The Listening Chamber: The NESkimos - Battle: Perfect Selection (2002)

Nerd Up returns from a Holiday break with another installation of The Listening Chamber.  Not every VGM cover band is successful, and not all successful VGM cover bands play what would be called “good” covers.  Determining what constitutes “successful” or “good” is rather subjective, and opinions on styles vary from person to person.  This can lead to a polarizing situation where different people might love or hate the music, and that is the case with the topic of today’s discussion. 

The band in question is The NESkimos, and the album is Battle: Perfect Selection, self-released in 2002.  The NESkimos are based out of St. Augustine, Florida, and although they had hung up their instruments in 2008, they started making some appearances at conventions and other events again in 2012.  In general, The NESkimos play rock covers of music from video games from the NES and SNES, but the group does perform some songs in different styles such as surf rock and bossa nova.  The group currently consists of two guitar players who also provide vocals on some tracks, a bass player, and a drummer.  Between the period of their last album release and their reformation, they had no drummer and used sequenced drum tracks instead.

Most of the differences in opinion on the band’s quality arise from the fact that they do not always attempt to recreate the songs they are covering note-for-note, and they will often create additional parts to songs, change the way the song is played, or add lyrics to the arrangement.  While none of these things is unheard of in cover bands, The NESkimos were the first widely known VGM cover band to do this.  Some people had issues with the improvisation.  Others thought that the songs were simply being played poorly or incorrectly since the notes were not the same as the original music from the games.  I’ll leave it to each individual to decide for themselves if they like the style or not.

The NESkimos - Battle: Perfect Selection (2002)

Battle: Perfect Selection contains 23 tracks – 22 covers and 1 original skit – and runs for roughly 1:12:08, making it longer than most other VGM cover albums.