Back in June, longtime Batman collaborators Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo began releasing their Dark Nights: Death Metal crossover miniseries. The title serves as a follow-up to 2017’s Dark Nights: Metal, which also spawned a soundtrack featuring members of Deftones, Mastodon, Alice in Chains, and more. Now, via BrooklynVegan, the sequel is getting its own musical tie-in.
Composer Tyler Bates (John Wick, Guardians of the Galaxy) is returning to executive produce the Dark Nights: Death Metal soundtrack. Bates also explained what he’s hoping to accomplish with this latest project.
“In Dark Nights: Death Metal, Loma Vista Recordings and I saw an opportunity to bring artists together to create a diverse soundtrack that is inspired directly by this incredible comic series,” Bates said in a statement. “Our intent is not to literally create a death metal soundtrack, but instead, to illuminate the darkest corners of each character’s psyche from an authentic perspective that is thematically inherent in death metal music.”
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Additionally, Bates is working on a “short-form animatic film series” that essentially turns Capullo’s artwork into a motion comic. Bates has also enlisted a few noteworthy musicians to lend their voices to the new shorts. The cast includes Black Veil Brides frontman Andy Black (a.k.a. Andy Biersack) as Batman and singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe as Wonder Woman. Charles Fleischer also appears as the voice of the Joker and The Batman Who Laughs.
DC has already dropped the first installment in Bates’ series, which features Slayer’s Dave Lombardo on drums and Zakk Wylde on guitar. The episode also includes the song “Skull with a Forked Tongue” by Dutch black metal band Carach Angren. At the end of the video, fans can hear part of Rise Against’s “Broken Dreams, Inc.,” another track off the upcoming album.
The official Dark Nights: Death Metal soundtrack will be released in 2021.
You can watch Bates’ first animated short below, then tell us what you think in the comment section!
Recommended Reading: Dark Nights: Metal: Deluxe Edition
