Context: At some point in January this year, someone asked in an ideation meeting what kind of music I was listening to while working on Kayn. I threatened my whole team I’d write an overly long email full of metal covers and lyrics and waffling, and they dared me to do it. I figured this was a good time to share this mail more widely. ❤ Blue Pod

I warned you. Y’all knew this mail was coming.

Nemesis (ed: Kayn’s code name in development) is the most metal champion concept we’ve ever contemplated. This is great for me. While working on Nemesis, I’ve been listening to a lot of music to get me in the right mood. I selected three albums for Assassin and three albums for the Darkin that I felt represented their moods.

Please do feel free to skip this mail. Seriously. There will not be a test.

Also content warning: some of the album covers get a little graphic.

Let’s start with Ascended Assassin (ed: what we called Shadow Assassin before we realized we were stepping on Shurima’s toes). We’re clearly in the realm of Black Metal here: unholy cults, forbidden knowledge, cold, cutting, shrill sounds. Let’s start with an album I actually did listen to when I was 15:

DISSECTION — STORM OF THE LIGHT’S BANE

Yup, we’re starting in Scythe Town. Dissection were early masters of accessible Norwegian Black Metal. Expect a lot of blast beats (hectic drumming), shrill screaming, and repetitive guitar riffs. Also expect surprisingly catchy melodies and the most edgelordian lyrics ever.

Here’s the song we need for Assassin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjmKBZ-wL8A

Woeful one of endless sight beyond the veil of time
Of grand darkness you are the keeper
My soul is black and black as night are the ways of thine
Wield the scythe of the Soulreaper

BURZUM — FILOSOFEM

Minimalist ambient black metal from the infamous Varg Vikernes, an awful human being but also one of the early pioneers of Norwegian Black Metal. Expect unintelligible screamed lyrics and droning repetitive riffs set to weirdly incongruous synth melodies.

We’re going to listen to Jesus’ Tod (Death of Jesus):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3V4No2kj_Y

Not the catchiest song on the album (that would be Dunkelheit) nor the weirdest (that would be Rundgang Um Die Transzendentale Säule Der Singularität: Circumambulating The Transcendental Pillar Of The Singularity), but the most appropriate for our purposes. Cold, distorted, distant, and yet precise and cutting, this is a classic single riff song with some interesting lyrics: (the song is sung in Norwegian, but there was a re-release with German lyrics, and that’s what I’m basing my translation on)

A figure lay on the ground
So evil that all the flowers around it wilted
A dark soul lay on the ground
So cold that all water turned to ice

A shadow fell on the forest
As the figure’s soul wilted away
For the soul of the figure was a shadow
A shadow of the forces of evil

And finally, a master piece from the inventors of Black Metal:

CELTIC FROST — MONOTHEIST

We’ve arrived at the birthplace of black metal: that’s right, Switzerland. Don’t let anyone tell you differently: Celtic Frost were the first. This is their final album, their magnum opus, straddling the line between Doom Metal and Black Metal. Melodic singing and black metal screaming go hand in hand with a dark, loud, depressing soundscape.

For obvious reasons, the most appropriate song for us is A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW6RXTjm4iA

This may as well be Nemesis’s theme song.

Here are some lyrics:

Frozen is heaven and frozen is hell.
And I am dying in this living human shell.

I am a dying God, coming into human flesh.

So much for Assassin. What about the Darkin? Well, we’re going to move from the darkly calculating evil of Black Metal to the frentic chaos and massacre that is Death Metal.

THE FACELESS — PLANETARY DUALITY

An album about unholy alien entities invading earth. Seems spot on! We’re now in the territory of Death Metal — specifically Technical Death Metal. Expect very low, almost inhuman growling, technically accomplished riffing and soloing, and some weird time signatures.

Here’s XenoChrist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JClIE0PQn3U

A song about the savior of this unholy alien race. Taste some of these lyrics:

Adequately equipped with weapons of manipulation
Prophet of contamination
Bow to the savior of the fearful and desperate
Lured with the promise of eternal life

(An enigmatic) sentinel of malevolence
Dispensing false salvation
Prophet of contamination
Bethlehem will burn

Shepherd of deception
Prophet of infection
Behold the xenochrist

BLOODBATH — NIGHTMARES MADE FLESH

A Swedish supergroup founded by some of the biggest names in death metal including Mikäel Akerfeldt and Dan Swanö. If you’re getting confused about your Scandinavian countries and their metal scenes, it’s easy: Norway is Black Metal, Sweden is Death Metal, Finland is Viking/Folk Metal, and Denmark is really just King Diamond and Abarzäkïvömævüøth, which by the way is my current favorite name for Nemesis. (Nope, that’s an actual band. I didn’t make this up.) (ed: can’t wait for all the hate-mail about how that per-country breakdown is nonsense or how Abarzäkïvömævüøth deserve more attention.) Bloodbath is brutal, low register, stomping death metal.

Here’s a song about becoming a soldier in the struggle to end all human life. Sounds familiar!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ0BNBseNFs

Rising from the darkside
Arriving from beyond
The lord of death approaches
To end all human lives

The pleasure of the torment
Will bring him back to Earth
The time has come for closure
The final hour calls

[CHORUS:]
But there’s a way out of the misery
You can join the massacre
Once you’re in you’re never out
A soldier of the dead forevermore

You can join the massacre indeed. Just to ruin their BRVTAL image, this is what Dan Swanö used to look like:

SOOOO CUUUUTE! I once bought him a non-alcoholic beverage at a metal festival and fanboyed over his first band, Edge of Sanity, for a solid hour. He is the sweetest man.

And also BRUTAL.

BEHEMOTH — THE SATANIST

And finally, we bring both Black and Death Metal togethere. This is Poland’s premier Blackened Death Metal band, Behemoth. What a monster of an album 2014’s The Satanist was! You get the unholiness and the atmosphere of Black Metal, married to the wrath and chaos of death metal. This, to me, is Nemesis embracing the demon and letting it loose.

In The Absence Ov Light:

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

Oh lord, whence came this doubt?
Thou doth know I am all and everything
Let loose my shackles
Let chaos reign
Infecting mortal arteries…
Chant the psalm
Non serviam (I do not serve)
Retrieve the pride
Within and without

Final editor’s note to make it very clear this is not representative of the direction of his login screen music in any way — we cooked up something unique and awesome for that, but didn’t go with straight up metal.