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Dylan's Crash​/​Xanlis Murder Beast

from Elysian Road by Caleb M. Powers

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One of my favorite tracks in the album, primarily because I got to flex my creative muscles a bit more here by trying to create what would resemble the actual score to a particular scene. This scene involves: Dylan having a sad moment after a bad reunion with her father, Odd asking her if she wants to drive his hovercycle to cheer up, her doing so, and the subsequent bad driving that leads to a dramatic crash. The slash between the title indicates that there are two distinct scenes at work here, the first, of course, being Dylan’s crash, which I’ve just explained, and the second (after an intense sequence with no music as Odd and the others try to save Dylan from the hovercycle that is crushing her leg) being the appearance of a giant beast aptly named the Xanlis Murder Beast. Since the characters had come to the planet originally to do a job for Dylan’s father and get rid of a giant monster that had been plaguing the city her family hails from, I thought the moment after a dramatic crash would be a great time to have it show up and endanger the crew. The rest of the music is as follows: Seeing the Xanlis Murder Beast rise up over their ship, the Void’s Grace, springing into action to attack it, a cut to Tyl to see that he was hurt when the ship was jostled by the giant monster, followed by the party working together to take down the beast. Finally, it concludes with the more rock-oriented part of the track as Odd fires up the ship’s onboard laser and takes down the monster. All seems victorious—until the monster spawns nine more of itself from inside its belly. Really a bad day for everyone involved.

The track includes a lot of themes, first, of course, a variation on Dylan’s theme as she contemplates her sadness, then the telltale instrument that lets us know a hovercycle is in view. The battle sequence contains three distinct themes, the first being the crew’s theme (or the Void’s Grace theme, depending on how you look at it) as they work together to take down the monster, then a hard cut to a piano version of Tyl’s theme when we see him injured. Finally, of course, we have Odd’s B theme (the variation that usually plays when he’s doing something cool, and not his “team-up with Dylan” theme, the A theme) to bring us through the demise of the Xanlis Murder Beast. We hear the “Xanlis instrument” a few times throughout, and I decided to portray the Xanlis Murder Beast itself primarily with the heavy percussion and dark chord progressions underneath the other themes. The beast doesn’t have any particular theme itself.

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from Elysian Road, released June 16, 2019

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Caleb M. Powers Moscow, Idaho

I'm one of those creative people you've been warned about.

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