzing, building to a noisy crescendo, brought to mind a number of other creepy images as well. Which leads me to the other use of RPG background music: gamemaster inspiration. There are certain songs that I like to listen to when I'm writing up a new adventure. They help get me in the mindset to imagine scenes of great cinematic action, or crawling shadowy dread, or whatever is appropriate to the genre I'm working in. Cthulhu-like horror music is a little harder to find, which makes a product like this one a welcome addition to any RPG soundtrack.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Lonesome October Nights is a good addition to any horror themed music library. It is very mood setting and well produced, and subdued enough that it stays in the background. If you use music in your games, or you'd like to begin amassing a collection, this is a nice piece to grab.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: At only a minute and a half, I thought the song was a bit short. It also doesn't really loop very well, as the end of the song clashes a bit with the beginning. Background music needs to play continuously in the background, and Lonesome October Nights barely lasts long enough for a few rounds of an encounter. I'm afraid that, by the time the GM begins setting the scene, the CD will have moved on to the next track. If the track looped with itself and was longer, I think it would better serve its purpose.

That said, it's a nice little piece of ambient horror music, and I'm interested to hear the rest of the CD.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br><BR>[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]<BR>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Lonesome October Nights
Publisher: Bailey Records
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/13/2006 00:00:00

Lonesome October Nights is a single MP3 by Bailey Records. It comes in a zipped file, 3.12 megabytes in size. The zipped file contains not only the MP3, but also three PDFs and a Microsoft Word document. Each of the PDFs is a single-page advertisement for Bailey Records material. The Microsoft Word document, in contrast, is a single page telling you about the CD this MP3 is from, gives the credits and some links to related material, and a bit of background on how the music came to be.

Lonesome October Nights is ninety seconds long, and is meant to be used for horror-style games. There are no lyrics, since this is meant to be background music. The track opens with a cacophony of strange sounds, which then leads into a subtle ambience that does a good job of evoking a lonely road at night. Towards the end, the cacophony from the beginning starts to rise again before all of the music slowly fades to a close.

While this single track is good unto itself, it comes across as feeling somewhat incomplete. The rising ambience of the main part of the music does a good job of establishing a feeling of isolation, and possibly even of a lurking horror, but it has no follow up to that. While perhaps on its original CD it was followed by more music that worked on the implications laid on this track, Lonesome October Nights doesn?t work quite as well in a vacuum. This is a good song to play to establish a fearful atmosphere, but be prepared to have more to follow up on it. It takes more than a lonely night to scare PCs, after all.

<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The music does a good job of evoking feelings of being isolated in a spooky area.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: By itself, the music can be spooky, but doesn't try to be more than that. This track needs further music to cash in on the foundations it lays.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br><BR>[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]<BR>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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