When you get down to it, in many ways, it’s a stupid question. It’s a waste of time. It’s a fly in the face of video games, math rock, and the very notion of reasonable content. And yet here we stand, boldly asking anyway, just because we can – which Doom soundtrack is the most math rock?
After finishing Doom 2016 and Doom: Eternal earlier this year, we were exhausted by the games, but endlessly invigorated by Mick Gordon’s titanic soundtrack. The visceral production and gargantuan riffs truly match the games, and with the recent release of Doom: The Dark Ages, we couldn’t help but wonder how it would stack up.
Then, as per usual, we got some math rock on the brain. We couldn’t help but ask that all important question. Well, let’s see who crunches the numbers best – is it Bobby Prince? Is it Mick Gordon? Chris Vrenna? Finishing Move? It’s a stupid question, but you know what? It’s spooky season, the one season left that still feels good as an adult. Oh, and we picked not one or two but three series to mathematically analyze, with Doom just being the first, so… buckle up. It’s dirty work, but someone’s got to do it the math. Hope you brought a calculator, Slayer.
DOOM – 1993
Bobby Prince’s thrash inspired score for the first game is iconic, juggling synthesized guitar riffs and tongue-in-cheek odes to bands like Metallica, Slayer, and Pantera with dungeon-appropriate ambience. But every once in a while he really stirs it up – “Kitchen Ace (And Taking Names)” for instance does has some weird divisions in it after the midi-surf intro, definitively giving some prog while being careful not to distract.
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As things progress, songs sound a little less like midi riffs and more like actual ideas enmeshed with the game itself, with the highly dynamic orchestral parts on “The Demons From Adrians Pen” and “Sinister.” There are a couple of tracks in 3/4 like “Waltz of the Demons” and “Nobody Told Me About Id,” but we’d argue that they actually feel less technical than what Prince packs into common time elsewhere in the score. So ultimately, the first Doom isn’t concerned with math rock at all as it worships early 90’s thrash, but it still gets points for thinking outside the box.
DOOM II – 1994
Prince’s score for Doom II was a solid step up in just about every department, with bigger drums, better sounding midi patches, and melodic arrangements that were far more complex than the original, which makes sense that he’d also been busy helping John Carmack ports for Wolfenstein. That’s actually nuts when you think about it considering it was only a year’s worth of time between Doom and Doom II, but the frenzy seemed to work in their favor.
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You can almost hear the crazy in “Between Levels,” which is one of our favorites thanks to decked out drums that absolutely ape some kind of Mike Portnoy / Terry Bozzio groove that somehow stays in 4/4, but feels increasingly off-kilter. Drums actually spider out in a couple places here, with other highlights being “Shawn’s Got The Shotgun” and “Bye Bye American Pie,” which riffs heavily on the bones of “Them Bones” by Alice in Chains. It’s actually pretty amazing how blatant Bobby Prince go with these little tributes got on tracks like “Waiting for Romero to Play” and “Adrian’s Asleep.”
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One of the final tracks, “Getting Too Tense,” actually does kind of wind around 3/4 in a unique way, mixing marching accents with some evil, honky synths, but again, arguably not math rock at the end of the day. That being said, there is something absolutely transcendent about the sort of non-linear direction of “Opening to Hell,” which returns in a big way later in the series.
DOOM 3 – 2004
Now, this one is actually kind of bizarre in terms of sound and music in general. If you’ve played the third game, you know it’s great while remaining somewhat controversial to this day thanks to the way it elevates horror and atmosphere above action itself. But Doom 3 was odd in another way, in that its soundtrack is more of a collection of fleeting sounds. There are recognizable bits of music here and there, but they’re sparse. The music that does exist was done by none other than Chris Vrenna aka Tweaker aka one of Nine Inch Nails‘ most important contributors during for NIN’s sonically relevant Downward Spiral. It’s actually kind of amazing when you remember that Trent Reznor did the OST for the first Quake, and was was also asked to score Doom 3 at one point, which we’re sure would have been a cool fit. In the end though, it was probably for the best, as Vrenna, Ed Lima, and Clint Walsh used a uniquely surgical, even modular approach to implementing music and audio into the gameplay, and which ended up being a big part of Doom 3’s cult status.
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The soundtrack’s melodic moments, if you can call them that, apparate like demons of hell in one moment, then poof from existence the next. Mournful, swelling vocal pads spill out with every jump scare, and bite-sized, barely-audible wails echo from behind every corner, even when there’s nothing to be found. Overall, it’s much closer to one of those ambient horror Halloween CD’s we talked about with Yowie recently. That being said, the main menu theme still hits like a can of Mountain Dew to this day, and people decrying it for sounding like Tool may have a point, but it was 2004 – not much could be done about the societal effects from “Lateralus.”
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We’re not even sure the similarities were intentional – if there was more actual music written for Doom 3, we’d have a a better sample size, and if they slipped in tracks referencing alt and nu-metal classic like Deftones or Slipknot, it would have been par for the course. Tracks like “Hellknight,” “Pinky Attack,” and “Cyberdeath” offer a glimpse at something that honestly could have been fascinating and original, with hauntingly effected percussion and operatic howls. Is it an effective soundtrack? Without question. Is it math rock? Not quite, but it definitely has more technicality, precision, and non-linear appeal than the first two, so it’s a step in the right direction for sure.
Doom – 2016
When the first two Doom OST’s cheekily referenced bands from thrash and speed metal, it was a perfect match. There was no question that the series was easily adored by the metal community thanks to its hellish imagery, esoteric imagery. But the soundtracks matched that energy by worshipping the same gods – fans of Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, etc. would hear it, know it, and drive their parents mad with satanic panic. So when Mick Gordon took on Doom’s 2016 reboot, he knew there’d be big shoes to fill – that’s why he picked up the BFG and blew everyone away.
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Gordon didn’t just absolutely smash the assignment, he smashed it with custom-made, 4-way sine-wave chains of destruction. He brought larger-than-life, wickedly warped 9-string riffs of his own to the table, and in the process actually managed to outshine a larger-than-anticipated chunk of the contemporary metal scene. In fact, Gordon’s work on the reboot stood out to many as a tribute to metal’s most evolved purveyors of the time, easily contending with monstrous acts of the time like Meshuggah, Car Bomb, and Gojira.
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Most importantly though, there isa decent amount of math to be found in Gordon’s aural hellscapes: “Rust, Dust, and Guts,” has some really interesting compound phrasing that make it sound like 7/8 or 13/12. “Flesh and Metal” throws down some non-linear THALL, but with IDM stuffed between chugs. Speaking of chugs, the stuttered salvo of gallops in “BFG Division” are a true force of nature, bringing to mind Meshuggah’s “Bleed.” Even the more ambient parts like “Dr. Samuel Hayden” feel systematically unhinged, like some kind of aggressive Autechre or even Tweaker’s most audible moments in Doom 3. Doom 3’s main theme actually shows up again here as a gloriously re-sampled drop in “Harbinger” before finishing off with a gutsy 5/4 groove. “Cyberdemon” does more with four minutes in 3/4 time signature than everything in the series before it combined, and does so with a spindly, freakish mania driving it to damn near the breaking point before recessing into the darkness. “VEGA Core” has some brutal, breakneck accents, but it also uses wonky compound meter, random rests, polyrhythms, and texturally complex synth parts to stretch ones and eights to the point you never know what’s coming. Overall, it’s the best soundtrack in the series up to this point chronologically, and for practical reasons, also the most math rock.
Doom: Eternal – 2020
Then, of course, we have Doom: Eternal, a game many consider to be the whole enchilada in every regard. Everything that had been juiced up, elevated, and given a buzzsaw facelift in Doom (2016) was present, but faster, smarter, and more grotesque. This included the soundtrack, except maybe the faster part – the pacing comes off as more methodical this time around, allowing for much needed breathing room. But Doom: Eternal’s OST is anything but simple, neither in theory or execution.
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First thing’s first, Mick Gordon learned Tibetan throat singing and recruited a cast of choir members to deliver even more evocative vocal takes, and it pushed the OST beyond the realms of legitimate metal. Yes, he brought even sludgier extended-range riffs to the action on new tracks like “Meathook,” “Super Gore Nest,” and “The Only Thing They Fear is You,” and these leaps are evident still when revisiting themes like “Hell on Earth” and “Doom Eternal,” which references Bobby Prince’s Doom II banger “Opening to Hell” with such reverence it can’t help but become the de facto, go-to version. But he paired this evolution of with leveled-up production matching the step-y extremes of Skrillex, G. Jones and Oneohtrix Point Never. You know, if those guys composed from the depths of hell at the behest of Satan himself.
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Speaking of hell, this is where we’d put an aside regarding Marty Stratton and the complications surrounding Doom Eternal’s soundtrack, but it would get too messy, and last too long. It’s a tragedy you’ll have to look into yourself, but let’s just say the effects of the controversy present a slight difficulty for us in today’s context in the form of an inconsistent mix – luckily you can still check it out here courtesy of DoomGuy on Soundcloud, but it’s still not on streaming services. For some that’s not a huge deal, but hemming the release of one of the greatest OST’s in modern memory was… a choice, on id’s and Bethesda’s part.
Regardless, both in terms of math and general quality, Doom: Eternal genuinely has a chance at sitting atop the pile when all is said and done. “Hell on Earth,” “Blood Harvesting,” and “Blood Sacrifice” all stretch dotted five counts into literal pentagrams or magic square time signatures. “Mars Core” and “The Baron of Hell” have groovy 7/8 parts, surprisingly somewhat of a rarity in the series. Either way, mathematically it’s on par with the 2016 reboot, and despite a marred release that ultimately resulted in Gordon “leaving a toxic client,” it’s sprawling tour de force that stands the test of time.
DOOM: The Dark Ages – 2025
The most recent chapter of Doom goes back to medieval times, and notably rocks a steadier pace than the previous two games both in terms of gameplay and the soundtrack. It’s actually a callback to the first couple games of the series, and Finishing Move, a collective of composers initially started by Brian Trifon and Brian Lee White, was elected to score the project. As impossible as it must have felt to replace Mick Gordon at the time, hiring Finishing Move was probably the smartest thing they could have done – bringing in a singular talent immersed in modern metal would risk certain personal angles, which meant unless it was absolutely the right person, it could warp the identity of what id was trying to achieve. What better way to compromise than to use a team of professionals with established pedigree?
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The team had already shown a keen eye for detail on games like Borderlands 3 and Halo Wars 2, both of which were nominated for multiple G.A.N.G. (Game Audio Network Guild) awards, but The Dark Ages’ distinctly dark aesthetic allowed them to cut loose like never before. While it’s feasible that modern Doom fans will miss the presence of bone grinding extended-range riffs, it’s undeniable that Finishing Move put their own spin on Doom’s metal antics by peppering thrash-y guitar parts with diverse instrumentation. Sludge-y, death-y slabs abound, but dissonant bits of bells, frame drums, harpsichords, and more spill out beneath them. Also, we say beneath because the mix is dark, but it fits the theme nicely and never feels harsh. Just ashen.
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It doesn’t seem like there was a huge emphasis on ancient time signatures which seems like a missed opportunity, but credit where credit’s due, you might need an abacus here and there. “Cosmic Eye” has a really interesting, floaty count and actually tunes down for some Eternal-style nastiness, and “What Lies Below” almost sounds like a take on “Mind=Spun” from Animals as Leaders. “Blood Red,” “Divine Retribution” and “Colossus Unleashed” are some of the best representations of The Dark Ages’ OST overall – they’re chugg-y, thick with smokey ambience, and filled with ear candy that beg listeners to wear headphones so you can catch all of the detail. But most importantly you can hear how Finishing Move respectfully uses the essential aesthetics from Doom (2016) and Eternal to push forward, somehow managing to inject their own voice while refreshing the series’ old-school roots. In the end, it’s not terribly math rock, but that was hardly the goal, and there’s still a lot of cool stuff here.
THE VERDICT:
Going into this we were pretty sure it was going to be Doom: Eternal, but after a lot of critical listening we think it’s fair to say it’s actually a tie between Doom (2016) and Eternal. The reboot is a little leaner, and sort of starts what Eternal finishes. Eternal continues a lot of the themes from the reboot, and expands on them with even crazier riffs and production, but it’s also hugely ambient in comparison, so we choose the path of perpetual torment – in the true spirit of math rock, por que no los dos?
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