Song Review - The Heavy "Short Change Hero" or the Answer to the Question "What is the Name of the Song at The Beginning of Borderlands 2?"
The highly anticipated video game Borderlands 2 dropped today, but what was I was most interested in hearing from it was if a relatively obscure song would accompany the game's opening cinematics in the same fashion which Cage the Elephant's "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" did with the original Borderlands. I was not disappointed, as Gearbox Software has put another fantastic song into the ears of an audience who likely never heard it before.
The song that opens Borderlands 2 is called "Short Change Hero" by The Heavy. Press play and take a listen as you read on.
The Heavy channels the style of Ennio Morricone to beautiful, chilling effect, with the sounds of a man-with-no-name walking into town as thunder rages in the distance and the church bell chimes behind a Spaghetti Western-tuned guitar and orchestral drum beat. This goes on for nearly a minute and a half before the song's groove kicks in proper and The Heavy singer Kelvin Swaby's voice grabs your ears.
For the uninitiated (likely many of you reading this) England's The Heavy blends Rock with Neo Soul and other influences (notably the haunting soundtrack-esque tones you are hearing now) and released their third album, The Glorious Dead, just last month. This track however can be found on The Heavy's '09 release, The House That Dirt Built.
Trivia buffs should note this song and its album released exactly one week prior to the original Borderlands. One of the producers at Gearbox Software obviously has excellent taste in music. When viewed in the context of the game's motion picture-style title sequence, the song plays out with the game's imagery as if it had been written specifically for Borderlands 2, exactly the same way "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" by Cage the Elephant did for the first game.
Of course this now begs the question, what song will Gearbox use for a potential Borderlands 3? What? Too soon? Come on, any game with pre-orders over 1.25 million units will undoubtedly get a sequel. If you look at the timing between the release of these songs and the games they appeared in, we should be keeping an ear out right now for that under-appreciated piece of music which might be in a Gearbox producer's playlist.
And in case you are saying, "Hey! Where's the Dubsteb song?! The one from the Borderlands 2 trailer!?" Obviously isn't it. That would be because the people responsible for marketing the game are just as whip smart as it's producers, and chose "Doomsday" by Dubstep duo Nero to bed the game's trailer.
As previously noted, The Heavy have a new album out (The Glorious Dead) and are currently on tour. It is on the strength of this one song that I will be diving in to listen to more of their sounds. And so should you be.
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