This review covers the instrumental rock track Reverend Horton Heat – The Pride of San Jactino.
This track was released in 1998 on the album Space Heater. This track also appears in the game Hot Wheels Turbo Racing.
The track starts with guitars and some other instruments I can’t quite identify. From there, the drum kit joins the track. Voice samples make an appearance. A bull whip sound effect makes an appearance as well. These appearances repeat.
From there, the guitars largely take over. The drum kit emphasizes the cymbals briefly. After that, the two different samples are repeated. The intro is then briefly repeated before the track pulls back.
A whistle enters the track briefly before different guitars join the track. The drum kit is also present, but without cymbals. After that, the track then reverts to the sampled section and the intro again. It then cycles back to another section. The guitars then alter their notes while the drum kit is emphasized more with the cymbals. Both elements lead the track out.
One thing I really like about this track is that there is a fair bit of variety. The samples and different guitars work really well to give this track a nice amount of variety. Adding to this is the part where the track largely pulls back to give this track some good dynamic range.
Another interesting aspect is the drum kit. The fact that different aspects of the kit are emphasized wound up being quite interesting. If the track offers any variety at all for the drum kit, it just layers things on, then peels back the layers at the end. This track manages to make small changes throughout to help give the overall sound a progressive edge. While most people may not notice this, it works very well here.
The main sections of the track gives this track a nice personality as well. While some may cast this off as simply an overused sound, in this case, it just winds up working because the note pattern is so recognizable. The fact that this is combined with other interesting elements, in my view, helps this track stand out nicely.
Overall, this track has a nice fun sound to it. It has some good variety and the sound is nicely dynamic. The samples work nicely to give this track a nice added touch as well even if they occupy small parts of the track in the grand scheme of things. So, an overall enjoyable and great track in my view.
Score
8/10
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
