It's a decent game with some dodgy elements but that's not the focus of this post; the soundtrack is. It's 107 songs of Metal and various Metal related subgenres, such as Hair Metal, Thrash Metal, Speed Metal, Industrial Metal, Power Metal and Hard Rock. The soundtrack was crafted with two main goals in mind: to give players a selection of awesome tunes to listen to whilst playing the game and to not completely piss their money away on licensing fees...so yeah, if you haven't played this game before, don't expect any Iron Maiden or Metallica.
Luckily, you can expect some Black Sabbath, Megadeth, Scorpions, Motorhead and others. Unfortunately, you can also expect some Marilyn Manson, Lita Ford and Mastodon so it's not all great. As with any soundtrack, there are hits and misses but none of the choices are offensively bad and some of the better songs are used perfectly (e.g. "Painkiller" - Judas Priest for the final boss battle and "Through The Fire And Flames"- DragonForce for a driving mission involving fast escape from monsters that can kill you in one hit).
As far as the mix between gameplay and music goes, it's almost as good as it can get. You can filter out songs you dislike and skip/replay music you've unlocked through your car's stereo (named the Mouth Of Metal, in case you were wondering what the title of this post was all about) to help craft the perfect playlist for mowing down raptor elks and racing demons. There are plenty of great music moments and unlike certain films and shows that butcher the original songs with poor edits (such as "Mr Blue Sky" - ELO in the Guardians Of The Galaxy, Vol 2 intro, a point I neglected to mention in my post about it), this game absolutely nails the edits perfectly.
Some tracks have certain moments that are designed to be heard during specific gameplay moments but if the songs are allowed to carry on in their natural length, the moment would be ruined by poor timing or poor gaming. For example, the first mission uses "Children Of The Grave" - Black Sabbath to introduce Eddie Riggs (protagonist) to his new surroundings. The mission progresses when you reach an axe that's been placed in a church but whilst you're making your way down the stairs and away from the evil monks, the song's intro is playing.
However, it's not until you reach the axe that the percussion and epic riffs come in. You're then able to start hacking away at the monks with your new weapon all to the sweet, sweet music of Ozzy-era Sabbath. Granted there are some missed opportunities but there's only so much you can do with the music you're allowed to license. Plus, whilst some music might give Metal fans tingly feelings down below, they felt a bit forced and unnecessary to me.
During one of the cutscenes explaining why one of the characters has turned evil, the song "Mr Crowley" - Ozzy Osbourne starts to play. Naturally, the organ intro accompanies the opening and the main action starts when Ozzy's vocals kick in. I don't mind the song being used in the game but it didn't add anything to the cutscene for me. Plus, there's the danger of not paying attention to the cutscene because you're too busy waiting for "MISTER CROW-LEYYY!!" but I'm nitpicking now.
It's a shame Brutal Legend had to have such a weak RTS section of gameplay that hindered its popularity, as a sequel with an even better soundtrack is currently occupying the space of one of my three wishes should I ever discover a magic lamp. As it stands, Brutal Legend's soundtrack is incredibly solid with some excellent tunes to discover and awesome Metal hits to rock out to. It could've done with some Iron Maiden but if we ever get a Brutal Legend Remastered edition for PS4 (which we might in 2 years time for the anniversary, provided Double Fine get their shit together with music licensing), at least we can use Spotify for extra Metal.
But the main point I'm getting at is that the music is great. You should definitely give the full soundtrack a taste if you're into Metal (using this handy link here) and if you've got a last gen console, the game's probably pretty cheap now too. Once you've done that, thank your lucky stars that Tim Schafer didn't let meddling executives get in the way of his creative vision, as some publishers wanted the game to be themed around Country or Hip Hop instead of Metal. Can you imagine how fucking shite that game would've been?
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