I like to think I am beyond the influence of nostalgia. Did I spend hundreds – maybe thousands – of hours of my childhood playing Old School Runescape when it was simply Current School Runescape, laboriously catching lobsters so that I could one day amass enough gold for my own set of runic armor? Yes. But that doesn’t mean I’m an basic target. Age has certainly sharpened my tastes. It certainly takes more than a licensed, professionally produced RuneScape-themed metal cover to impress me —
Oh, never mind. This shit rocks.
Last week Jagex revealed RuneScape: Battleaxes and Ballads, an officially licensed metal cover of the Old School RuneScape music album. As a journalist and critic, I am pleased to report that it is fucking awesome. The theme of RuneScape, or “Scape Main” as it is officially called, has already gone unreasonably strenuous its original formconsidering it was something I heard while waiting for my stout Windows XP desktop to let me log in back in 2005. But the metal version of Battleaxes and Ballads sounds like the memory of the original theme I felt as a 12-year-old. That’s an achievement.
Includes other OSRS hits like Sea Shanty 2 (thanks to Sarim Harbor), composer Mykel Dunn’s remixes of the album were classified as “battle metal” by the press release. I assume it’s a nondenominational cousin of Viking metal? Possibly with less droning? I’m no expert.
Produced in partnership with Laced Records, a video game soundtrack label that has collaborated on special edition albums with Bandai Namco, From Software, Capcom, and others, Runescape: Battleaxes and Ballads is also available for pre-order vinyl. When it releases in October, you’ll be able to listen to Old School RuneScape remixes in a deliberately old-school format, because money can buy you a lot of things. Plus it’s red, because why would you make an LP if it wasn’t going to be a fun color? Like I said, age has sharpened my tastes.
If the scarlet record doesn’t convince you, you can still listen to the entire album on Youtube. RuneScape: Battleaxes and Ballads is also available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, and Soundcloud, leaving you with plenty of options for a ponderous metal remake of your memories of Barbarianism, the music of Barbarian Village. This is a RuneScape village where barbarians were. Sometimes they would drop chaos runes. Great stuff.
