Rings of Saturn Guitarists Attempt To Prove They Can Play Their Instruments

Rings of Saturn will always carry the taint of the great half-speed recording and Guitar Pro fiascos no matter what they do; they’ll likely be perennially fending off criticism lobbed their way about their ability to actually play their parts for their entire career.

To wit: a new playthrough video the band released last week — featuring guitarists Lucas Mann and Miles Dimitri Baker — that goes to extreme lengths to prove it’s the real deal. The video features no less than TEN clocks hanging on the wall in the background — presumably to indicate that the video was recorded in real time with no cuts — and hey, the band even has the sense of humor to poke fun at the whole Guitar Pro thing in the intro.

But here’s the thing: how do we know that what Mann and Baker are playing on their instruments here is being recorded, and that what we’re hearing is what they played in real time during the filming of this video? We don’t. Most playthroughs either feature the musician miming his parts over the studio recording (and they’re labeled as such), or they feature “live” audio (or audio newly recorded for the express purpose of the playthrough) but they utilize multiple cameras and myriad cuts of both the video and audio. That Rings of Saturn’s music is immensely complicated makes it even more difficult for me to believe that what we’re hearing here was actually played in real time with no edits — which, again, would be totally fine if not for the entire “Hey we’re doing this for real look at all these clocks!!!!” motif they’re pushing — and given this is exactly the sort of thing that most bands spend days working on in the studio.

So: what do you think: Are Mann and Baker the real deal, and is what they’re playing here an honest representation, or are they full of shit? You be the judge. Watch below.

[via Gear Gods]