Act II: Father of Death is the second album of the indie rock band The Protomen. It is a musical interpretation of the backstory of the first Megaman game and also a prequel to the story of the band’s first album. 

Listening to their first album is not a prerequisite to understanding this one. On the other hand, knowing the main characters and the basic outline of the story of Megaman games somewhat improves understanding the story, since the band jumps right in, establishing the story with little initial presumptions, implicitly presuming the listener would already be familiar with the games. 

The story quickly deviates from the canon narrative of the games and goes for a more mature and serious tone, much like what Naoki Urasawa had done with the Astro Boy franchise in his manga “Pluto”.

The album has twelve tracks, two of which are instrumentals. It is almost one hour in length and its lyrics are accompanied by in-depth narration and dialogue between the characters of the story, a large portion of it not actually sung. It is recommended the lyrics be read while listening to the album to understand it better

The story itself consists of two parts, separated by a twenty year long gap, six tracks in each era before and after the gap. It takes place in an unnamed city (styled as the City in the lyrics), mostly centering around the main character Dr. Thomas Light.

The common themes of the story are distrust of technology that humans are not mature enough to use, betrayal and desire for vengeance, power of technocrats and their robotic creations over the masses and the sacrifice of freedom for comfort.

The story also use multiple phrases that act as symbols and that are mentioned throughout the story such as the aforementioned City, the concept of “turning the wheels” and of the “working parts” that are never directly explained, but not difficult to comprehend.

In essence, this album takes what the game Megaman put down and expands upon it, giving fans of the game – and even those who haven’t played the game – a delightful sense of closure and a complete storyline. Fans of the Megaman game and interested new listeners alike may enjoy listening to both this album and the band’s previous album, titled “Act I: The Protomen.” An Act III is expected in the near future.

I give this album five out of five spurs. For the full review with each track examined in detail, visit The Spur online at mustangbuzz.net.