9/5/2023 0 Comments The elder scrolls vi publisher![]() “Windcaller”, their only song to date, imagines the fall of the founder of the Greybeards, Jurgen Windcaller, who has his Thu’um removed by the Nine Divines for suffering defeat at the hands of the Dwemer army. The German band, Ysgramor (opens in new tab) (not to be confused with the Canadian band, Ysgramor) takes the Amon Amarth approach to death metal, choosing to write lyrics about the brutality of war instead of serial killers reducing their victims to gore, or a weird man made out of gore, or gore that comes from space (the scariest kind of gore). The gargantuan and sludged-out riffs plod along at a slow but purposeful pace, not unlike a war-hammer-favoring Orc trudging their way through a maddening series of lookalike corridors while caving in the skulls of Draugrs with steadfast resolve. It’s this dungeon-crawling aspect of Elder Scrolls that Italy’s Wuuthrad (opens in new tab) takes to heart their death-doom musings on Prophecies of the Elder Scrolls (opens in new tab) are so laden with reverb that they sound like they were recorded in the musty halls of Darklight Tower. Sure, Elder Scrolls lore details many battles ranging from the Merethic Era to the Fourth Era, but most of the player’s experience cycles between talking to the local townsfolk, experiencing the tranquil landscapes, and trudging through countless randomly generated dungeons. I struggle with a band like Battle Born using Tamriel as a setting for songs about the glorious struggle of war because nothing about playing Elders Scrolls games reflects the sentiment evoked in these battle hymns. The band’s choice to alternate between punishing black metal riffage in the verses and a triumphant and soaring melody in the chorus compliments this song’s story of an army valiantly storming an Oblivion Gate. “ Towards Oblivion” fares a little better on the sonic front. The actual sound of this song, an expertly performed but somewhat generic blackened speed metal outing, does not totally suit the lyrical content, save for the very hypnotic and dreamlike lead guitar. The title track imagines a figure, likely Sheogorath, who surrenders to the imaginary voices and cryptic visions that plague him. Sheogorath's 2021 release, Lunacy Gone Astray, contains a few Oblivion-inspired songs. ![]() While the bucolic splendor of rural Cyrodiil doesn’t exactly conjure the imagery of war, death, and decay so prevalent in the genre, the fiery hellscapes that are the Planes of Oblivion sure do. ![]() Sheogorath (opens in new tab), a “video games metal band” from Vienna, Austria makes this list for being one of the few Elder Scrolls-inspired bands that focuses more on Oblivion than it does Skyrim, right down to being named after the Daedric Prince of Madness himself. Complaints aside, I could imagine myself getting eviscerated by an unrelenting swarm of dwarven spiders to the tune of “ Built by Dwemer (opens in new tab).” It’s also worth mentioning that this 2012 release is the earliest piece of Elder-Scrolls-inspired metal I could find, so it deserves props for anticipating a minor movement. “ Skewered by Arrows, Pinned by Oak (opens in new tab)” imagines a Dark Brotherhood assassin’s thwarted assassination attempt in Solitude, while “ The Eyes of the Falmer (opens in new tab)” revels in the grisly details of the Falmer’s enslavement at the hands of the Dwemer.Īs for the instrumentals, Tamriel’s deathcore-influenced brand of death metal certainly feels inspired, but the overly mechanical chug of the rhythm section and the digitally compressed guitar leads lend themselves more to dystopian science fiction than high fantasy. Lyrically, Tamriel’s (opens in new tab) Blood and Ebony EP does an exceptional job of placing the listener within, well… Tamriel. Subgenre: Deathcore, technical death metal
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