After the Burial’s Justin Lowe Covers Video Game Music — Song Premiere

Earlier this year, Noisecreep reported on eight-bit versions of metal songs making the rounds on YouTube. What if a metal band covered video game music? That's After the Burial guitarist Justin Lowe's idea. "It's from 'Mega Man 2,' and it's the Bubble Man stage," Lowe told Noisecreep of the song he covered. "I didn't release it or anything. I just did it for my own sake."

Lowe received some inspiration from the eight-bit version of their song 'Aspirations' off of their second album, 'Rareform.' "That actually made me inclined to go out and seek out the software that they used to make that," Lowe explained. "So I started messing around with it and just got done with [the] Mega Man song, using this plugin. But I figured it all out on the guitar and stuff ... but I thought it was really cool that somebody took the time to do that."

Listen to 'Bubbles'

The plugin Lowe mentioned is called the Magical Eight-Bit Plugin, and it was used in a few spots in the actual recording. The rest was made using the Superior Drummer and Trillian applications, as well as Lowe's own guitar playing. The result is a track that would sound at home on any modern metal album.

Lowe, who went to school for audio recording, has his own studio that he uses for demoing tracks for After the Burial. When not on tour, much of his free time can be spent in studios with audiophile friends. "I have never had a problem calling them up, and we'll hang out in other recording studios," Lowe said. "But our home [studio] stuff is pretty simple. It gets the job done for our demos and stuff like that. Like if we're going to get serious about doing some real tracking, we'll just give one of our friends a call and we'll spend some time in a nice big room."

"I always try to stay surrounded by music. If I'm not doing recording or doing something with us, I'm going to try to produce or track another band."

After the Burial released their third album, 'In Dreams' on Nov. 22, and will be on on the December Decimation Tour until the end of the year, with Winds of Plague and Carnifex.