Flock! The cute game of sheep herding, taking the PS1 game entitled “Sheep” and running with the idea, making it much more friendly and yet despite mucking up the controls, manages to make it a fun day in. Now the soundtrack, composed by Bobby Banjo mainly is available for free download! Free?! In this day and age? Thank you very much Capcom!
“The Motherflockers Have Landed” opens like a chirpy b-movie on speed. The theremin going wild and lots of kooky keyboards and drums going at it hammer and tongs. It really sets the mood for a tongue in cheek joyous ride. “Hay Fever” takes the music to a thigh slapping middle American desert banjo feel. You can hear the jews harp bouncing away with aplomb! It’s great fun to shake your bum to on the seat – excellently constructed. “Leaf It To Me” is more top tapping and normal. It’s still a fun tune and the guitar playing is great. The b-movie theremin makes an appearance on this bluesy number but doesn’t feel out of place at all. “Lazy Chick” sounds very familiar with its harmonica lead theme as the slow but comical barn yard theme.
“Wooly Jumpers” is the wintry theme with lots of chorused keyboards and keyboards to serenely skate over the speakers. It’s like an alien Christmas party theme – strangely warm. “Fur Coat” is similarly gentile and relaxed in a joyous way, almost becoming like a spring theme rather than winter. “Moonlight Moonatta” reminds me of Sly Cooper’s music, comically sneaky. Nothing beats frogs as percussive beats! “Pigs In Space” is the credits track which is like a swinging blues track which would be slightly downcast if it weren’t for the funny choice of instruments. To make a sad track comical but its instrumentation is an unusual but solid choice in this excellent soundtrack.
Following that are the short “Round Clear” & “Round Fail” inserts which are perfectly pitched for the soundtrack and then “Do Ewe Lurve Me” which is short 13 second insert piece. Following that and rounding off the soundtrack are three trailer musics from MediaJuice Studios which sound slightly different with its keyboard samples but the overall mood is still cowboy b-movie and they are fun extras.
Flock! is great so for many reasons. It’s nice to see in 2009 that downloadable games are getting custom music and not just awful minimal loops. It’s great to see VGM isn’t completely going stale with licensed music. It’s great to have music not take itself seriously. It’s great to have real tunes!!!
“Enough!” I cried…after its third repeat…my bum is too sore after all the seat bopping!