After over a decade of metal fandom, I’ve found it harder and harder to find bands that really stick with me. The atrocities of the 1980s fascinated me more than anything else.
Now I spend countless hours scouring the depths of Bandcamp, trying to recreate my early experiences in metal. Grindcore, psychedelic nu metal, Keynesian economics black metal, and… Elder Scrolls Metal?
My eyes lit up like a Skooma-fiend. My metal obsession started around the same time as my passion for the Elder Scrolls world.I was wrong to think tireless power (opens in new tab) It was the only charm of metal. Discovering increasingly niche subgenres was a big part of my love for the genre.
Staring at the words “Elder Scrolls metal”, I swore allegiance to the Night Mother and dived in. Deep in her fertile tomb, I discovered the dank sludge of her Wuuthrad and the gritty power of the Daedric Chamber, as well as her Elder Scrolls-themed band. Bards College be careful. ElectricalâThese are Elder Scrolls inspired metal bands.
battleborn
Subgenre: power metal
Claiming to be from the snowy streets of Windhelm, battleborn (opens in new tab) is a power metal band writing “mighty war hymns” to save the city from “the scourge of empire”. Their artist The brilliance of his bio is just a hint of theatricality found in the single “Bring the Metal Back” from his self-titled EP.
The story of this song is an old story that has passed through time. Life in Windhelm revolves around beer and metal, and the arrival of the Septim Empire threatens this noble way of life, forcing the people of Skyrim to go to war. The setting for this riff-based call is Skyrim, but in true power metal fashion, this song is more about heavy metal than anything else. Seriously, get a lot of these pre-chorus lyrics: “The magic of metal/It has the power to heal/Your wooden sword is broken/Because metal is made of steel. â
There’s an AC/DC kind of joy to listening to songs in the genre we’re currently listening to, but when it comes to Elder Scrolls-inspired metal, this approach leaves much to be desired. If it’s bullshit, give me the lyrics of Honningbrew, a giant crushing Imperial scum with his barrels of mead.
Tamriel
Subgenre: deathcore, technical death metal
lyrically, of Tamriel (opens in new tab) The Blood and Ebony EP does an extraordinary job of placing listeners in Tamriel. “Skewered with arrows, pinned with oaks (opens in new tab)‘ imagines an assassination attempt thwarted by a Dark Brotherhood assassin in Solitude.eye of falmer (opens in new tab)‘ revels in the gruesome details of the Falmer’s enslavement at the hands of the Dwemer.
Instrumentally, Tamriel’s deathcore-influenced brand of death metal certainly feels inspired, but the rhythm section’s overly mechanical chugging and digitally compressed guitar leads make it stand out from High Fantasy. is also good for dystopian science fiction. Complaints aside, the dwarves incessantly swarming his spidersBuilt by the Dwemer (opens in new tab)And this 2012 release is the earliest piece of Elder Scrolls-inspired metal I’ve found, so it deserves props for predicting a minor move.
Sheogorath
Subgenre: melodic black metal
Sheogorath (opens in new tab)A “video game metal band” from Vienna, Austria, .Cyrodiil’s rural pastoral splendor doesn’t exactly conjure up the imagery of war, death and decay common in the genre, but Planes The fiery hellscape that is of Oblivion certainly conjures up.
Sheogorath’s 2021 release, Lunacy Gone Astray, includes several Oblivion-inspired songs. Title His track imagines a person, presumably Sheogorath, surrendering to imaginary voices and inexplicable visions that haunt him. The actual sound of the song is a deftly executed but somewhat generic blackened speed his playing of metal, very hypnotic and dreamlike lead, apart from his guitar lyrical. does not completely match the content.
“towards oblivion‘ is a little better in terms of sound. The band’s choice to alternate between punitive black metal riffs in the verses and triumphantly uplifting melodies in the chorus complements Oblivion’s song’s story of an army bravely storming his gates. increase.
Wusrad
Subgenre: doom metal, death metal
I’m fighting bands like Battleborn, but I’m singing glorious war songs set in Tamriel. playing Elders Scrolls games reflect the emotions evoked in these battle hymns. Indeed, Elder Scrolls lore details many battles ranging from the Merethic Era to the Fourth Era, but most of the player’s experience is based on conversations with local townsfolk, experiencing tranquil landscapes, Cycle between roaming through countless randomly generated dungeons.
A side of this dungeon crawl from The Elder Scrolls of Italy Wusrad (opens in new tab) Keep in mind.contemplating their mortality Elder Scrolls Prophecy (opens in new tab) It contains so much reverb that it sounds like it was recorded in the musty halls of the Darklight Tower. Huge, sludged-out riffs progress at a slow but deliberate pace. This is the same Warhammer-preferred Orc who caves into the skull of a Draugr with resolute determination, making his way through a series of maddeningly similar corridors.
Ysgramor
Subgenre: melodic death metal
german band, Ysgramor (opens in new tab) (not to be confused with Canadian band Ysgramor) takes an Amon Amarth approach to death metal, with serial killers making their victims out of gore and the brutality of war rather than weird guys made of gore. I choose to write lyrics about sex. Gore from outer space (the most terrifying kind of gore).
“Windcaller”, the only song so far, imagines the downfall of Greybeard founder Jurgen Windcaller. Jurgen Windcaller was defeated at the hands of the Dwemer army and thus had Thu’um removed by the Nine Gods. The loss of Windcaller’s Tomb is emotionally rich territory for songwriting. The whole purpose of Greybeard’s Order is to cultivate a tomb, and what I admire about this track is how Windcaller’s both his Thu’um and his legendary status speak to the music itself. Is it built into the
The song begins with a chorus. The chorus is basically he’s two dragon shouts, delivered with the exact intonation you’d expect from Skyrim’s Dragonborn and Greybeards. After Windcaller succumbs to mental corruption, the track transitions from metal to a brooding epic, sung by a choir and accompanied by acoustic guitars, JĂŒrgen his Windcaller’s near-ancient legend to a modern Skyrim bard. It suggests that it is passed on to poets.
daedric room
Subgenre: black metal
Anyone who’s spent a lot of time on Bandcamp searching for the most disastrous second-wave/raw black metal known to man will find a black metal band so unlistenable that it almost feels like a famous lo-fi parody. I know there are 20. subgenres. Well, I’m happy to report that the experience of searching for raw, Elder Scrolls-inspired black metal is exactly the same.
of Tennessee daedric room (opens in new tab) is the reward for my hard work, a prolific one-man black metal project that put out 3 full-lengths, 3 EPs and a split in just over a year. His January 2023-released conceptual EP of the project is called Dragon Cult Rising and draws inspiration not only from the famous collective of Dragon Priests, but also from the music of the Elder Scrolls series.
Central melody of “”Akatosh Arise (opens in new tab)is the Oblivion OST (For Geeks: Iconic “Harvest Dawn” (opens in new tab) comes to mind). But primordial Black’s metal binge is never sacrificed for this inspiration. Because this melody quickly replaces the classic, harsh black metal combo of overly distorted, tremolo-picked riffs and ferocious blasting his beats.
And “Akatosh Arise” might be my favorite example of an Elder Scrolls metal song. Because the world of The Elder Scrolls never feels confined to the metal subgenre simply because the high-fantasy aesthetic often lends itself to the theatrical nature of metal. as a whole. Instead, the song evokes how I felt when I first played his Oblivion. Harvest Dawn-style tranquil melodies perfectly reflect the awe you feel as you gaze upon the tranquil beauty of Cyrodiil’s lush countryside. Black’s metal savagery that follows is such that Oblivion Gate seems to lure the player into a hellish dimension, and the sky suddenly turns red.
The nostalgia for these games is powerful, and I think the same nostalgia that brings players back to a series that hasn’t seen a main entry in over a decade is what inspired these bands to make The Elder Scrolls Metal. first place.
When the day finally comes when Bethesda gives us The Elder Scrolls 6 (opens in new tab)you can vouch for me to delve into the depths of Bandcamp again.
