4 out of 5

Label: Kid Katana Records

Produced by: Andrew One (mixed by)

While the reality might be quite different, from my point of view, Tee Lopes seemed to somewhat explode onto the VGM scene, and it was immediately understandable why: the artist’s ability to nod to nostalgia while nudging that toward their own compositional style, remaining linked to whichever bleep bloop era of game they were scoring, is quite a juggling act – if you’re sensitive (as I am) to anything sounding too forcefully retro or chiptune / synthwave, it’s as though Lopes knows how to grab the important bits, and is then willing to iterate on them.

The craft is so good and polished, though, that it can come across as a bit faceless. It’s an admittedly strange dichotomy, but Lopes essentially does the job too well, to the extent that it can feel somewhat mechanistic beneath the surface level appeal.

Tee’s score for Dimension Shellshock still suffers that to an extent, where the B-side, in particular, feels a bit templated; it’s fair to say you get the gist of the songs via only half the score.

But: this is also the most adventurous I think we’ve heard Tee, and that sense of excitement is a counterline to the mechanistic nature. This creates a bustling undertone that makes you want to keep listening, firstly because of how catchy the material is, but then also because your ears are trying to suss out what else you’re hearing.

The TMNT license may also be at fault for admittedly being somewhat limiting, the main theme from the Fred Wolf series kind of running as the reference point for most of the games; outside of this, perhaps there’s not a recognizable TMNT “sound” to play with. So Tee, of course, knocks the opener out of the park, and then does what they can when revisiting the theme to shake it up. But elsewhere, the artist really spreads out and further away from VGM, mimicking full rock and club sounds, milking out some legit elements of escalation from games which normally stick to strictly upbeat fare. And kudos to using an effect I’d source to the 4K series…

So Dimension Shellshock is solid: fun, eminently relistenable. Retro and modern and consistent – values we can indulgently rely on Tee to bring. Beyond that, though, the artist takes tracks to start pushing the sound beyond those reliable tenets, and it’s exciting to imagine someone as clearly skilled as Lopes continuing this trend on future soundtracks.