The Banner Saga 2 - Soundtrack

On 180g colored vinyl.
Includes full digital soundtrack.
Art by Arnie Jorgensen.

A videogame soundtrack now. On those occasions I buy games on Steam, I find I am often splurging on the music too. This particular purchase was a no-brainer because the game it accompanies has a wonderful atmosphere that I am confident this will support. The Banner Saga is a series of epic Norse narrative, part wonderful story with dramatic and difficult choices, part crappy tactics battle engine. No matter how much I despise the latter, the qualities of the former made the first game one of the most moving things I had played to that point. The sequel is equally compelling and the art and aesthetic of the world they have created is so gorgeous. I tend not to overly notice the music in play because I am drawn to the text, the decisions. Now I get to listen to it in isolation, after finishing my playthrough earlier this afternoon.
The first track is short and sad, a mournful horn over stately drums definitely lays out the tone. There is tension and threat layered into this piece all the same though... this is not a static world. In fact, it is breaking - as we are told by the title of track two. This actually has a vocal of sorts leading it in, but it quickly fades away to give a very quiet background tune. Clearly a case of music written to support something, because there are no strong themes to follow in the first couple of minutes. It develops a percussion-led rumble in the last third, but the most interesting line is the tight string part that adds melody, a strained tune, but one that I would like to have heard more of.
Not to give any spoilers away, but I found the sequel to disappoint in the final throws. It opened brilliantly and was properly epic, but I found myself disliking the progression of decisions as it tapered to a close in addition to hating the core tactical aspect. The reason for that hatred is a system that wants you to keep enemies alive, but badly hurt; it's counter-intuitive and feels too much like work to learn it. I find the disappointment resulting from what I felt was a weak closing of the game - compared to the first part, which ended on a very dramatic note - bleeding through into my appreciation of the score. That said the drama of A Path Through the Skies is captured really well. I think I did really poorly at this particular section of the game - choices made with the best intentions likely causing a worse outcome than I might have otherwise had. It was, though, my favourite passage of play in the whole 9 hour episode. The horns... oh, the horns. I am a sucker for long, lonely notes and here we get that aplenty.
This soundtrack is stately in pace - which befits companionship for a game played through decisions or turns where you have all the time in the world to make your choices. However I find that slow, marching pace which makes it so brilliantly apt for the in play experience, is distancing me from it at I listen and I have already disabused myself of the notion of buying the soundtrack to part 1 for that reason. It's not a fault in the composition, but in the consumption; I just find that devoid the context of the scenes these tunes were meant to overlay, many of them offer little to the listener. They drip atmosphere and theme, knowing what they are meant to accompany, but those qualities have reduced impact in a 'sit down and listen' scenario, at least for me. I might suggest this to a friend of mine though, as he is running an RPG campaign with very, very similar themes to those found in The Banner Saga.
There are a few musical themes recurring across these tracks, little snippets of tune that appear and reappear over different numbers. I like this - it makes the work feel tied together, it helps to build a context for the listener. This is also achieved through the tone, as you would expect, but its the little snatches of melody that emerge from behind the dramatic structures of drums and horns that offer me the most interest.
Some of these tunes are properly tense! Dragons in the Mud is a nerve-wracking piece that proffers doom. I find myself unable to place most of these tracks relative to the imagery from my playthrough, but this one must have been a particularly dramatic moment. A few of the tracks make use of chanting voices which lends them an eeriness to add to the dramatic crucible. This feature is often used as an introduction rather than as a feature running through a track. Essentially it provides a sort of scene framing, but I find that it focuses my ear then drops out and leaves me without the right sense of things... from a purely aural point of view, I would like the voices to persist a little longer, though I can certainly understand why that may not have worked with the original context of the tunes. Just as I type that, Children of the Fallen plays, which does have a vocal throughout. I have no idea what is being sung, but the tones of the voices involved are wonderfully rich.
Broken Shells harks back to other tracks, similar tunes arising in the top end, but overshadowed by environmental type effects in the piece... like nature is ruling man. This soundtrack is not an easy listen by any stretch. There is barely a light moment in any of the pieces, as befits the tragic edge to the tale it supports. The moments where the drums drop away and we are left with tunes that are identifiable melodies though... there is some nice work there. Those melodies are hardly joyful, but they are familiar, touchstones and breathers amidst the inevitable progression of the threat. In truth though, as a standalone work The Banner Saga 2 soundtrack suffers for this lack of lighter moments. It has less intense moments and these are welcome, but the overwhelmingly morose themes make enjoying the craft that went into this work difficult for me.
Two tracks to go. Threads Unweave is long by videogame soundtrack standards at over 6 minutes. It doesn't appear to use this length to give us a more considered and complete piece though as I find it to be made up of distinct shorter segments. I was, perhaps naïvely, expecting this to be a more 'theme' like piece, but I don't get that feeling at all and find that it disappoints as a result. The last track delivers on this score though and I think shines a little light on what I wanted this soundtrack to be... music inspired by, and speaking to, the tone of the game, building on the atmosphere and setting. Soundtracking is not that though; had the soundtrack been what I realise now - too late - I was wanting then it almost certainly wouldn't have worked in its primary role.