Batman Doom - Andrew “Corax” Wood, Martin Linda, Janek Szulew and Juan Sanchez (1999)

Before Chilean brothers Andres, Carlos and Edmundo Bordeu were indie-dev ROCKstars (get it!?) with a portfolio of surrealist games, they were the masterminds behind one of the most ambitious and technically impressive vanilla Doom mods in the game’s history. Between the three of them, they created 32 brand new levels taking full advantage of an entirely reworked exe using ancient DeHackEd tools while simultaneously drawing replacements for every Doom2 texture, flat, graphic and sprite. Despite the talents of these modern renaissance men, there was one area of the mod they could not tackle alone; you guessed it, music.

In 1998 the brothers reached out to the community looking for help to create custom music for each of the mod’s 32 levels. With the help of four individuals—Andrew Wood, Martin Linda, Janek Szulew and Juan Sanchez—the ACE team was able to give every map a unique track that perfectly accompanied the diverse themes and locations within the Batman universe. I wish there was more I could tell you about the musicians themselves, but it seems each of them left little in the way of a footprint in the Doom community; just another set of talented artists who, at one point in their lives, dropped in on the community, contributed something of note, and moved on with their lives. But what they left us was a banging soundtrack that took one of the greatest Doom mods and gave it the sound it so rightfully deserved.

Sanchez intelligently kicks off the game with a Danny Elfman-inspired riff before the song takes off in his own direction, but that nostalgic hit of ‘Batman 89’ theme is the perfect introductory track to Batman Doom. The remainder of the game’s music is just as unforgettable and integral to each map’s theme. Andrew Wood’s ‘Batdoom’ chase music for the sewers provides a wonderful quick-tempo track as you desperately search for Killer Croc. Szulew’s slow, wistful track “Waiting for the Evil” absolutely sells the map 'Gas Trap' in which you desperately search for a way to shut off the poison gas vents in a hospital that has been rigged by the Penguin. Linda’s track “Heavy on the DOOM” is a metal track that is the perfect accompaniment to the Axis Chemical Plant and it's themes of heavy industry and the eventual escape from the exploding factory (yes, new players, Batman Doom has a DeHackEd wall of explosions you have to outrun as the factory erupts.)

Each of the four musicians contributed something special to Batman Doom and their work only heightens what ACE Team had already created. There isn’t a legacy of work in the Doom community by any of the artists, but there’s no denying their talent and ability to look at a map and its themes and create music which perfectly encapsulates to the player how the mappers intended them to feel.

- @Scuba Steve

The Darkening Episode 2 - Peter Tomaselli and Sam Woodman (2000)

One of the first mods to feature all-new custom textures and a highly polished look inspired by games such as Quake II, The Darkening E2 also happens to sport one of the most upbeat soundtracks ever made for Doom. It contains 24 maps (one half for single player and the other for deathmatch), with music tracks largely provided by Peter Tomaselli, with a few contributions by Sam Woodman later added in the second revision.

Tomaselli kicks off with an atmospheric track that quickly picks up in intensity as the player enters the facility, but it is the track on the second map, "Blooz", that perfectly encapsulates the style of the soundtrack as a whole: an energetic piano quickly followed up by a guitar playing staccato notes in rapid succession to create a very plucky feel, complemented by rapid drumming and a funky bass. "70 Hojas" on the fourth map is another excellent example of this fast-moving, almost manic style with a furiously zestful piano as the track briskly shifts in tone between cheerful and discordant with little in the way of brakes. "The Wicked Tree" showcases the author's musical chops, as the track starts off with frantic beats which then get interspersed with jazzy robotic beeps, before the track shifts over to a more conventional harmony with enchanting arpeggios. But the second half of the track goes for a subdued, heavily experimental style with tense, dissonant organs which are accompanied by a cacophonous piano, before the track eventually returns to the more traditional sound of the first half.

Woodman's offerings are a more conventional, hard rock feel that nonetheless fits in nicely alongside Tomaselli's work. "Spider On Your Bagel" closes off the single player portion of the soundtrack, with significantly more eerie beats and pizzicato strings, making for a natural final level theme. The latter half of the soundtrack, which most players likely won't have heard due to the tunes being meant for multiplayer, continues the tradition of fast moving and upbeat tracks. Some of them are quite short as befitting the deathmatch nature of the maps, but Tomaselli continues to experiment with unsual and frantic compositions, as seen in "sTeve", while also slowing down the speed in some other tracks, such as "This Song Rocks Your Ass" and "The Quiet Knife Is the One That Hurts". All told, The Darkening E2's music continues to impress with its unabashed embrace of upbeat chaos, and ranks among the most unique sounding soundtracks of its era.

- @Dynamo and @Mikolah

RTC-3057 Hub 1 - Julian Hope (2004)

Released in 2004 for ZDoom 2.0, RTC-3057 Hub 1 puts the player into the role of an amnesiac cyborg trapped on a doomed spaceship, gradually uncovering information about what took place there while scraping together supplies to survive and escape. It's a wad that's all about isolation, atmosphere, and suspense, and Julian Hope's music is a crucial piece of the puzzle that enhances the experience immeasurably, and helps keep this early-2000s classic feeling fresh even today.

From the addictive grooves of "Continuum" and "New Floor Puzzle" (the latter of which was reportedly written in half an hour before release!), to the ominous drum'n'bass ambience of tracks like "Guardian" and "Device", RTC-3057's soundtrack was like nothing else in Doom wads at the time. Even today, it still stands alone with a mood unlike that of any other Doom project I've played, which is fitting for a wad that's arguably more System Shock 2 than Doom II. Bass synths, strings, detuned pianos, and breakbeats are the key ingredients here, and Julian gets a ton of mileage out of them. During gameplay, the music is occasionally accompanied by strange noises and fragmented melodies (also contributed by its composer) that feel like glimpses of memories, completing the experience.

The emotional core of the set is "Exactamente", which accompanies the Labs & Cryo level of the ship where the player finally learns the truth of what's happened to them. It's the kind of moment you don't often find in a Doom wad, and Julian steps up to the plate with a melancholy strings piece set to a heavily filtered and distorted drum break that feels like it's continually struggling to surface from the depths.

While the rest of RTC-3057 was sadly never completed, Hub 1 and its soundtrack nonetheless form an immersive and evocative standalone piece that's well worth a visit.

- @esselfortium

Mucus Flow & Grove - B.P.R.D.

B.P.R.D. believed in magic. A creative polymath, he made textures and sprites, fiddled with DeHackEd, and wrote inimitable text file stories, but his MIDI compositions are what made his best work transcendent. His contributions to the soundtrack of Equinox, his first major release, mostly modify or build on the work of other artists, but Nuts 3, which came shortly after, has a wholly original MIDI. Flying in the face of its series’ irreverent premise, Nuts 3’s soaring refrain lends unexpected emotional heft to the map’s centerpiece: a huge tower made of starstuff that ultimately delivers you to safety. Stars also appear prominently in B.P.R.D.’s masterworks Grove and The Mucus Flow, which contain his two most untouchable compositions.

These tracks are not technically stunning. Both keep a steady tempo in 4/4 time, and repeat melody lines with Zen-like patience. In Grove, the effect is warm and fortifying, but The Mucus Flow’s shimmering crystal glissando is a beautiful torment, like a siren's’ song. Repetition also makes the big movements in both tracks more impactful. The arrival of Grove’s sonorous synth string section is always breathtaking, and the hanging notes that remain when The Mucus Flow’s arpeggio suddenly vanishes can freeze the blood in your veins. Both tracks have the power to lull the listener into a suggestible state and carry them somewhere else. In this glacial, seductive MIDI discipline, B.P.R.D. works alone.

Though widely adored by the community, B.P.R.D.’s music never feels at home in other Doom levels (sorry Miasma). Grove and The Mucus Flow’s themes are inextricable from their maps because they’re built into the fabric of the worlds they serenade. They seem to bare their creator’s heart to us, and boy could B.P.R.D. play a feeling. Grove’s theme closes at the height of its bittersweet lullaby, and the map ends with a glorious column of starlight climbing skyward. Nothing could be more hopeful. The Mucus Flow’s theme closes with a tired sigh after two bouts of anguish and then repeats itself: the map ends when you discover a starlight column now depleted. It effectively foretold the end of his career in Doom modding. If Grove is about believing in magic, then The Mucus Flow is about the terror of losing that belief, and their MIDIs tell that story unassisted. I hope that B.P.R.D. still believes in magic, because for an hour or two, he made it real for us.

- @MtPain27

Neo Doom - Daniel Lemos (2006)

NeoDoom is certainly one fascinating megawad. On one hand, praised for its well-structured levels and unique atmosphere, and on the other hand, panned for its occasionally deeply unbalanced custom monsters - which would later culminate in the release of a much-requested patch to restore the mod to a vanilla state. Over the years, it has built up a legacy as one of the most played megawads on the coop multiplayer scene. Likewise, it remains the most significant release by the author as well as, arguably, by the BrDOOM community.

However, if there is one aspect of NeoDoom that has been seldom talked about, it is its soundtrack. The author, Daniel, is a musician by trade, and the music tracks for NeoDoom were recorded during his graduation. Coming in .mp3 files, the music is comprised of two distinct styles: electronic music for the starting portion of the adventure, which then makes way for guitar-driven tracks throughout the city levels and beyond until the final Hell levels see a return to (much more sinister) synths.

The very first level's music track sets the tone perfectly, as its buzzing pulses and mechanical drumming immerse you into the web of UAC techbases you'll be traversing for this initial stretch. The excellent mix of industrial sounds and catchy electronic melodies give the perfect feeling of being trapped in a server room with flashing lights and, of course, zombies shooting at you. The second track maintains the industrial mood, following a funky bassline but paying close attention to the atmosphere thanks to its pauses and faint but ghastly choirs. The music then gets progressively more foreboding without abandoning its mechanical sound until the final techbase track picks up in speed and intensity for the big battles ahead in the toxin facility.

After the player makes it to the city, the music's tone changes fundamentally. The first urban map kicks off with an overdriven guitar, which perfectly fits the street combat you'll be undertaking from now on. The track starts out with a chugging guitar riff before the bass kicks in, and a lead guitar is introduced to play an energetic melody that helps build up intensity. This kind of grungy rock and metal will accompany the player for the duration of the city levels, as the guitar riffs remain predominant even though synths will occasionally be interspersed with them. The intense but catchy music culminates in the municipal park at the tail end of the city section, with the dissonant guitars and synth giving the track an almost psychedelic vibe.

Leading up to the final portion of NeoDoom is a handful of Mesoamerican temples, which, for my money, contain the best marriage of sound and level design in the mod. Temple of the Waterfall has a serene but melancholic slow-going guitar that riffs away and is a perfect complement to the hidden valley scenery and long-forgotten ruins you find yourself in. The accompanying map, Forgotten Fortress, features a substantially more sinister rhythm guitar, with the lead guitar's soothing melodies accompanying the dreary chorus that underscores the mysterious vibe of your surroundings. From here, you will quickly reach the Hell levels, featuring much more oppressing synths, perfectly exemplified in the mad percussions of Gateway to Evil or the bleak, haunting choruses in At the Heart of It All.

On the whole, the NeoDoom soundtrack almost comes off as a one-man garage band: it has a raw and direct quality to it that makes it instantly appealing, all the way fitting like a glove in all of the map's levels and themes. It is also worth noting that most of the NeoDoom tracks are actually quite short - no doubt due to filesize concerns at the time - most being around one-minute loops. Yet, out of all the mod soundtracks I've listened to, perhaps no other has managed to avoid the feeling of tiredness and repetition as much as NeoDoom's has. In his notes, Daniel hoped the soundtrack to the mod would be recognized as the best aspect of it. While NeoDoom's merits are certainly plentiful, the music is undoubtedly a big part of what makes it such an unforgettable journey, even all these years later.

- @Dynamo

Crucified Dreams - Various Artists (2006)

A polarizing PWAD in its time, owing to the long development cycle and divisive reception within the Deathmatch community over the years, Crucified Dreams can nonetheless be considered a sort of greatest-hits of multiplayer mapping of the early 2000s, owing to the great number of level designers involved and the presence of no less than five composers, some of whom had previously worked on the soundtracks for all-time DM classics such as GothicDM 2 and Execution. Crucified Dreams in particular is heavily inspired by the Gothic deathmatch series, thematically and tonally, and some of the compositions will no doubt be familiar to those who proved their frag-making mettle in the sinister cathedrals of yesteryear.

Kicking things off we have Marc Pullen, alias @Fanatic, one of the Doom community's early music prodigies and a bona fide metalhead. "Grave", with its dark, phrygian mode, is a perfect introduction to what Crucified Dreams is all about: starting off with a slow, mysterious bassline backed up by deliberate percussion and eerie synths, the track soon ratches up in intensity as Pullen shows off his trademark magic touch with guitar solos and ever more oppressive synths, leading up to a veritable blast beat massacre before all instruments fall back in line for the gripping conclusion. Backing up Fanatic in the soundscape for the blood-soaked cathedral parties is Vincent Fong, alias Vicious, another respected composer with a pedigree in multiplayer projects by Team Onslaught. Fong is known for his predilection for groovy riffs and funky basslines, and no better example of this is found in Burn Out's track, which deftly combines these elements with the darker tone of the rest of the soundtrack. Believe me, you'll want to tap your fingers on the desk to the tune of the music, but don't be blaming me if you start falling behind in frags! You'd be sure to disappoint our next composer if you do, multiplayer superstar Ralph Vickers, whose compositions perfectly accompany Pullen and Vicious in creating forebonding yet groovy tracks for your killing pleasure.

With all that said, the rest of the soundtrack, and indeed the majority of it, is the work of Nick Baker and Nicklas Linness, the former in his first musical role and the latter returning to music duties after composing the entirety of Overload Deathmatches. Nick Baker's tracks are some of the most evocative, whether it's reminiscing about past battles in "Drugged Perfection", following along with the enigmatic beat of "Funky Doom", or finding a fleeting moment of solace from the carnage in "Attitude Problem". Linness provides slow ambient tracks alongside much more fast paced riff-fests to complement the rest of the soundtrack. Even if the fame of Crucified Dreams as a deathmatch PWAD has been overshadowed by other titans, nothing can wash away the brilliance of the many of the tracks on display here, making its music a must have for Doom MIDI playlists in and out the arena fragfest.

- @Dynamo and @Mikolah

Urban Brawl - Ralph "@Ralphis" Vickers (Rakohus)

Since the beginning, the Doom modding community has been a melting pot of various interests, hobbies, and ideas, leading to many "this, but in Doom" conversions, which were most fashionable in the late 90s. The Venn diagram of interests that led to 2008's Action Doom sequel Urban Brawl is unmistakable from the moment you start the game: gritty noir-style narration uttered by a haunted hero, a world on fire, and mean streets cluttered with every variety of thug, hooligan, and mall goth imaginable. Wearing the inspiration of the beat 'em up genre's most acclaimed titles (such as Streets of Rage and Final Fight) on its blood-soaked sleeves, Urban Brawl takes place in a vibrant world where there's nothing you can't fix with your bare knuckles and a rusty steel pipe. In appearance alone, Urban Brawl instantly stands out with its distinctive art direction, but interwoven with the very first moment of the game's introduction, our journey is set to an equally memorable soundtrack.

Ralphis quickly establishes a leitmotif — a reoccurring melody — for our grizzled hero's adventure. It creeps up in the intro as a somber, almost mournful horn section before returning as a more upbeat and triumphant synth lead in the first stage. This version is dotted with piano and the addition of hip-hop-inspired drums to complement the more excited vibe the melody has taken on. The first stage of the 2021 Reloaded version concludes with an inspired boss fight against Ralphis himself, scored to a highly danceable four-on-the-floor disco groove, with our recurring melody making another prominent appearance. As you beat your way through an assortment of vistas and a motley crew of most non-triumphant villains, the motif continues to take on new and surprising permutations depending on the route taken in the game.

The steady use of this almost instantly recognizable motif makes it all that more surprising when the soundtrack deviates from it. Our hero's close-quarters brawl in the subway train combines a driving rhythm and an almost-theremin-like wavering synth. Your journey through the blue and amber backwoods is set to a bouncy bluesy track (featuring a surprise appearance of jazzy scat vocals), almost immediately followed by a haunting ambient drone accompanying you as you investigate a (seemingly) abandoned house. The absence of the theme is especially felt when the odds are stacked against you, whether that be battling the duo Bebop and Rocksteady in the subway or the monstrous giant Hugo in the bloody showdown of the creepy murder house; the boss theme seemingly continues to escalate upwards infinitely, heavy with a feeling of dread and tension.

Almost all roads lead to the looming Phylex tower, and our hero's ascension up the many floors of the building is scored with a hybrid of fast-paced, rhythmic drum beats and an exciting saxophone ensemble. Periodically interrupted by brief elevator rides featuring what you'd probably expect music-wise, the top floor of the Phylex building marks a looming return of our hero's theme before exploding in the climactic showdown to save his daughter in the final boss fight. Regardless of the ending you get, Ralphis brings it all home with a surprising vocal reprise of the subway theme for the credits that says everything you need to know about Urban Brawl: "A vigilante - time to up the ante." The result is a masterful embodiment of what makes the beat 'em up genre so exhilarating: the timeless pairing of wanting to punch dudes in the face to danceable music.

- @Cardboard Marty