2 out of 5

Label: Emergency Umbrella Records

Produced by: Bald Eagle, Dr. Suplex (mixed by)

A fun concept – recasting Bald Eagles punk rock Bacon and Eggs, Dear album as 8-bit music, via the “I only have one credit on Discogs” Dr. Suplex – but it falls a little short in execution because: these are not songs that are made for 8-bit music.

Which isn’t to say the Suplex doesn’t rework the tracks a fair bit to match, but at the same time, the shtick steps off the beaten path quite often, with the Konami rush of the opener traded for more 16-bit era Genesis-crunchy tunes later on, as well as some more analog sounding synths that feel more aligned with 32-bit era stuff. This is when Suplex tells me how rigorously they stuck to particular hardware for crafting this sound, all right from the NES vaults; that may be so, but the spirit of the album wavers quite often between a full rebrand and just “here’s the Bald Eagle song but pixelized.” It’s cute, but when the songs are structured for verse-chorus-verse with singing, you can… hear it. It gets stale, and then you’re left with just the shtick.

The opener, as mentioned, is a good rush; I think when Suplex leans more into replicating the speed and intensity of punk without going too bleep-bloop, like on ‘Of Backflip And Jerk,’ the project clicks, but that might be because this stuff starts to sound like Danny Baranowsky’s Meat Boy tunes when it’s played in that kind of style. Elsewhere, some of the decisions of what’s used to replicate which instruments can be interesting, but only upon comparison; otherwise, I quickly – surprisingly, given the general fast pace of the songs – found my attentions wandering, and when not doing those comparisons, wondering how / why the tracks felt like they were too repetitive, or going on for too long; see my opening statement for my conclusion there.

A nifty novelty; a nice free gift with the Expert Works re-issue, and I dig that they went cute with the album name and re-named tunes – points for effort, for sure, but not something I have much need to revisit.