The Greatest Game Music

Reviews of truly outstanding game music

  • Soundtracks
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Diablo Soundtrack

Diablo Soundtrack

Diablo Soundtrack, Matt Uelmen, 1996

When Blizzard announced Diablo III at the 2008 Blizzcon Worldwide International, they chose a simple way to do so. All guitarist Laurence Juber had to do was to play the first few chords of the original Diablo’s signature tune. Of course, the piece in question was Matt Uelmen’s immortal “Tristram”. And according to Diablo III’s 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 composition that it can become the most memorable and thus quickest reference to the game or film it accompanied. That makes it all the more remarkable that it took 15 years for this composition – and the rest of Diablo’s music – to get a soundtrack release.

No wonder that “Tristram” is still fondly remembered by millions of gamers. In short, Uelmen’s composition is a masterpiece of subtly evoked atmosphere. Those opening strummed guitar chords herald a piece that still remains fascinating for its ambiguous, multi-layered atmosphere.

Indeed, like the rest of the Diablo soundtrack, “Tristram” alludes to danger, but at the same time keeps it just out of reach and in the shadows, never fully revealed and hard to identity, yet constantly present and inescapable. Key to “Tristram”’s success is Uelmen’s astonishing creativity as he finds new ways to manipulate his guitar material. With constant virtuosity, Uelmen tweaks his guitar lines into surprising dissonances and off-kilter fade outs that catch listeners by surprise. Combine this with a tasteful orchestral background that adds feelings of both foreboding and sorrow, and you’ve got a classic piece of game music that gives a piercing glimpse into the mood and psychology of a haunted location.

Diablo Soundtrack

Much has been written about how “Tristram”’s guitar focus and sombre mood deviate from more standard, orchestral fantasy fare. According to Uelmen, his individualistic approach was a natural result of one band’s influence that he felt managed to capture a mystic, medieval vibe. That band was Led Zeppelin and particularly their third album, with its strong folk overtones. But even if “Tristram” sees Uelmen channeling the influence of Jimmy Page’s characteristic multiple guitar overlays, it’s a spectacular achievement to write a piece that rivals Led Zeppelin’s best folk tracks AND to give the music its own spooky, unsettling twist.

Of course, there’s more to the Diablo soundtrack than just “Tristram” – let’s not forget the dungeon tracks. Much more abstract than “Tristram”, these compositions are equally potent mood setters, if not quite as creative. What they share with “Tristram” is their resolve to eschew the common musical fantasy template, albeit in a different way. There’s no trace of heroism or romanticism found on these dungeon tracks – only stark horror.

To that end, Uelmen deploys a number of familiar horror score techniques on the Diablo soundtrack: deep, droning celli and double basses; unsettling, whining violin glissandi (particularly prominent and effective on “Catacombs”); wordless vocals that range from disembodied choirs to eerie moans; pounding percussion ringing out from the depths of the dungeons. However, there are two things that elevate Diablo far above the rank of a derivative horror score. Firstly, despite their quite minimalist nature, Diablo‘s dungeon tracks all develop well during their running time. They patiently roll out their slow-burning, tense ambiance until the listener has been truly sucked into their sinister world. Yes, the ingredients may be familiar. However, Uelmen still manages to deploy them effectively on compositions that sometimes border on twisted sound collages.

Diablo Soundtrack

The other part of Uelmen’s formula for success is that he mixes in rock elements. Rarely heard in fantasy games, they work wonders for Diablo‘s chilling mood that becomes even more alienating through the tension between rock and orchestral sounds. The stomping drum rhythms on “Dungeon” and “Catacombs” add nervous energy and maliciousness to these tracks. Not surprisingly, the score’s contemporary elements harken back to a genre that is all about evoking doom and gloom. Uelmen reaches back to Gothic rock here, particularly in its early 80’s incarnation. “Caves” for example feels like a welcome throwback to early Killing Joke albums. A big percussion beat mercilessly drives the composition forward with tribal energy and fanatic focus. Meanwhile, distorted electric guitars gnaw and tear at the music’s fabric.

The Diablo soundtrack shows Uelmen finding a way to marry guitars, electronics and orchestra in a way no other Western game music composer had achieved before. And while Diablo is Uelmen’s most monochrome game score, it bears the hallmarks of all his future works. Chief among these are the masterful handling of constantly shifting textures, evoked by genre-bending instrument combinations and studio manipulations. At their best, these characteristics bend Uelmen’s music into otherworldly dreamscapes, elusive and perpetually fascinating.

  1. 01 - Tristram (Diablo Version) Matt Uelmen 4:49
  2. 02 - Dungeon Matt Uelmen 4:23
  3. 03 - Catacombs Matt Uelmen 5:50
  4. 04 - Caves Matt Uelmen 4:57
  5. 05 - Hell Matt Uelmen 4:08

Tagged With: 1996, Blizzard, Matt Uelmen, Mixed Music Genres, PC, RPG

Hob Soundtrack

Hob Soundtrack

Hob Soundtrack, Matt Uelmen, 2017

With their two Torchlight titles – particularly the excellent Torchlight II – developer Runic Games had established their credentials in the action RPG space, even managing to hold their ground against all-mighty rivals like Diablo III. Their next title was Hob, which shifted focus towards an open-world adventure that bore a clear debt to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The world of Hob is a giant machine, a contraption made of myriads of levers, dials and pulleys that the title character must utilise to repair and cleanse the land, which has been corrupted by a mysterious force. Hob’s concept of its realm as a titanic mechanical contraption is appealing and the perfect set up for many visual wonders and intriguing puzzles, although reviewers also pointed out the game’s more frustrating aspects, for example its combat.

What critics also highlighted were the game’s aesthetic strengths – its gorgeous visuals, but also its soundtrack by veteran Matt Uelmen. Having scored Runic Games’ Torchlight titles, Uelmen had celebrated a resounding return to form with Torchlight II. That soundtrack had felt like the apex of Uelmen’s meticulously composed trademark style that mixes electronics, orchestral and rock elements, setting his fantasy scores apart from the (often homogenous) competition. For Uelmen, Hob was an opportunity to expand his sound palette once more, as he was actively looking to avoid genre clichés – both those heard on other fantasy scores and his own common stylistic traits.

Recording over two years – between June 2015 and July 2017 – Uelmen made the most of the time he was given to create the Hob soundtrack. The basis of his approach was unusual – to merge three different instruments with common properties into one: moog guitar, fretless bass and pedal steel. Arguably, few would associate any of these instruments with fantasy scores, but they allowed Uelmen to work with micro-intervals – a way to escape classical notation and thus more traditional sounds. Training himself on all three instruments and combining them, Uelmen’s aim was to create “a futuristic and rubbery, yet still pretty lead instrument.”

Hob Soundtrack

The final product indeed accomplishes Uelmen’s goal to push his music once more into new territory. In fact, the Hob soundtrack might well be unique amongst video game scores. There are connections to other works (most obviously within Uelmen’s own discography), but ultimately, Hob innovates more than just fantasy game scoring. What’s most striking about Uelmen’s creation is the almost complete absence of traditional harmonies, melodies or rhythms. There is some (usually light) percussion on Hob, but it rarely drives the pieces forward. And while melodic progressions emerge here and there, they never lead the track and aren’t designed to stick in the mind. The closest stylistic antecedent for Uelmen’s experimentation on this album would be post rock – “Forest”’s opening sounds like it might come from a Feels-era Animal Collective album.

Uelmen’s compositions are best described as lengthy sound collages, continuously changing shape as they blend and manipulate electronic and acoustic instruments with jaw-dropping ease, to the point where these instruments are often no longer discernible from each other. Uelmen’s merging of three instruments into one does indeed create an exotic, otherworldly feel, although one would be hard pressed to clearly identify the place his newly-created lead instrument takes within his sound washes. One possible descriptor for this sort of floating, meandering music would be “ambient”, but that often implies a certain sparsity of timbres and musical activity. But the Hob soundtrack is the opposite. It is languidly paced but lushly arranged, presenting previously unheard (at least within game music) combinations of timbres that never cease to fascinate during the album’s hypnotic 65-minute run time.

Obviously, Uelmen’s work has always had a strong textural bend and his fastidious attention to details of album recording and production left its mark on his music from Diablo onwards. But Hob takes these interests to a new extreme, moving away from the increased melodicism of Torchlight II. That score also suggested environments rather than delivering definitive manifestations. However, it still created distinct scoring for specific locations. Instead, the Hob soundtrack feels like one living, breathing organism (maybe balancing its world’s mechanical nature), slowly morphing from one previously unseen sight to another.

Hob Soundtrack

If there is a particular location evoked through Hob’s music, it is a hazy jungle, all objects around the listener nothing but elusive shades that nonetheless intrigue – and yet they remain intangible, dissipating back into the dusky, heavy air they emerged from. Uelmen’s album production adds to the effect, draping every instrument in a thick, reverberant sound that purposefully swallows up details (even the distortions on the whale call-synths on “Anima” feel deliberate). There’s also a tangible warmth to the album production that renders its sound collages as spacious, welcoming, yet somewhat claustrophobic concoctions surrounded by encroaching walls of sounds. Uelmen’s use of micro-intervals and avoidance of conventional major/minor key harmonies complete his approach to keeping his music enticingly indefinable.

It’s an unusual approach to scoring a fantasy game, to say the least – but it starts to make perfect sense once considering the brief Uelmen was given. Hob’s co-director Marsh Lefler had asked Uelmen to underscore the protagonist’s solitude and his loss of reference points. Uelmen’s harmonically ambiguous music and its lack of clear melodies and rhythms does precisely that. There is no one to meet for Hob’s lead character on his journey, no character or location clearly encapsulated in music of an easily identifiable, individual character. All that there is is a sometimes disorienting journey through strange, amorphous, seemingly endless lands. Meanwhile, Uelmen ensures to give the music an undercurrent of mysticism, subtly ensuring that despite all the breaking with fantasy scoring traditions, Hob’s music has the required scale for a world-saving adventure.

Given all this, the Hob soundtrack is the kind of music that eludes easy description through words. It creates its own universe where instruments, moods and compositions merge into each other to a point that discussing them as separate entities makes little sense. That is not to suggest that Hob is a monochrome work that could go on forever – that would ignore just how much happens in each piece and the startling amount of creativity and care that have gone into each of its innumerable details. It’s just that the Hob soundtrack isn’t particularly concerned with constructing any particular album arc. Instead, it chooses to create a fascinating here and now.

That being said, penultimate track “Anima” does seem to build on the foundations laid by previous pieces, crystallising the spiritualism that runs through the Hob soundtrack through its echoing flute calls ringing from up high through foggy mountain valleys. “Anima” then moves towards a fascinating, unearthly climax as fuzzy synth pads evoke dizzying heights under a white, blinding sun and its chilling, yet fiery rays. Like a modernist painting, “Anima” – and Hob as a whole – seem to be concerned with capturing not the shape of things, but with distilling their essence. This challenging, enigmatic work further solidifies Uelmen’s reputation as one of game music’s most innovative creator of worlds.

  1. 01 - Samba Uelmen, Matt 7:55
  2. 02 - Forest Uelmen, Matt 6:24
  3. 03 - Prisex Uelmen, Matt 8:27
  4. 04 - Valisita Uelmen, Matt 2:52
  5. 05 - Saturnesse Uelmen, Matt 13:14
  6. 06 - In the Tank Uelmen, Matt 7:45
  7. 07 - Tower Uelmen, Matt 4:57
  8. 08 - Cenotaph Uelmen, Matt 4:55
  9. 09 - Anima Uelmen, Matt 4:12
  10. 10 - Gemini Uelmen, Matt 5:01

Tagged With: 2017, Action Adventure, Matt Uelmen, Mixed Music Genres, PC, PlayStation 4, Runic Games

Torchlight II Soundtrack

Torchlight II Soundtrack

Torchlight II Soundtrack, Matt Uelmen, 2012

To call one particular creation the culmination of an artist’s oeuvre can be a risky maneuvre. It suggests linear development across works and prescribes an easily identifiable trajectory. But it’s hard not to fete a work like the Torchlight II soundtrack as the realisation of a specific musical approach. On this album, Matt Uelmen combines all elements that have characterised his previous scores and perfects them.

As always, his music deals in textures rather than melodies, suggestions rather than definitive manifestations. At its best, this approach leads to wonders like Diablo’s “Tristram”. This game music classic was an instantly striking demonstration of how to score fantasy environments in new, idiosyncratic ways. However, taking the same approach, Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction ended up veering between scintillating and meandering.

The Torchlight II soundtrack is a marked improvement and manages to combine the languid, gloomy synth layers of Diablo II, the textural refinement of Diablo II: Lords of Destruction, and the increased melodicism of Torchlight, and blends all these into one of the best fantasy game soundtracks. Jump into a composition like “Enclave Morning” and it immediately becomes apparent that Uelmen can still score a faraway fantasy location like few other composers. Peaceful woodwind lines are given a soft, otherworldly bent through shimmering violin crescendi and the composition’s echoey acoustics. The track’s impressionistic, constantly shifting textures evoke dazzling, majestic beauty of a very rare kind.

Torchlight II Soundtrack

This textural focus is the foundation of Uelmen’s supremely accomplished work here. “Enclave Morning” doesn’t underscore particular characters, actions or narrative beats with an array of melodies or themes. Instead, the composition captures an elusive mood that feels frozen in time, yet is bound to fade away – the ephemeral beauty of a sunrise over a wondrous land and its slowly, subtly changing waves of gleaming colours. And “Enclave Morning” is far from the only composition on Torchlight II that revels in such exquisite tone painting.

All of the soundtrack’s compositions proceed at a measured pace and consistent volume, rendered in a generally cavernous sound. Thanks to the small armada of instruments that Uelmen deploys, the resulting effect is not one of monotony, but consistency. It feels like gliding down a long river during twilight, marveling at the wonders that hazily fade in and out of view on the shoreline with dream-like logic.

The Torchlight II soundtrack is best summed up as a vast tapestry of sounds, built upon an extension of the orchestra/synth/rock ensemble that Uelmen has deployed on most of his scores. On Torchlight II, he brings together atmospheric instrumental lines and synth pads in even denser layers than before. The results are more subtle and creative than before, surpassing Uelmen’s previous work in this style. This sheer lushness of sound doesn’t come as a surprise if one looks at how Uelmen’s music has developed from Diablo to Diablo II: Lord of Destruction.

Torchlight II Soundtrack

However, this tonal richness reaches new heights here, bolstered by a greater fondness for melodies that already characterised Torchlight. Indeed, while Uelmen is clearly most concerned with the detail-obsessed, immaculate layering and balancing of textures, the Torchlight II soundtrack also has moments of great melodic beauty. It’s the job of the live orchestra’s string section to deliver injections of fantasy-typical gravitas and sweep. Just sample “Zeryphesh Morning” and its beautiful, pensive string chord progressions. They are even more intoxicating when merged with an exotic orchestral background that incorporates the sounds of a Guzheng. The album’s midway point is literally one of the album’s peaks, thanks to “Echo Pass” and “Camp Evening”. Their free-flowing string melodies capture every bit of wondrous majesty that flows from their mountainous locations.

The Torchlight II soundtrack’s kaleidoscopic orchestrations and melodic strengths don’t stop the album from traversing the murky depths that Uelmen explored so thoroughly on his Diablo scores. As on Diablo II, the album’s last third is devoted to more sombre compositions. While the album loses some of its beguiling effect during these morose, more monochromatic compositions, the music remains captivating. Hollow guitars ring out over “Wasteland”’s bleak soundscapes. Feelings of despair reign supreme on “Desolation”, courtesy of horn cries and piercing woodwind notes set against relentless drum patterns. “Bog” maintains interest through its lone flute melody lost among howling deep synths.

Best of all is “Mummified”. The track moves its busy, disorienting string pizzicati just far enough into the background for them to turn into an unsettling, elusive source of sounds. Uelmen then layers deceptively cheeky pizzicati on top of dissonant sound effects and creepy percussion. It’s yet another feat of clever composing and studio engineering. Like the Torchlight II soundtrack as a whole, it’s an intriguing surprise and another fascinating facet of Uelmen’s stunningly successful world-building that elevates Torchlight II to the highest echelons of Western fantasy scores, alongside works like EverQuest II and Outcast.

  1. 01 - Torchlight II Theme Matt Uelmen 2:43
  2. 02 - Enclave Morning Matt Uelmen 5:17
  3. 03 - Temple Steppes Matt Uelmen 6:24
  4. 04 - Defiled Matt Uelmen 3:10
  5. 05 - Ice Matt Uelmen 2:49
  6. 06 - Enclave Dusk Matt Uelmen 3:29
  7. 07 - Winterwell Matt Uelmen 2:13
  8. 08 - Glacial Research Station Matt Uelmen 0:49
  9. 09 - Slavers Matt Uelmen 1:11
  10. 10 - Zeryphesh Morning Matt Uelmen 1:47
  11. 11 - Sphinx Matt Uelmen 2:16
  12. 12 - Vulture Pass Matt Uelmen 2:29
  13. 13 - Djinn Matt Uelmen 1:38
  14. 14 - Curse of Ember Matt Uelmen 2:16
  15. 15 - Ever Deeper Matt Uelmen 3:02
  16. 16 - Echo Pass Matt Uelmen 2:13
  17. 17 - Camp Evening Matt Uelmen 1:15
  18. 18 - Zeryphesh Twilight Matt Uelmen 2:29
  19. 19 - Mycoses Matt Uelmen 1:29
  20. 20 - Wasteland Matt Uelmen 2:28
  21. 21 - Desolation Matt Uelmen 2:02
  22. 22 - Oasis Matt Uelmen 2:02
  23. 23 - Bog Matt Uelmen 2:29
  24. 24 - Vault Matt Uelmen 3:12
  25. 25 - Mummified Matt Uelmen 1:41
  26. 26 - Snow Falling on Bleeders Matt Uelmen 3:22
  27. 27 - Camp Dawn Matt Uelmen 5:08
  28. 28 - Killbot Matt Uelmen 1:27

Tagged With: 2012, Matt Uelmen, Mixed Music Genres, PC, RPG, Runic Games

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