Introduction

First off, happy belated 4/13 everyone! This is actually my first ever Homestuck-related blog post since I finished my review of the entire comic in 2021. I tuned in to the premiere stream of this album, released for Homestuck’s 16th anniversary, and had a burst of inspiration to write reviews of all 32 songs. It’s not a tall order by my standards—I’ve done much larger music review projects before!

The concept of this album is the same as that of the Cool and New Music Team album .jpeg: the track art is made first, then someone has to compose a song based on each artpiece. I was sort of expecting the songs to be largely themed upon post-canon Homestuck media, but instead, most of them are about Homestuck itself, and I think that’s really neat. It shows that even nine years after the comic ended, fans are making new musical interpretations of its characters, locations, and story arcs. There are a few songs related to its spinoffs though. As a Homestuck fan musician myself, I know a few of these composers personally—Cecily Renns, koba, and Rainy (Andy) to name a few—but most of them are unfamiliar names to me. This shows that a brand new generation of Homestuck fan musicians has blossomed, and I love that.

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Track #1: Into the Fray

Composer: Circlejourney

Artist: Kett

Characters: Dave, Rose, Feferi, and Karkat. Characters are from Homestuck unless otherwise specified.

To open the album, we have one of the most exotic tracks, to me at least: a fantasy orchestral tune inspired by tabletop RPGs. It’s an excellent composition, mostly original but with tiny traces of a few Homestuck songs. Admittedly, I have some trouble connecting this song with Homestuck, but maybe I’m just outside its target audience, since I’m not a big RPG guy myself. Luckily we’ll get plenty more songs that showcase Circlejourney’s musical talent.

Track #2: Just do better.

Composer: METIANULL

Artist: Goopifier

Characters: Lil’ Hal and Lil’ Sebastian

This is sort of a theme song for Lil’ Hal (Dirk’s auto-responder), a character who gets a lot of screen time in the first half of Act 6, but has very little music to his name. I checked the Homestuck Music Wiki for songs with Hal in their track art, and crazy enough, as of this writing there are only two. Both of them are from Fondly Regard Illustration. That means that before April 13, 2025, there was no music themed upon Hal, at least none from the many albums and sources documented on the wiki. Can you believe that?!

Even if it weren’t for the references to “Beatdown”, it’s easy to tell this is a song about one of the Striders (which is to say Dave, Dirk, and their alternate selves). It’s full of synths and turntable beats, exactly as you’d expect from a Strider tune. The difference between songs about the two Striders is that Dave’s songs sound more action-oriented and heroic, while Dirk’s sound more intimidating and mysterious. The basslines, bitcrushing, and synth chords all make this fall into the Dirk category, then there’s a little sci-fi edge that narrows it down to the category of Hal.

Overall, this song does its job really well as a character theme and I could totally imagine Let’s Read Homestuck using it as background music in a conversation between Dirk and his responder. It’s too bad they’ve already passed the point where Arquiusprite is created, so the next best thing is to use this song in a conversation involving him.

Track #3: Kraken

Composer: yuuDii

Artist: dreadedender

Characters: Feferi Peixes and Gl’bgolyb

You gotta give some appreciation to Feferi as a character, even if Andrew Hussie barely did anything with her. She works hard taking care of an eldritch abomination and keeping a haughty toolbag with dreams of genocide under control, and she doesn’t complain about it at all. She just gets through all her demanding chores each day, although she’s noticeably relieved when she enters Sgrub, breaks Eridan’s heart, and hooks up with Sollux.

This song paints a picture in my head of all the chores Feferi has to deal with daily. It’s an aggressive, ominous rock song with a slight watery sound, because Feferi is a seadweller. Most of the song seems to focus on Gl’bgolyb, though near the end a few leitmotifs related to Feferi appear: “Love You (Feferi’s Theme)” and “Keepers”. This shows us the contrast between this friendly excitable troll girl and the crazy tasks she’s forced to deal with. Such is what I love about .jpeg-style albums: they invite people to compose music related to topics that get little exploration. On a first listen I felt that this song dragged on a bit too long, but now I feel four and a half minutes is the perfect length for this.

Track #4: Crustavania

Composer: Swagakazi

Artist: swanfire

Character: Karkat Vantas

This is very much the kind of song that arises from a .jpeg style album: a crossover of a Homestuck character and a video game will usually get art first, not music. The composer has decided to adapt motifs related to the Vantas trolls into the style of Castlevania music: first “Iron Infidel” (a theme for his ancestor the Signless), then some French opera rock song for whatever reason (hey, you do you), and finally the more obvious choice of “Karkat’s Theme” (yes, technically the melody originated from “Crustacean”, I don’t care).

Even though Iron Infidel is a major key organ tune, Swagazaki manages to make it work in the Castlevania style, and that’s what most of the song consists of. However, I see a missed opportunity to do a full medley of Karkat motifs in this style, and I wish at least the Karkat’s Theme part was just a bit longer.

Track #5: TIMAEUS TECH FI

Composer: Cosmoptera

Artist: halstridergaming

Character: Lil’ Hal

Somehow, Lil’ Hal wound up with two themes on this album, not that I’m complaining. Clearly he hasn’t had enough musical representation before!

You can reread my review of track #2 for this song, because a lot of my thoughts on that apply to this one. It’s unmistakably Strider-sounding and uses lots of motifs, both in terms of instrumentation and melodies, that match up with Dirk, plus a sci-fi spin. Out of the two Hal themes in this album, I think I like this slightly more because it’s heavier in melodies and the samples thrown in Jet Set Radio-style give it some extra spice. Both are fabulous songs though.

Track #6: Dreams and Wakes

Composer: Circlejourney

Artist: Selan Pike

Characters: Problem Sleuth, Hysterical Dame, and various other characters from Problem Sleuth. No Homestuck characters this time!

And now we have something different: a song related to the last comic Hussie wrote before Homestuck, Problem Sleuth. To be more specific, it’s about a climactic scene in Problem Sleuth, where the title uses Sepulchritude. On the occasion a fan musician makes a song related to Problem Sleuth, the standard practice is to either make something original or reference a song from the 2017 fan album Weird Puzzle Tunes, since the comic has almost no canon music to its name. Well, there is Mark Hadley’s Problem Sleuth theme, a motif I wish people remixed more often, but it’s more popular to reference the comic’s fan music. This song quotes two of the weirdest puzzle tunes we’ve heard: “Battle Against an Imaginary Foe” and a song I remember being the best of the bunch, “Fractal Flowers”.

As a song, this is exactly the kind of music I associate with Circlejourney: it sounds majestic, dreamy, and hopeful, much like “Frost and Clockwork” or “Maybe it’ll turn out better this time”. I can’t fully explain why, but it totally fits a climactic moment in a pre-Homestuck Hussie work. I think my favorite part of it is the slightly glitchy-sounding piano.

Track #7: chalk it up to a hung jury

Composer: Gyrotharian

Artist: Jebb

Character: Terezi Pyrope and her scalemates

My friend Cecily Renns said in the album’s premiere album that this sounds like something the Cool and New Music Team would’ve made, and she’s totally right. This is a fresh new Terezi theme that begins original, but halfway through starts quoting her theme from AlterniaBound. It sounds creepier and more dissonant than any of her canonical music, yet still sounds recognizably Terezi with the mischievous sound and harpsichords, so it would fit well for a corrupted “cool and new” version of a character. But this song also works as a theme for the regular Terezi we know and love.

This is one of my favorites of the album because it sounds creepy yet playful, and because it reminds me of my old days in the CANMT. Also, the track name is fucking genius. The artwork is great too because it doesn’t look as polished or professional as most of the track art, yet it has a lot of clever elements as the commentator said, and it does fit a serious track like this.

Track #8: Eight Ball of Destiny

Composer: ruby

Artist: EnderSlime

Character: Lord English, depicted abstractly

I think this is one of the weakest songs of the album. Combining “The Legend” from Deltarune with Homestuck motifs is a fun concept, but I think this arrangement plays things just a bit too safe. It’s basically an arrangement of “The Legend” that changes the lead motifs but keeps everything else mostly the same compositionally. The English and Showtime parts sound nice, but I think more work could have been done to make the melodies fit the backing, and the Penumbra Phantasm part especially suffers from this issue.

Track #9: Connection

Composer: JulianMOCs

Artist: Szkraft220

Characters: Aradia Megido, Sollux Captor, and Death from Problem Sleuth

Here we have the second track on the album that relates to Problem Sleuth: it’s about the parallels between god tier Aradia from Homestuck and Death from Problem Sleuth. Julian’s intent was to create a song that felt familiar to a first-time listener, and I’d say the song succeeds in that. It’s a little dissonant (in a good way) and quirky, so I need to be in the right mood to enjoy this song, but when I am in the mood for it, it’s a great tune to chill out to.

Track #10: Blood Hunt Dance

Composer: Levc

Artist: METIANULL

Character: Nepeta Leijon

And now we have the first of three songs related to Nepeta, a character who Hussie clearly did not enjoy writing but has a passionate fanbase. It’s fully original but easy to tell it’s a Nepeta song, not just because of the Mario Paint meows. It sounds cutesy and action-oriented at the same time, thus it fits her character to a T, and it’s quite a joy to listen to. I think it would be fun if people remixed its melody into future Nepeta fan sogns.

Track #11: 4LL3Y C4TZ >:3

Composer: corvidc0rvus

Artist: ricemilk

Characters: Jasprosesprite^2 and Davepetasprite^2

This is a chaotic dancey sort of song, but it feels a little too chaotic to be up my street, unfortunately. The reason is because it sounds like randomly doodling on a piano live for the most part, and I’m not sure if it’s how the song was composed. I will say, it’s pretty cool to have a song about the squared sprites that doesn’t quote existing Homestuck songs.

Track #12: Sandstone

Composer: yoyoYolo

Artist: Memorizor

Characters: Technically none, but the art depicts future B1 Earth, so it’s clearly about the exile arc

Is it just me, or does this sound a little bit like Minecraft music? The combination of pianos and odd synths, the melancholy mood, and the slightly quirky composition all make it sound like Minecraft to me. It’s actually fitting for a song about the exiles to have this type of sound, because Minecraft is all about being the sole human exploring a desolate world, and the exiles are the sole living beings in a world just as desolate.

A pattern with songs about the exile arc is that they usually sound bizarre or dissonant in some way, so they tend to either be an acquired taste or not click with me at all. Luckily, this song sounds quirky to the right degree that I can enjoy listening to it without needing to acquire a taste for it. I would just need to be in the mood for something relaxed, which I am as I am typing this.

Track #13: Measured Vengeance

Composer: yuuDii

Artist: BUGFlower413

Character: Damara Megido

Now we have a song about one of the Beforus trolls! Let’s face it, most of the Beforus trolls aren’t very likable as characters—the main exceptions are Meenah, Porrim, and maybe Rufioh. Yet almost all the Beforus trolls have a sizable fanbase of some sort. I think the reason why is because some of them have a really interesting or tragic backstory, and I think none of them has a backstory more fascinating than Damara Megido. When I did my Homestuck blog and analyzed Openbound part 3, I was struck by how much more important Damara was to the plot of the story than most of the Beforus trolls, and felt that Hussie designated her to be the actually interesting one and made most of the rest joke characters.

In the commentary booklet, the track artist makes it clear they are a passionate fan of Damara Megido, so they must have been pleased that yuuDii made such a great song out of it. It sounds a little mischievous and vengeful, and a little oriental. I love the twist upon the melody of “English” and how it has a few notes changed to sound more mischievous, and “The Lost Child” is worked well into the song too. I think the song hits the right balance between references to existing Homestuck songs and original elements.

Track #14: Visions Clouded by Darkness

Composer: Rainy (Andy)

Artist: imnotlole

Character: Rose Lalonde

I think this is one of the best tracks on the entire album. Rainy has always been a natural at making songs sound like Homestuck and this is a perfect example. It’s a straight to the point battle theme for Grimdark Rose and it’s absolutely badass. It’s mostly original but subtly quotes her theme “Aggrieve” at a few points. It has killer harpsichords and guitars and choirs, really killer everything, and I love the use of triple meter here. The music box ending is a nice touch at the end too. Someone needs to make an animation of Grimdark Rose fighting Jack Noir, or some other version of Rose fighting some other villain (the Condesce or Guy Fieri?), and set it to this music.

It impresses me that even after all those years, Homestuck fans are still making new musical themes for the comic’s main characters. The next track is another good example.

Track #15: Golden Sights & Skaian Skies

Composer: autumnalEquinox

Artist: Awkward

Character: Jade Harley

Next up, we have a completely original composition about Jade’s dreams on Prospit. It’s light and dreamy, yet a little majestic deep down, and it has a nice synth bass to tie it together. This means that it fits both Jade’s character and the location of Prospit to a T.

When it comes to Homestuck music, Jade Harley has a sort of identity crisis. That’s partly because of the Bill Bolin drama, since he composed two of Jade’s main motifs (Guardian and Mutiny), both of which had to be replaced when he left the music team and took his songs with him. Combine this with her pattern of breaking patterns throughout Act 3 (and to a lesser extent in Act 5 Act 2), and that means that her musical representation is still the most scattershot of the beta kids. Is her real battle theme “Dissension”, or is it “An Unbreakable Union”? (Tough question, both aren’t easy to work into songs anyway.) Is her real musical instrument the flute, or the bass? (Answer: the bass.) A candidate for her principal motif could be “Gardener” or “The Beginning of Something Really Excellent”, which are variations of the same melody, but even that isn’t an easy melody to use in songs, and neither is her planet theme “Frost”. This leaves “Carefree Victory” as the easiest Jade motif to use as a melody, but it’s unfortunately not done often.* James Roach remixed that song for Pesterquest and he made a smart choice doing so. Oh, “Courser” exists too as a motif of sorts, but the fact that it took so long for me to mention that proves how scattershot her music is.

Knowing this tangent I wrote, it’s a smart choice for this fresh new Jade theme to be original. I quite like it myself; it makes for great background music and feels like I am living a day in Jade’s dreams. It doesn’t have too much of a principal melody, but I don’t think it needs to. Maybe we should just accept Jade is a pattern breaker not just in Homestuck itself, but also its music.

* Yes, I know the melody technically originated from “Carefree Action”.

Track #16: Tainted Hope

Composer: Torrent 64

Artist: Churro Lord

Character: Eridan Ampora

A benefit of Homestuck being over is that fans can make music about whichever existing scenes they feel like, no matter how early or late. And this track is a perfect example: it’s about Eridan’s rampage in the portion of Act 5 Act 2 known as Murderstuck. It’s exactly as creepy yet badass as a Murderstuck song should be. Starting halfway through, this quotes “Eridan’s Theme” and makes it sound more sinister than the original song. Then comes references to the other two murderers of Murderstuck: “Megalovania” for Vriska, and “mIrAcLeS” for Gamzee.

The reference to “Megalovania” is obvious, but Gamzee’s motif took me four listens or so to catch. It’s a totally different spin on his song from Alternia, made to sound villainous yet still a little whimsical. In general, Gamzee is a sort of dark spot when it comes to Homestuck music. He tends to be represented not by specific melodies, but by samples of Insane Clown Posse songs or bike horns. A perfect example is his section of “Rex Duodecim Angelus”. Another example, if you don’t mind me being self-indulgent, is the Gamzee song for my solo album Of Troles and Chiptumes, called “The March of the One True Juggalo”. I didn’t even put “mIrAcLeS” from Alternia (which is not, I repeat, it is NOT, the same song as “Miracles” by Insane Clown Posse) into that song. I didn’t even attempt to do it, I simply knew it wasn’t going to fit with the other motifs I had in mind. It is one of two songs from my album that doesn’t reference anything Toby Fox composed, directly or indirectly: the other is Equius’s song “Yes, So Good”. (In retrospect, I think “Yes, So Good” is one of the best tracks of that album, because all the motifs come together well and I like the way I used two songs indirectly related to Equius. I also like the way I combined the basslines of “Horschestra” and “Indigo Heir” at the start.)

Tangents aside, this is an Eridan track first and foremost, and it absolutely kicks ass.

Track #17: Life’s a Beach

Composer: Kanishka

Artist: piskomil

Characters: A whole bunch from Homestuck are on the art. The point is that it’s inspired by artwork from One Piece.

Since the track art contains an assortment of Homestuck cast members, it makes sense for the song to reference motifs related to Homestuck as a whole. It references “Homestuck Anthem” (always a favorite of mine), “Cascade”, and something called “Homefree”… is that a song from some fan album? No, apparently the song is from Homestuck Volume 8 and I’ve never even heard it before, what the fuck??? I can guarantee you I’ve never heard “Homefree” before writing this post, which is almost 11 years after I first read Homestuck. I mean OK, maybe Let’s Read Homestuck used it as background music, but if that’s the case then the song should at least sound slightly familiar. Kanishka must be quite a fan of this song, because the Homestuck Music Wiki only lists two songs that quote it, both of which he composed. I can relate to this in a way, because I was just going off about how I wished more people remixed the Problem Sleuth theme.

As for the song itself, it’s a sort of experimental electronic tune that feels like an exotic take on the Homestuck motifs, and it has a lot of chiptune arpeggios. It’s not really to my tastes unless I’m really in the mood for something trippy. I do appreciate the composition though.

Track #18: April 13, 2009

Composer: Circlejourney

Artist: yoyoYolo

Character: Some dude on the day Homestuck began, reading the comic for the first time. And I guess technically John Egbert.

Now this is without a doubt my favorite song on the album. It’s a vocal tune about the experience of being a Homestuck fan many years after the comic ended. There are so many things to love about this composition, it’s hard to list them all. I love the way it begins with a music box rendition of “Showtime” (the first song to play in Homestuck) and cleverly integrates the melody of “Sunsetter” into the vocals. “Sunsetter” is a versatile melody because you can easily put it into major key songs (like this one) and minor key songs without having to change any notes. I wonder if the usage of “Sunsetter” was inspired by Toby Fox’s leaked vocal cover of the song? And I love the way the verse and chorus play at the same time towards the end of the song. They turn out to stack together so perfectly, like puzzle pieces!

This song is so goddamn heartfelt, I can’t get over it. It uses the classic Circlejourney style of sounding dreamy and atmospheric, which suits the theme of the song perfectly. It perfectly captures the mood of still being a Homestuck fan, a decade and a half after the story began. This song makes me forget all the salt and gripes I’ve had related to Homestuck over the years, and puts me in the rare mood where I remember just how much I fucking love this webcomic. It’s the exact same mood I was in when writing my final Homestuck post, particularly the last few paragraphs. Most people who attempt to read Homestuck don’t make it past Act 1, but those who finish the whole thing become a Homestuck fan for life. I will never stop loving Homestuck, and I know many other people who feel the same.

Track #19: Coulrocide

Composer: Jebb

Artist: Reese

Characters: Dave Strider (B2), Violent J, and Shaggy 2 Dope

Now we have exactly the type of song I expect to see in .jpeg-type albums: artwork that takes an existing or hypothetical battle scene and screams at the musician to combine all the characters’ motifs into an absolute banger. And that’s exactly what this song is: the duel between post-scratch Dave Strider (also known as Dirk’s Bro) and the Insane Clown Posse. The good thing is, it’s very easy to pick motifs to use in the song. Dave has a rich assortment of battle themes, some mainstay and some more obscure. And for the ICP, it’s just as easy: just sample their real-life songs.

But what wasn’t so easy was to combine all those motifs into a song as awesome as this. I’d say this is a song just as ambitious (and awesome) as “Rex Duodecim Angelus”. Yes, it’s that good. It has the perfect mix of juggalo hip-hop, Strider techno music, and dramatic battle tunes that come together to tell an awesome story. As with Rex, I hope that someday fans create an animation of B2 Dave dueling the ICP set to this song. It would need a lot of creative liberties, that’s for sure.

Track #20: liminality

Composer: Tycoon

Artist: Skyplayer

Characters: Technically none, but we do see the harlequin doll who would later become part of Nannasprite

Skyplayer sure loves making 3D model art, doesn’t she? The exact same is true of Skyplayer’s art in the Cool and New Music Team—that’s always been her thing. The song itself is an abstract and fairly spooky creepypasta sort of tune. I’m not a big creepypasta person myself, but the song is quite a nice listen. It’s a little creepy and has glitchy sounds near the end, but in its own way, it’s also good to chill out to.

Track #21: Live from the Hadron Kaleido

Composer: yuuDii

Artist: Arkin

Characters: Mobius Trip, Hadron Kaleido (not in Homestuck itself, but invented for Bowman’s solo album), and the Midnight Crew

This is a jazzy medley of Homestuck songs themed upon the Midnight Crew, which is always nice to listen to and fun to pick out the songs I recognize. I like the touch of audience noises and the overall improvised sound, including the sound check at the start. That said, I kind of wish the instruments sounded more realistic and I’m also disappointed it doesn’t quote any songs from Mobius Trip and Hadron Kaleido.

Track #22: À plus tard les tocards !

Composer: Swagazaki

Artist: KaraRoas

Characters: Spades Slick, Itchy, and Crowbar

The title of this song is taken from the French dub of Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Eggman’s line “later, haters” is localized as “á plus tard les tocards”, which sounds absolutely hilarious and is way better than the English line. I wish I could do a deep dive into the French memes referenced in the song, but sadly I can’t. So I’ll just say that the memes give the song some fun personality.

The cast of the Midnight Crew intermission are defined by jazzy action-oriented music, and this song is no exception. The track art was obviously going to get a jazzy song and I’m glad it did. Some of the references to Homestuck songs in this album take a sharp ear to notice, so I appreciate that this one uses them in a straightforward way. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of Homestuck music should be able to catch the motifs in this song, which are mainly related to Jack Noir and Lord English. As with the last song, the composition is a lot of fun but I really wish it had better instruments.

Track #23: The Apotheosis of Whistles the Clown

Composer: Ucklin

Artist: Monckat

Character: Whistles, from one of Hussie’s pre-Homestuck works

God damn does Ucklin know how to compose creepy music! This is a creepy clown song done to perfection, because it has an excellent mix of silly circus melodies and composition elements that sound just the slightest bit off, and lyrics that tell a spooky story to tie it all together. The verses sound like they’d fit a forbidden area in a video game, then the chorus has clown instrumentation edited to sound just a little off. Creepy music isn’t what I enjoy listening to personally, but I have massive respect for this song. I’ve never read Whistles myself, but it has a few references here and there in Homestuck. I’m not sure if they’re references exactly, or more like Hussie carrying the general idea of a creepy clown into Homestuck. It’s hard to say what Hussie loves more: horses or clowns. I think he brands himself upon loving horses, but at heart his favorite thing in the world is clowns. And Vriska of course, can’t forget Vriska.

Track #24: Snarl

Composer: Frost Carter

Artist: ifer

Character: Nepeta Leijon

Here’s Nepeta song number two out of three. The art screams “hey please make a Nepeta song that’s a battle theme and not just cutesy fluff”, and Frost Carter understood the prompt. It alternates between being badass and whimsical and quotes her principal leitmotif “Nepeta’s Theme” starting halfway through (yes, technically the melody came from “Walls Covered in Blood”). Not only does it have Mario Paint meows, but it also has purring sound effects which I’m totally down for. It’s not quite my favorite track on the album, but I do like how it combines soundign badass and playful.

Track #25: now it’s purrsonal

Composer: MacK

Artist: YonkoFifth

Characters: Davepetasprite^2 and Lord English

I’m gonna be honest here: this is probably the weakest track on the album. It sounds to me like the author is new to composing music, because it has all the tropes of someone’s first composition: incoherent melodies with an even rhythm, repetitive drum beat, and strange choices of instruments. I know this because my earliest attempts at composing music sounded roughly like this. If the composer of the song is reading this: keep composing more and more music and I promise you’ll gradually find your footing.

Track #26: SolluxGaming’s Top VGM #126: The End of Zilliness

Composer: Tee-vee

Artist: SleepyHeck

Characters: Not Sollux, despite the title. Instead a bunch of original characters.

Now this song is the definition of what we in the Cool and New Music Team used to playfully call “orchestral bullshit”.* I think it was Cecily Renns who came up with that phrase. Probably because most of us didn’t know what we were doing in the early days and were basically learning how to make music through the team. The main exception is the brilliant Noisemaker, who’s been great at music since the beginning. So we would often use the phrase “orchestral bullshit” to mean attempting to make a song sound orchestral when you don’t really know how orchestral music is supposed to sound.

The main difference is that this is frankly much better than most of the orchestral bullshit the team would invent. In fact, it’s an awesome song and I feel a little bad calling it orchestral bullshit. The title is misleading because the song has nothing to do with Sollux and instead uses general Homestuck battle motifs like Harleboss, Showtime, and much more. Even though it references five Homestuck motifs, it doesn’t feel like a medley of these motifs, but rather a mostly original song that subtly quotes each motif. Although my personal tastes are usually more electronic than this, this is as awesome as an orchestral song can possibly be.

* Two other inside jokes from the team are “if you don’t have a soundfont, you can’t make music” and “artists are basically worthless IMO”. Hopefully this album disproves the latter!

Track #27: Trolls Who Can Eat Trolls Are the Luckiest Trolls

Composer: Cecily Renns

Artist: Jas

Characters: Chixie, Dammek, and Xefros all from Hiveswap

And now we’ve finally reached the track by Cecily Renns, a good friend of mine who I’ve known from the Cool and New Music Team since 2016. Apparently the prompt for this track was “punk rock-y/any vocals would be good”, so she was absolutely the right person to pick this up. I love how Cecily did not compromise her musical style at all for this song and made exactly the type of music she loves doing the most: punk rock with slightly synthy instrumentation and angry, profane lyrics. Crazy enough, it ends up working perfectly as a Homestuck fan song! It stands out in the album in the best possible way, and it even teaches me something about the Hiveswap cast because I never played any Hiveswap games past Act 1.

Apparently Chixie is Cecily’s favorite among the Hiveswap characters, which makes perfect sense because from a bit of research, she seems to be a lovable indie musician who fears that society will persecute her. When you’re friends with someone, you tend to be unsurprised by the characters they like. This song tells me that Chixie wants at heart to rebel against the upper classes and overthrow the troll monarchy. I’m probably biased, but I think this is one of the best songs in the entire album, because it educates me on a side of Homestuck I’m unfamiliar with.

Track #28: Carnivorous Hearts

Composer: Ucklin

Artist: DalekWho1963

Characters: Nepeta Leijon, Meulin Leijon, and the Disciple

This is a vocal song for all of the Leo trolls inspired by music from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. It quotes various themes for the Leijons from many different albums official and fanmade, including two songs by Ucklin herself. I’m honestly not sure what to think about it overall; I might be outside the target audience for this. But it seems like a pretty good vocal tune that references a lot of obscure songs.

Also, I didn’t know until today that the composer of “Ugly Story”, the song that plays in Let’s Read Homestuck when Eridan kills Feferi and Kanaya, made an entire album with equivalent songs for the other trolls. The Nepeta song from this album is referenced in this track.

Track #29: In a Strange Land

Composer: contrairyart

Artist: Kal-la-kal-la. I’ll just say Kal because that’s easier to type.

Characters: None. Just shows aspect symbols and the eight humans’ planets.

And now here’s the song from Kal, another contributor to the Cool and New Music Team, but not as prolific as Cecily Renns or koba. Her music is always easy to recognize: her songs tend to sound free-flowing and improvised, and have a heavy focus on trippy drums and synths.

Since the track art features no characters, it makes sense that Kal made this an original composition, and she went for exactly the style I’d expect from her. It sounds a little quirky and trippy and makes for very nice background music. The first half sounds airy and briefly has distorted vocals, then the second half is my favorite part: it narrows down the instruments to the bass and drums, then gains some juicy synths that play an instrumental melody. That part makes me feel almost like I’m diving into the core of a planet. Overall, this is a quintessential Kal track and I’m always down for those.

Track #30: Rebellious Symphony

Composer: Pax Proliscum

Artist: Artatruc

Characters: Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, Dirk Strider, Roxy Lalonde

The third last track is about the Striders and Lalondes all having a jam session together. It’s a good concept but I have quite a few problems with it. I feel like this song just throws a bunch of Homestuck motifs without enough of a backbone tying them together. It comes off to me as “here’s a Dave motif, now a Rose motif, now a Roxy motif, oh and the Upward Movement drum beat”. Some of the motifs end up clashing with each other, such as “Endless Climb” and “Derse Dreamers” when the former plays a B note and the latter plays a B♭. Additionally, I feel there was a missed opportunity to put some violin parts in this one, considering Rose and Roxy both play the violin. There are some string parts here and there, but I think this song should’ve had at least one part where a violin solo (or better yet, duet) comes front and center. Props to the composer for quoting a song from the official album Beyond Canon though.

Pax Proliscum seems pretty new to the Homestuck fan music scene, so here’s a little tip if you’re reading this. I find that the best way to get good at motif medley songs is to compose more and more of them until you naturally find out which motifs go particularly well together, or ways to elegantly combine them. Your ears will tell you whether a song you made sounds bad, good, or really good.

Track #31: Collide2

Composer: koba

Artist: Torrent 64

Characters: John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Roxy Lalonde, and Lady English… wait, who the hell is Lady English?

And now we have the song by koba, another longtime friend of mine from the Cool and New Music Team whose musical skills have improved so much in the past few years. She has recently settled into a musical style that sounds synthy and atmospheric, but also a little gritty. Koba has always enjoyed making motif medleys that sound chaotic and a little dissonant, and this is chaotic and slightly dissonant in the best ways.

The intention of this track was to sound like [S] Collide but fucked up, probably because the art looks like a strange parallel universe version of that flash. John, Rose, and Roxy are set for a battle against not the Condesce, but a nonexistent character named Lady English, which we can only assume is a version of Calliope who progressed through a dead session designed for a space player and went down a path of villainy. This song is absolutely perfect for a fucked up version of Collide, because it features a crazy assortment of motifs, some mainstream and some unusual, and they’re mostly related to villains and battles, and because it sounds a little fucked up and badass at the same time. Awesome track overall.

Track #32: …and scene

Composer: Circlejourney

Artist: DDP

Character: Ardata from Hiveswap

Oh my god, I’m finally at the last track of the album. This post took way too fucking long, sorry you guys. It turned out to surpass 6000 words, which is pretty long for a cookiefonster blog post.

Anyway, before I’m finished I have to review this song. As I said in my review of Cecily Renns’ song, I don’t really know who’s who in the Hiveswap Friendsim cast, yet something about this track sounds like it fits a Hiveswap troll to a T. I normally associate Circlejourney with upbeat dreamy music, but it turns out they’re just as good at composing something mysterious and sinister. The song is mostly instrumental, but halfway through it gains a little bit of vocals that sound dreamy yet haunting at the same time. I love the usage of strings and dissonant chords, plus the little bits of bitcrushing here. I just love this overall. A great theme for a character I know nothing about.

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General thoughts:

Oh my fucking god, thank goodness I’m done reviewing this album. Now I have one less thing to worry about before I leave for my trip to Eurovision 2025 on May 11. Overall I absolutely love this album. It’s a perfect showcase of the creativity of Homestuck fans, both in terms of art and music. It also shows us that almost a decade after the comic ended, fans are still coming up with new music about it. The names we see on the album show us that once you become a Homestuck fan, you’ll be a Homestuck fan for life. I fucking love Homestuck so much, you guys. I complain about it a lot, but I still love it and always will.

I will say though, it’s a lot tougher to review music when some of its composers were interested in reading my review! I had to think long and hard about what to say on some of these songs so my analysis would be intelligent and my criticism wouldn’t be mean.

If I had to pick just three songs from the album that a Homestuck fan absolutely must listen to, I’ll pick these: “Visions Clouded by Darkness” by Rainy, “April 13, 2009” by Circlejourney, and “Coulrocide” by Jebb. They’re about Grimdark Rose, the Homestuck fandom as a whole, and post-scratch Dave fighting the ICP respectively.