Artist Names: Sand Josieph, Lanovran, SiminaCindy
Track Name: Daddy Discord

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As this fandom has shown time and time again, a show about friendship can be represented with some rather... different themes. Often, it's in the form of grimdark or clopping. In the case of "Daddy Discord", the phrase "creepy" has never been more fitting.

The track opens up a little slowly, and it takes a bit to build itself into the niche it's trying to fill. When it does, though, I found it hard to keep the goosebumps off. The concept is rooted in a father-daughter relationship between Discord and Screwball, and drawing heavily in inspiration from "Phantom of the Opera". The lyrical theme works extremely well with the music; this track would easily be conveying this idea even if no vocal work was present, which can't be said about a lot of songs. A combination of well-orchestrated strings, brass, piano, organ, and well-executed vocals throughout give the song an extremely haunting air. The music itself provokes several emotions, notably curiosity and uneasiness, but the latter is presented in a way that doesn't remove enjoyability from the track, comparable to a scary movie. After the track ends, you're left haunted by its message and even the music itself.

Production's pretty tight in the song as well, only hiccuping during some brass sections (like a very out-of-place brass hit during the intro), oddly-mixed and quantized percussion that's only really noticeable in certain areas, and the track pushes the limiter pretty harshly in some sections as well (notably with that kick), but otherwise there's a relatively satisfying attention to detail in the mix. The vocals for Screwball are pretty low-quality, an issue completely lacking in Discord's parts, but careful mixing and great execution in both vocal roles save it from being too low-quality to pass.

All in all, "Daddy Discord" is a very well-rounded track that plays to its thematic strengths in a big way and admirably provokes feelings that are largely unfelt in most of this fandom's music. This is definitely one to check out.

-DusK