I just finished my first run through of Mass Effect the other day. It took me around 60 hours to complete (not counting reloads, etc.), so it was a substantial investment in time. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I sat back and watched the ending cinematic, reveling in the conclusion of the first part of BioWare's space opera trilogy. The credits began to roll and I decided to sit through them as I might with a good movie, partly to take in the myriad names of people involved in the project, and partly in hopes that there might be something after the credits worth waiting for.

As I sat there I took in the end credit theme. I expected a reprise of the main theme or other music from the game, but I was treated to something different, something I hadn't heard before. Starting off simply and unassumingly with a drum kick rhythm and ambient keyboard, the tune quickly builds as an electric guitar plucks out a melody. The singer enters, in a breathiness appropriate to the somewhat ethereal sound backing him: "I / have wondered about you / where will you be / when this is through?" The song builds from there and continues on for a good eight minutes, all worth listening to.

I waited to see the name of the band in the credits but either missed it or it wasn't there (and if so, for shame BioWare!) But a quick trip to Google answered the question almost immediately--apparently I'm not alone in enjoying the tune and wanting to know more. Apparently, it's called "M4, Pt. II" by an Edmonton band called Faunts. I was surprised to find that the song wasn't written for the game because it was an excellent choice for the end credits both in sound and in content. If you've played the game and heard the song, you'd probably agree that there are several sentiments expressed that reflect well characters and situations in the game, for instance the lyric quoted in the title of this post, as well as the segment in which Faunts asks "If all goes as planned / will you redeem / my life again?"

Without much hesitation I jumped onto iTunes, found the track, and bought it. That's a first for me--I don't think I've ever bought a song from the soundtrack to a game before.

In case you're wondering, here's the song, as uploaded to YouTube (no video, just audio).


Lyrics available at LyricWiki.

You can also check out their myspace/faunts page which features a shorter radio version of the tune.

If you are interested in buying it, the following iTunes link should bring up the song in iTunes (from their album, not from the Mass Effect soundtrack):

M4, Pt. II - Faunts
It should be noted that there is an iTunes Plus version available (which is DRM free) but I found it doesn't come up when you search on the song, it only seems to come up if you search on the album M4.

M4 - Faunts