Non-Wesnoth music that goes well with WESNOTH

[gooby]

I hope it will be permitted that I start a topic outside of "Music Discussion" because I wanted to discuss more strictly music that goes well with the game itself. I always have in-game music turned off because, as good as it is—I especially like the Elvish theme, though it's too short—just gets very monotonous after a while.

I often like to listen to the power metal band Sabaton; they're a very high-energy, martially oriented band. A lot of other metal is good, too: early Metallica for example (never liked anything past The Black Album), but more especially black metal and in particular Summoning. OMG Summoning is so good in combination with Wesnoth. I really like tracks like Kôr, Arcenstone and The Land of the Dead, the latter of which here in full with decent audio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69pJYTGJldw

Elffor is another black metal band apparently inspired by Summoning; I would say that he (one-man project) has more qualities that you would expect of depressive black metal but the fantasy streak is pretty strong as well; here's a track of him I like rather well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU5y6LkPekc

I also like oriental metal, esp. when Khalifate units or similar are involved. Here's Narjahanam, from Bahrain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvlMU_-Mars

Here's Melechesh and this is not actually metal but it's great anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDvdt_6xRxw

Sometimes I listen to actual medieval music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GRLRm9oKUM

^ If anyone could tell me track titles on any of the songs there, that'd be great. I know the second to last song was recycled as Medieval Bit by Eisenfunk, but not the original title, and if memory serves me correctly Scarborough Fair is in that compilation as well. Otherwise I'm in the dark. Anyhow, I especially like the stuff that seems kind of proto-Baroque.

When I finish a campaign or reach a lull, especially when a love interest is involved, Aníron performed by Enya is very nice. This video is my own animation; didn't turn out quite as I had hoped but was still kind of cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OieQ3KhoUH8

Other stuff I like listening to is J.S. Bach and Philip Glass, not because they go well with Wesnoth in particular but because they go well with everything.

I have toyed with the idea of replacing the default music with my own selections though I don't know the easiest way to do this.

[Dugi]

I used to listen to various times-of-old-related music when playing wesnoth after starting to feel that the default music list is too limited and becoming repetitive. Things like Eluveitie, Haggard or Within Temptation's second album come to my mind now. But I grew tired of playing wesnoth quite early, and limited myself to coding scenarios. So my usual wesnoth time was more about hours of WML coding rather than playing, and I started to listen to anything I liked, and so I got inspired by music that was not quite related (like atheistic lyrics of Dark Tranquillity or songs about darkness and resistance of Arch Enemy).

I find Sabaton quite about modern warfare and not about wesnoth-style combat, and also much more about the tragedy of war rather than heiroism (yeah, realism is good, but this game needs rather the idealism, like in the songs of early HammerFall).

I've tried your links, I found Summoning quite good. I am not usually quite fond of black metal, mostly just listening to the not-completely black metal bands, like Astarte (blackened death), the new Immortal album (somewhat melodic) or Burzum (don't know why this one), but I liked this one.
I always liked medieval music, though not as much as metal.
I am not quite fond of love songs unless they really rock, but there are exceptions.

[iceiceice]

If you play online multiplayer, usually the pace of the game is sort of slow and thoughtful anyways, so you can sort of listen to whatever you want. I tend to prefer sort of downtempo / airy music with wesnoth, usually the opposite of like rock / driving music. You don't want for the music to reach a crescendo which inspires you to suddenly attack... this usually ends poorly

Offhand some albums I've liked with wesnoth are
Bola -- Fyuti
Boards of Canada -- Twoism
The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble -- self titled
Buena Vista Social Club -- self titled

[gooby]

Do you like the downtempo genre? Carbon Based Lifeforms and whatnot?

[iceiceice]

I hesitate to say I like the genre as a whole, mainly because I don't think I've listened to enough of it to say, and these electronic music genres are pretty nebulous. There is some music that is called "ambient", if it is that or too much like that then I usually don't like it. I need to have some structure to enjoy it I guess.

I have not listened to Carbon Based Lifeforms, guess I missed them. I see they were active in my college and highschool days . Anyways I will get back to you about them.

[SeanTheElf]

http://zero-project.gr/
I have listened to some pieces in their "Fairytale" album and thought that it can be used in Wesnoth.

[beetlenaut]

I just discovered Mago de Oz, a Spanish metal band. It goes very well with Wesnoth. They use a flute and violin to accent their music, which gives it a medieval sound. (It is an electric violin though!) Try the track Piratas, available on YouTube, for a good example of something that could almost have been written for BfW.

[Astoria]

I just discovered Mago de Oz, a Spanish metal band. It goes very well with Wesnoth. They use a flute and violin to accent their music, which gives it a medieval sound. (It is an electric violin though!) Try the track Piratas, available on YouTube, for a good example of something that could almost have been written for BfW.

Yeah, that band is great.

Another metal band that works very well with wesnoth in my opinion is Equilibrium. I highly recommend them if you like folk metal.