Metal Mixology for March 10th, 2025!
- Jason Hesley
- Mar 10, 2025
- 3 min read
This edition of Mixology is presented by David Williams of Chronicler of Ardul!
Call of Ktulu - Metallica's S&M album. The song that started it all. This song convinced me to 1) become a metalhead, and 2) follow my dad's and his dad's footsteps of becoming a drummer. Little did I know this concert would foretell my future more than I thought.
Bombing Mission - Final Fantasy VII. It's hard to choose just one song from an artist, composer, movie, whatever. FFVII changed my life in a lot of ways and has many, many songs that I hold dear. But this song is so full of hype and excitement.
Long Ways to Go Get/Gollum's Song - Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers. Again, can't pick just one, literally, but we can't be here all day. This song really stuck out to me when I first heard it in the theatre. The singer's voice was so eerie and heartbreaking. This song is so sad and dark, very different from much of the rest of the soundtrack. So many memorable songs, but this one stands alone because it is so unique.
Elegy I-III - Shadow of Intent's Elegy album. I'm a sucker for multi part songs, and this is my return to form with symphonic metal. This band was the first band in my rediscovery with metal music. A whole world opened up once again and I felt like a teenager finding new music every day. It's epic, heavy, the vocals are thick and heavy, and the songs changes so many times.
Nordlys - Mental Cruelty's album Zwielicht. This song just hits so many good things for me, it's complex, has amazing riffs, his vocals are crunchy and low, with some orchestral elements, and then punches you in the face at the end.
Dancing Mad - Final Fantasy VI. Bold of me to pick this song over One Winged Angel, but this song is so epic and uses so many motifs to tell the story. It's all pieced together in such a wonderful way than just epic boss music. There was so much intention and forethought put into this piece. Nobuo Uematsu is one of the absolute greats.
Dark Caverns - Octopath Traveler. Yasunori Nishiki is an incredible composer who has shown me ways to write better music overall. It's so dark and moody and atmospheric, but memorable. I can imagine myself in one of the many underground environments whenever I heard this song.
Daughter of the Dark God - Octopath Traveler. If there's anything I love about music, it's putting a church organ in there and making it huge and epic. Not only that, this is the first song to put vocals in the game, and they saved it for the last boss fight. Yasunori Nishiki knew exactly what he was doing.
Death Empress - Synestia and Disembodied Tyrant's EP The Poetic Edda. Holy fuck. I remember working on my EP Sword of Virné when this finally released. I was stunned and left speechless. Symphonic metal had reached a new high with this EP, and left me feeling both unworthy and inspired all at the same time.
Legend of Zelda - Koji Kondo. Unfortunately I couldn't find original pieces on Spotify, but songs like the Hyrule theme from Ocarina of Time, Overworld theme from A Link to the Past, Dungeon them from Legend of Zelda, and one of my absolute favorites, the Fairy Fountain theme. These games defined my childhood and has stuck with me for years.
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