The soundtrack to the new Battletech game is quite surprising. I went in expecting heavy drums, thudding industrial vibes, general stomping, pounding bass. You know; the musical equivalent of big giant heavily armed mechs.
Instead we get swelling strings carrying much of the melody, the occasional heroic brass section, and haunting, echoing vocals. The drums are relegated to the far background, rumbles of distant thunder. The whole soundtrack would not go amiss in a Fantasy setting, which is quite unusual for such a mecha-influenced Sci-Fi property.
The end result is a soundtrack that builds slowly, and has lots of serene passages. I was expecting a war-time soundtrack, and ended up with something more suited to drama and character moments. Perhaps a deep space travel, with the haunting vocals paired with incandescent nebula. The whole soundtrack sounds more like something from a movie.
There are a couple of grindy/mechanical pieces, but these are short-lived, and the exception, not the rule. And even then, the mechanical pieces have strong hymn qualities, like the “Mech Bay Cantatta” (46:06), a slow, clicking, clanking, thumping melody overlaid with Gregorian chanting (very Adeptus Mechanicus). The real heavy pieces kinda start showing up towards the middle, before heading back into soulful string and brass.
