Diablo Soundtrack

Diablo Soundtrack, Matt Uelmen, 1996

When Blizzard announced Diablo III at BlizzCon 2008, it did so in the simplest possible way. Guitarist Laurence Juber merely had to play the first few chords of the original Diablo’s signature tune. The piece in question, of course, was Matt Uelmen’s immortal “Tristram”. And according to Diablo III lead composer Russell Brower, “over 10,000 people in the room knew EXACTLY what was coming”. Such is the power of a truly classic soundtrack cue: it can become the quickest and most memorable shorthand for the game or film it accompanied. That makes it all the more remarkable that it took fifteen years for this piece – and the rest of Diablo’s music – to receive a soundtrack release.

It is hardly surprising that “Tristram” remains so fondly remembered by millions of players. In short, Uelmen’s piece is a masterpiece of subtly evoked atmosphere. Those opening strummed guitar chords usher in music that remains fascinating for the ambiguity and complexity of its mood.

Indeed, like the rest of the Diablo soundtrack, “Tristram” alludes to danger while keeping it just out of reach, lurking in shadow, never fully revealed, difficult to identify, yet constantly present and inescapable. Key to the cue’s success is Uelmen’s astonishing inventiveness in the way he manipulates his guitar material. With constant virtuosity, he bends those guitar lines into surprising dissonances and off-kilter fade-outs that repeatedly catch the listener off guard. Combined with a tasteful orchestral backdrop that adds both foreboding and sorrow, the result is a classic piece of game music that offers a piercing glimpse into the mood and psychology of a haunted place.

Much has been written about the way “Tristram”’s guitar-centred writing and sombre mood depart from more conventional orchestral fantasy scoring. According to Uelmen, this individual approach arose naturally from the influence of one band he felt captured a mystic, medieval atmosphere: Led Zeppelin, and particularly their third album, with its strong folk inflections. But even if “Tristram” hears Uelmen channelling Jimmy Page’s characteristic layering of guitar parts, it remains a spectacular achievement to write a piece that rivals Led Zeppelin’s finest folk material while giving it such a distinctive, spooky, unsettling twist.

Of course, there is more to the Diablo soundtrack than “Tristram” alone. One must not forget the dungeon tracks. Much more abstract than “Tristram”, these pieces are equally potent as mood setters, even if they are not quite as inventive. What they share with that famous cue is their determination to avoid the standard musical fantasy template, albeit by different means. There is no trace here of heroism or romanticism. These dungeon tracks are given over entirely to stark horror.

To that end, Uelmen deploys a number of familiar horror techniques throughout the Diablo soundtrack: deep, droning cellos and double basses; unsettling, whining violin glissandi, especially prominent in “Catacombs”; wordless vocals ranging from distant choral presences to eerie moans; and pounding percussion that seems to echo up from the dungeon depths. Yet two things elevate Diablo far above the rank of a merely derivative horror score. First, despite their relative minimalism, all of the dungeon cues develop meaningfully over time. They patiently unfurl their slow-burning tension until the listener has been properly drawn into their sinister world. The ingredients may be familiar, but Uelmen deploys them with enough conviction and imagination to produce music that at times borders on twisted sound collage.

The second crucial element in Uelmen’s formula is his incorporation of rock influences. Rarely heard in Western fantasy games at the time, these touches work wonders for Diablo’s chilling atmosphere, which becomes even more alienating through the tension between rock and orchestral sonorities. The stomping drum patterns in “Dungeon” and “Catacombs” lend those tracks both nervous energy and outright malice. Unsurprisingly, the score’s more contemporary elements point back towards a genre long preoccupied with doom and gloom. Uelmen draws here on Gothic rock, especially in its early-1980s form. “Caves”, for instance, feels like a striking throwback to early Killing Joke. A huge percussion beat drives the cue forward with tribal energy and obsessive focus, while distorted electric guitars gnaw away at the music’s surface.

The Diablo soundtrack shows Uelmen discovering a way to marry guitars, electronics, and orchestra unlike anything any other Western game composer had achieved before him. And while Diablo remains his most monochrome score, it already bears the hallmarks of all his later work. Chief among them is a masterful handling of shifting textures, created through genre-bending instrumental combinations and studio manipulation. At their best, these qualities bend Uelmen’s music into elusive, otherworldly dreamscapes that remain perpetually fascinating.