First things first - if you're a Warhammer 40k fan and you somehow haven't already listened to Sabaton, go and do it now. This Swedish power metal band exclusively writes music about historical battles, and it all slams - its popularity in the fandom is well deserved. But there is so much more fantastic music that captures the vibes of the Warhammer 40,000 universe beyond them: so team Wargamer has pulled together a tracklist of our favorites to share with you.
Lots of musicians are now making music that's explicitly about Warhammer 40k, like Our Martyred Lady's Death Korps deathcore, or Lorcan Ward's Space Wolves saga, not to mention the OG classic Realm of Chaos by Bolt Thrower. But you can find that stuff with a Google search - for this feature we've picked 12 artists and their tracks that may not be explicitly based on Warhammer 40k, but perfectly channel the vibes of one of the Warhammer 40k factions, a key character or location, or the universe in general.
Celtic Frost, A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh
A mournful Black Metal paean to cosmic suffering, Dying God is a perfect song for the Emperor of Mankind - the lament of a half-divine entity that can never escape the torment of creation.
Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation, Succubus
Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation makes anti-human music - alternately chaotic and laconic, elegiac and spiteful, manic and depressed - the doom metal of jazz. The album Succubus is especially mournful, a great representation of the Necrons, music that could kill you at any moment but is happy to wait.
Tom Waits, Hell Broke Luce
Stomping beats and lyrics barked by a man deafened by artillery, Hell Broke Luce is the life story of a doomed and misused infantryman - ideal for the Astra Militarum.
28 Years Later trailer, Boots Boots Boots by Rudyard Kipling
The filmmakers working on the trailer for 28 Years later mashed together Taylor Holmes' haunting 1915 reading of Rudyard Kipling's 1903 poem with creeping percussion and looming strings, and accidentally created the perfect representation of the screaming doom facing the Astra Militarum.
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, a Hymn to the Morning Star followed by The Donkey-Headed Adversary of Mankind Opens the Discussion
The first two tracks from the prog metal album Of Natural History are so Warhammer 40k coded I had to check the lyrics to make sure that it wasn't actually intentional. Hymn is a prophecy of Chaos that predicts the downfall of the Imperium, while Donkey-Headed Adversary is an all-out declaration of war by the Black Legion. With elusive and unexpected chord progressions and operatic grandeur, this is music to plot the death of the Emperor to.
Anaal Nathrakh, the Age of Starlight Ends
Everyone thinks of the Aeldari as effete and graceful - but this is the race that murder-fucked Slaanesh into existence. When they go off the chain, they go off the chain. Anaal Nathrakh's blend of black metal fury and melodic elegance meet in an apocalyptic theme - this is what the Rhana Dandra sounds like.
Arch Enemy, Nemesis
A black metal hymn to hyperviolent revolution, strung through with repeated chants that "we are one", plus rapturous melodic breaks like a higher power entering - the Genestealer Cults must surely experience the Day of Ascension like this.
Gustav Holst, Mars and Neptune from the Planet Suite
Holst's planet suite was insanely forward thinking when he composed it between 1914 and 1917, and listening to it you can hear the roots of a lot of modern music soundtracks, particularly John Williams' sci-fi greats. We've picked two movements, the belligerent and martial Mars - an anthem that the Imperium of Man might use to celebrate a military triumph - and the ethereal and elusive Neptune, the sound of the dreamlike Webway.
GWAR, Let Us Slay
Metal's sublime idiots, dressed in costumes at the intersection of LARP monster, Mad Max, and Chapman Brothers sculpture, GWAR don't understand the concept of restraint. There's an argument for attaching them to the Emperor's Children, but as you can hear in Let Us Slay, they're just having so much fun. An Ork anthem, through and through.
Gus BC, Thousand Empty Light OST
This soundtrack - created for an indie TTRPG module by Alfred Valley - mixes 80s synths with doomy sci-fi themes. The result is retro sci-fi with a hint of dread, which makes for a different, slightly more mystical and analogue take on the Adeptus Mechanicus compared to the choral ambient electronica found in the excellent Mechanicus videogame soundtrack.
Rings of Saturn, The Macrocosm
Wordless, cosmic, all-consuming melodies that seem to have been transmitted from a distant galaxy, building up overwhelming momentum and changing in ways you can't predict - a Tyranid invasion in all its unknowable splendour.
Slayer, Raining Blood
The only Slayer song that isn't overrated. There, we said it. But we couldn't leave it off - it's a self-indulgent metal anthem in praise of ultraviolence. Not quite angry enough to match the World Eaters, but a good start.
Stellaris OST
No surprises that there's an overlap between the sci-fi 4x game Stellaris and Warhammer 40k. We think the combination of recognisable high sci-fi vibes, imperialist and military motifs, and just a hint of looming threat, is a great match to the T'au Empire.
What do you think? What have we missed from our burgeoning Warhammer 40k concept album? Share your ideas in the Wargamer Discord community to earn internet points and the respect of your peers. To stay updated with more fun features about the worlds of wargaming, make sure to subscribe to the Wargamer newsletter.