Destiny 2 and the discography of concept band Coheed and Cambria were separated at birth, one could argue. They’re as close to each other in spirit as two things so vastly separated by time and form can be. Both works involve grandiose space politics, last-chance heroes on quests for salvation, and more proper nouns than you can shake a stick at.
Unsurprisingly, the Coheed and Cambria catalogue makes a fantastic Destiny 2 soundtrack once those moody Tower strings have lost their luster. What follows is a brief, 10-song playlist, specially curated to illustrate this point. If you’re a Destiny 2 fan that is unfamiliar with Coheed, well, welcome home.
Keeping the Blade
If this ain’t the most “Destiny 2 menu music” thing you ever heard, I’d like to know what is. You could swap this track out with the current opening orchestration and people might not even notice.
This melody exists in multiple forms across Coheed’s first five or so albums — a sort of unofficial theme for the story conveyed by those releases. It also makes for a darkly ominous way to start your dailies.
In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
As the title track from Coheed’s second album, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 sets the stage for a massive battle that spans the next three songs. In a nutshell, genetically engineered super children have been sent to Silent Earth: 3 to fight against the forces of Supreme Tri Mage Wilhelm Ryan, who’s some kinda of blue space wizard that — you know what? That doesn’t really matter for this list.
What matters is that this song feels epic as hell, and at eight minutes long, it might be the only song you need for an entire strike. Press play right when you queue for maximum effect.
The Hound (of Blood and Rank)
Skip ahead by a couple albums and it’s time for Wilhelm Ryan’s right-hand man — General Mayo Deftinwolf — to meet his maker. This song is a rallying cry perfect for the last half of a strike, or when your party is heading in for yet another attempt at a raid boss. It’s high-energy, has a totally wicked guitar solo, and ends with the most dramatic kind of triumph: One that comes with a heavy price.
The Camper Velorium I: Faint of Hearts
Faint of Hearts is the first song in a three-part suite that comprises the middle of In Keeping Secrets — this is a thing Coheed likes to do. While far poppier than the rest of this playlist, this song works well as an anthem for anyone who really, really loves their Destiny 2 loadout. It is, after all, a love song from a sniper to his gun.
Key Entity Extraction V: Sentry the Defiant
This is the song I queue up when I’ve suffered some really disheartening losses in the Crucible or Gambit. It’s from Coheed’s seventh album, The Afterman: Descension, which is actually the second album as far as the story’s chronology is concerned, but don’t worry about that.
Your enemies should be worried, though.
No World for Tomorrow
No World for Tomorrow and In Keeping Secrets are similar songs, in that they’re both title tracks for their respective albums that establish a premise and theme for said album. But where In Keeping Secrets embraces the futility of a calamitous war, No World for Tomorrow stands defiant in the face of such odds. It heralds a reckoning for the powers that be; one that comes from a place of desperation and purpose.
It is, therefore, the perfect song to play at the beginning of any Blind Well or escalation protocol attempt.
Cuts Marked in the March of Men
Our last track from In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3. Cuts Marked in the March of Men tells the tale of a doomed IRO-bot guerilla squad (don’t worry about it), which is mostly slaughtered by Wilhelm Ryan’s Red Army forces. Sizer, the protagonist of the song, offers himself for interrogation to save a squad mate. Things don’t go great for Sizer.
This song is here because it feels like a strike feels, as cheap of a way as that is to describe it. It’s not grand or triumphant, it’s not bold and empowering — it’s three poor souls walking into the mouth of hell, because they have to.
Gravemakers & Gunslingers
Meanwhile, Gravemakers & Gunslingers is about accepting the mantle of wrath and consequence that has always been yours, to bring death and justice in equal measure to the forces of evil. Play this as you queue for the night’s first PVP match and your headshot percentage will go up.
The Dark Sentencer
The latest of Coheed and Cambria’s grand, lore-establishing epics, The Dark Sentencer brings the listener up to speed on what’s been going on between No World for Tomorrow and Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures. Things aren’t great, lemme tell you!
By this time, the great powers of the universe are a collection of mega-corporations and privatized prison planets, and surprise, it turns out super long prog-rock jams about space jail do a mighty fine job of underscoring a nightfall.
The Gutter
I like this song because, despite mostly being about betrayal and revenge, it’s also a very hopeful song. Destiny 2 is kinda like that too, I think — the world is in a really bad place, untold billions have died and suffered despite everyone’s best efforts, and there’s no real end in sight for any of it. But we’ll keep fighting, because all that has to count for something.
