Curiously though, before getting this for review I’d never played Settlers of Catan (or Catan, as it’s now officially called). It’s one of the board games that’s credited with bringing the hobby into the mainstream, with simple rules and fairly deep gameplay (at least, if you compare it to Scrabble).
For your hard-earned, you get a clear vinyl pressing in a gatefold sleeve inside a printed plastic wallet, which gives the whole thing a premium feel. As ever, you can also grab this from the Firaga Bandcamp page ($29 vinyl/$15 CD/$10 digital) and on streaming services too.
You get flashes of both, but it doesn't come together in the way I would have hoped.
a) is the best genre ever
and
b) it could have come out in the 90s, with the (hand-drawn!) graphics, music and little touches we get.
I have something of an odd history with dance music. Like many who grew up in the mid-90s, my distinct opinion was that proper music had to have proper instruments, i.e. guitar, bass, and drums. Even the keyboard was a bit racy for my liking.
That said, I never turned off thumping video game soundtracks as, to me, they didn’t count, so I would happily listen to the mental Rotterdam Nation across the Ridge Racer games and think nothing of it.
Of course, like every grunge-slash-indie fan, once I heard Born Slippy, all bets were off and I remain a dedicated raver to this day.
That is until you receive a message from a mysterious person who wants to meet, kicking off your adventure.
The Lovecraft connection comes in through atmosphere, tentacled monsters and the odd reference to Cthulhu or Azathoth here and there.
