Topic: I can't believe it's not butte-- I MEAN CASTLEVANIA!

[Lumi Kløvstad]

So I was doing my thing, just listening to some of my favorite symphonic metal bands that I've loved since High School (Nightwish will never die y'all! *fistpump*), and I noticed that a particular song that came up crazy reminded me of Castlevania Prog Rock in terms of beat and composition -- strip the lyrics and just play the instrumental, and you have a powerful driving song for a Dawn of Sorrow era Castlevania.

The song in question, in case you're interested, is "Here Come The Vultures" by Delain, off their album The Human Contradiction.

But it got me thinking: "what other gems are hiding in my collection that might, by their powers combined, make a kick ass Castlevania soundtrack?"

The end result was a playlist I saved on Spotify as "Making Castlevania", and I'm gonna go to my grave insisting this stuff as the score to a Castlevania game would be positively ace as hell.

The tracks that I chose were as follows:

Symphonic Metal Section
Here Come the Vultures ~ Delain (of course)
I'm Still Here ~ Amberian Dawn
My Hardest Walk ~ Lunatica
The Siren ~ Nightwish (Tarja Era)
Let Us Burn ~ Within Temptation
Endless Forms Most Beautiful ~ Nightwish (Floor Jansen Era)
Borne In Blood (Original Music Inspired by Bloodborne)
Beckon a Foul Beast ~ Alex Roe
Macabre Respite ~ Alex Roe
Airborne Assault ~ Alex Roe
Illithid Puppeteer ~ Alex Roe
Forsake All Hope ~ Alex Roe
A Heart of Mold ~ Alex Roe
Vile Clot ~ Alex Roe
A Duel For Blood ~ Alex Roe
Hunter's Haven ~ Alex Roe
Classical Music
The Firebird: Infernal Dance of King Kaschei ~ Igor Stravinski
Requiem K. 626: III. Sequentia: Dies irae ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Suite gothique, OP.25: IV. Toccata ~ Leon Boellmann
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta Sz. 106: III. Adagio ~ Bela Bartok
Messa da Requiem: II. Dies irae ~ Giuseppe Verdi
Modern Love Waltz: (Arr. for Two Toy Pianos) ~ Philip Glass
String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Op.110: II. Allegro molto ~ Dmitri Shostakovich

Seriously, go look up this music (or preferably the playlist on Spotify as it'll save you tracking it all down on a track by track basis); you could make a killer Castlevania with this sort of music.

I was predominantly driven to make these selections based on the "feel" of the instrumentals and composition. Lyrics were less important (although happy coincidence if they felt thematically appropriate somehow). I referred constantly to a couple of key Castlevania soundtracks as I made my selections for both the Symphonic Metal and the Classical selections, referring all the metal choices to the harsh scrutiny of Harmony of Despair (the soundtrack being one of the few parts of the game I all out liked), and all classical music selections had to compare favorably against the tag team of Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness which are in my opinion the absolute high water mark of series soundtracks, bar none.

Alex Roe's "Borne in Blood" made the cut just by being grim and awesome, but then, its inspiration (Bloodborne) was very Castlevania-ish anyway, so it felt a natural fit. They feel like the boss themes of this operation to me; walk into a new room and suddenly the music shifts from the powerful driving of symphonic metal and dark classical to something grim, slow, fatal and baroque, and then the latest hulking nightmare abomination sent by Dracula to stop you lumbers into view -- suddenly you get the impression it's not going down easy.

I now challenge you to create your own Castlevania soundtrack and post it here. Extra points are derived by explaining why you chose what you did and what official soundtracks you compared your selections against (if you did at all).

[Belmontoya]

http://youtu.be/6P_YISMJ4sQ

[X]

Here Come The Vultures" by Delain

This does sound very modern Castlevania-ish! I'll have to see about the others later though. Not enough time before work 

[TatteredSeraph]

Gackt's debit solo single, 'Mizerable' comes to mind a lt, as he's more or less cosplaying as Alucard in the video, even if the song isn't very Castlevania-y.  His old band, Malice Mizer's song Gekka no Yasoukyoku shares a name with SotN's Japanese name.  MM'S Bara no Seidou, and single Beast of Blood are far more gothic.  They were with Klaha, Gackt's replacement.  The band Versailles are vampire-themed, as is the vocalist Kamijo as a solo artist.  The video for Aristocrat's Symphony is very Castlevania-esque.  Akira's Kirie Toroimen no Shirabe from Vampire Knight is very vampiric.
  For Western music, the German musical Tanz der Vampire is the musical version of Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers, which works well for the slightly campy, humourous side of Castlevania's rock music style.  I love Pandora's Box's 'Original Sin', which is the basis for the number 'Gott ist Tott'.  The music is all by Rick Steinman, so the melody for 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' is in there too.  It's wonderfully silly, and I especially recommend looking up versions with Marc Liebisch as Herbert von Krolock, the (silver/blond-haired) pretty-boy son of Graaf von Krolock. 
  The Janli Jaggas are also a really good instumental duo who played Castlevania-inspired stuff..  I think I got their music off the old CV Duneon media page years ago....

[XombieMike]

I can't believe it's not Simon Belmont. (Well, I can, but with that title I had to show Fabio with a whip...)

[Lelygax]

We have a topic about this already that can interest you guys: http://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,3098.240.html

[Lumi Kløvstad]

We have a topic about this already that can interest you guys: http://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,3098.240.html

It's been a dead topic for a whole year and Jorge-sempai frowns heavily upon the dark art of Thread Necromancy.

[VladCT]

So this thread is going to replace the old one then? Might as well, I suppose.

By the way, I think Nonaggression is basically this game's Blood Relations. :V

[X]

Whoaw! Good fine VladCT! That's so much like a Castlevania tune that it just seems wrong to hear it in a Sonic game!

[Lelygax]

It's been a dead topic for a whole year and Jorge-sempai frowns heavily upon the dark art of Thread Necromancy.

You can then add a link to the old thread on the first post please? I don't want it to be forgotten and people can check it more easily this way

[Lumi Kløvstad]

So this thread is going to replace the old one then? Might as well, I suppose.

By the way, I think Nonaggression is basically this game's Blood Relations. :V

3 friggin' seconds in and I'm bloody well convinced.

Well chosen!

[TheTextGuy]

So this thread is going to replace the old one then? Might as well, I suppose.

By the way, I think Nonaggression is basically this game's Blood Relations. :V

At one point while listening to Chaos Angel (act 1 and act 3), I thought the same as well.
The level might itself might as well be a homage to Classicvania games as well, seeing as there are so many bottomless pits 
Also why do you think Nonaggression is the game's Blood Relations?  Just wondering, that's all.

[VladCT]

Also why do you think Nonaggression is the game's Blood Relations?  Just wondering, that's all.

It's more of a context thing, really. Both are dark remixes of a certain character's theme, and both are used in fights against said character.

(click to show/hide)

Only difference being that Richter was the fake final boss in SotN, whereas Gemerl who was reconstructed from Emerl is the true final boss in Sonic Advance 3. Compare Emerl's theme with Nonaggression. Same deal as with Bloodlines and Blood Relations, right?

[TheTextGuy]

It's more of a context thing, really. Both are dark remixes of a certain character's theme, and both are used in fights against said character.

(click to show/hide)

Only difference being that Richter was the fake final boss in SotN, whereas Gemerl who was reconstructed from Emerl is the true final boss in Sonic Advance 3. Compare Emerl's theme with Nonaggression. Same deal as with Bloodlines and Blood Relations, right?

Ah, right!  For some reason I confused Blood Relations with Bloodlines.  Dang, what kind of Castlevania fan am I? 
Anyways, I definitely agree.  I like when games use a theme and rearrange it to fit a different context.

[Perturabo]

Mina's Waltz by Rob Lane from NBC's Dracula (2013): sounds a bit like 0:35-0:55 of Crystal Teardrop from SOTN.

United Artists of Hungary's video with the song makes me think of a room full of respawning ghost dancers.