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Musician REACTS to Sealed Vessel / Pure Vessel (Hollow Knight)!

TeraCMusic

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Today, we delve into 2 gorgeous tracks from the Hollow Knight Soundtrack:
1️⃣ Sealed Vessel 00:18
2️⃣ Pure Vessel 08:45

Usage of motifs are so effective in these kinds of games! It reminds me of Ori and the Blind Forest which has a central motif that can be heard all throughout the OST. Being able to establish a simple, sing-able melody in itself can be tough, but also manipulating it and re-using it in other tracks is a whole different skill! I can't wait to hear more of Christopher Larkin's work, hopefully we can get some Silksong news soon??

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20 Comments

@MMidnight2222 1 year ago

"I could listen to these strings all day" well, there's a certain Path in the game that lets you do that (and also, experience a lot of pain)

@Britishman64 1 year ago

“Sealed away for a reason.” No mind to think, no will to break, no voice to cry out. There was no reason in the end.

@snefansson 1 year ago

Desperation is the word I’d use to describe this track. All the plans they had to save everything, all the suffering and sacrifices. All for nought.

@jason.s.music. 1 year ago

This song within context is one of my favorite musical pieces ever written. The use of different leitmotifs that are introduced in the game's earlier tracks are used to remind the player of this boss's connections to the story, certain characters you've learned about/met, and you yourself. The sequence used never really reaches anywhere, as you noticed by the "lack of drop", which symbolizes a sort of desperate/useless attempt to get somewhere that you can never reach. This idea holds a lot of significance for this boss specifically when you know its story. And the mode used in the song really gives you a sense of dread/sadness, especially in the second phase of the boss. It isn't the normal upbeat/confident/bombastic boss battle music that keeps you on your toes and envelops you with fast-paced runs and loud percussion, but rather a slow, somber climb that slows the pace of the fight and makes you feel wrong for even fighting at all. It's perfectly written for the emotional/story-driven aspects of its purpose imo!

@chonifer 1 year ago

Grimm and Nightmare King Grim are definitely something you might want to listen.

@villa3927 1 year ago

I cannot listen to Sealed Vesel without shedding tears, knowing the desperate, agonising plea for mercy that is the fight for that song. And all the while, it is just magnifiscent and beautifull musically.

@pinkalliums 1 year ago

god, sealed vessel might genuinely be one of my favorite tracks ever. it always hits me LMAO

@lezno3550 1 year ago

"False knight" "Mantis Lords" and "Nosk" are really good ones!

The vast majority of the ost is connected in some way. Many of the songs represent a lot of story within the game, and tell much more.

@TelesEphemeraltheSecond 1 year ago

The "bombastic drop" at 6:25 didnt happen because thats the ending cutscene, it makes way more sense if you see it

@ArgyleR04D 1 year ago

The litemotif in these two tracks has a lot of placement in the game, almost like a thread to follow, I'm looking forward to see if and when you catch onto the moments 😊

@enmay-n2l 1 year ago

So for context: Sealed Vessel is the theme that plays while you're fighting "The Hollow Knight", one of the final bosses of the game. Pure Vessel is part of the last big update in which you can fight a "pure" form of the Hollow Knight, in its prime, untouched by the corruptive infection it holds in the base game.

@kobarsos82 1 year ago (edited)

Pure vessel is more orchestric and sounds more majestic too on purpose, its more leveled, its the purest form, because it shows a glimpse of what once was, while all was good in the world, royalty, loyalty, duty and honor, even a bit of naivity of youth, before corruption took place and the truth was revealed. And everything become tainted. A sacrifice had to be made.

The sealed vessel is the form after the corruption and sacrifice takes place, a sad form of existence, a shell of its former self, its more sad and somber in nature, its more desperate, it has lost control, its in fact all about tragic irony, one of the worst and most tragic of tales. But a shimmer of hope still remains cause our little knight protagonist can offer another sacrifice for another shot at the cycle of life.

@Luky.73 1 year ago

For context, (heavy spoilers ahead, of course) when Sealed Vessel sounds youre going to fight The Hollow Knight (THK for short), which to do so you first had to unseal them. Why were they sealed? Well they were created with the sole purpose to "hold" the infection (this infections makes everyone like act like a violent zombie, since it controls the mind) within themselves and then get sealed so no one can get infected, sadly it didnt work quite right and the infection started spreading, so you as the player, controlling another vessel, went there to kill the failed vessel so you can hold it within yourself, propagating this statis in which the kingdom is.
A cool detail is that even for a boss fight, this track is dynamic, to begin with, the strings that start playing at 0:40 to 0:56 doing tremolo, for each string theres a chain the player physically breaks (to unseal the vessel), so the track doesnt continues until you dont break them all. But not only that, at 2:49 you hear a scream from the vessel and the track changes drastically, that happens because they enter in 2nd phase, but instead of being harder, THK starts stabbing themselves, because they understand what are you trying to do and they understand that they must die, heche why the tracks becomes sad.
Finally, at 6:16, you defeat the Vessel and took their place, from now own, what you hear is a cinematic playing.

@prince_nox 11 months ago

that piano section right at the end of sealed vessel is what gets me crying, without fail

@Manoffire-c1f 1 year ago

To explain the first song, it starts off in an epic sounding fight, you are fighting the vessel containing the radiance, fighting to end the infection. But when the track turns somber, thats when the fight turns, and you realize the infection is controlling the vessel. He is fighting to stop it, and even stabs himself, weakly falling to a knee, but the infection lifts it back up to attack again. The climax is you beating him, and absorbing the infection, ending it but killing yourself. The after piano is the ending cutscene, the flutes, as I think they are, are another characters reaction, and after that its the spirits of our dead siblings finally being put to rest.

@leurunner4764 1 year ago

The section before 7:10 is intentionally more like a requiem than anything else.

@matthewdevries6590 8 months ago (edited)

the giant buildup leading to nothing could be signifying part of the lore
(spoilers beyond the read more by the way)

the section during the buildup is where the main character consumes the infection inside the hollow knight
instead of any continuation of the battle the screen just fades to black and shows the end sequence, showing that the player has become the next vessel
all the tension IS the infection
and once it is gone the build up stops

@deltafrappuccino 1 year ago

Dung Defender is a track that is, despite its name, genuinely really good. It plays for an optional boss that's a bit out of the way, but it's arguably one of the most exciting tracks in the game.

@fox-fluffl9002 1 year ago (edited)

To give some added context to Sealed Vessel, with a major spoiler warning for the fight, this is one of thefinal bosses in the game and the fight goes in two stages.
The start is the epic battle against a foe several times your size, trading blows and dodging its arena-wide charges and AOE's, and the first shift in tone to the slower, quieter melody is when it starts to weaken. The Hollow Knight starts to stumble in its moves, sometimes collapsing to its knees after attacking, and even starts to stab itself with its own nail. as you fight it just get weaker and weaker, sometimes barely able to swing at you before collapsing.

This fight is so tragic and heartbreaking, you almost feel like it's trying to help you kill it when it starts to stab itself, and the end feels like a mercy. One of my favorite scores in the game, I highly recommend looking up a video of the fight itself if you're interested :]

@MatthijsvanDuin 1 year ago

7:07 Technically the track is over at this point, the epilogue they added in the OST doesn't really belong there, in the game it is heard after a different track (Radiance).