Lorcan Ward, a metal musician, joins a long line of fans who have created music inspired by the Warhammer 40k universe
Lorcan Ward, a Warhammer 40k fan and metal musician, released ‘The Wolves of Fenris,’ a metal track inspired by the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, on Thursday via YouTube and Spotify. Ward’s second piece of unofficial 40k music is a classic piece of power metal from the boastful perspective of the Warhammer 40k Space Wolves.
According to Ward’s track notes, it’s “a song that would serve as a drinking song but also as a battle cry. “It’s written from the perspective of the Space Wolves Space Marine legion during and after the Horus Heresy civil war when they earned their reputation as the Emperor of Mankind’s executioners.
Ward’s first 40k track, ‘Unbreakable,’ is about the Asta Militarum defending the Cadian Gate against the Chaos Space Marines. Despite the fact that both songs are blood-pumping power metal arrangements, Ward claims that “Unbreakable was all about honour,” whereas Wolves of Fenris “is about tearing down those ideals.”
Currently, the only source of official Warhammer 40k music is the soundtracks to Warhammer 40k PC or console games. Guillaume David’s score for Mechanicus, a game similar to XCOM about Adeptus Mechanicus Tech Priests robbing a Necron tomb world, is a fantastic blend of synths, choral singing, ambient electronica, and a real church organ. Jasper Kyd’s Darktide music blends religious music with industrial electronica to great effect.
Games Workshop had its own, short-lived music label, Warhammer Records, in the early 1990s. The majority of the bands simply released music as usual, with Warhammer 40k cover art, D-Rok’sOblivion, and Saxon’s UK release of Forever Free being the most well-known, but Bolt Thrower’s Realm of Chaos was themed around the Warhammer 40k universe.
For the original special edition of Dan Abnett’s Warhammer 40k book Traitor General, Black Library commissioned musician John Bergin to create a soundtrack album. It’s a haunting blend of noise, metal, military marches, and bagpipes.