Soundtrack Saturday: The Binding of Isaac

In this weekly feature, I recommend game soundtracks. I share a few of my favorite tracks, talk about why everyone should listen to the soundtrack, and a little bit about the composer. This week's choice is The Binding of Isaac by Edmund McMillen.

THE STATS

Name: The Binding of Isaac
Developer: Edmund McMillen
Publisher: Florian  Himsl/Edmund McMillen
Release Date: September 28, 2011
Genres: Roguelike
Composer: Danny Baranowsky

MY FAVORITE TRACKS

(The titles link to YouTube videos... and I highly recommend some good headphones to best enjoy all of the subtle elements of the music!)


The Binding of Isaac (Length: 3:17) The deeper bass line here mixed with the wobbly-note main theme struck a memorable balance for me. The way it starts makes me think of tracks from Sega Game Gear games (mysterious Ecco-like vibes, even), and then it broadens into something very epic!

Greed (Length: 2:43) The percussion, chord progression and scratchy vinyl sound work well together! I think this one is my favorite of the bunch.

Hereafter (Length: 1:30) This one reminded me of music from The 7th Guest, so it's here despite how short it is.

Latter Days (Length: 5:47) Sounds very similar to elements from Eternal Poison tracks!

Lament of the Angel (4:45) The choir makes this perfect.

Tomes (Length: 4:15) The piano sold me, so I had to include it.

You can listen to the full soundtrack on YouTube:

The Binding of Isaac OST (HD)

WHY I RECOMMEND IT

This soundtrack was a request many months ago from my husband, PrepareToIndie. Alongside Dark Souls and Souls-like games, The Binding of Isaac is one of his favorite games. While it's not my type of game, I can definitely get behind the soundtrack. It's full of haunting melodies and dark atmosphere while also having catchy rhythms and nothing distracting. In other words, you can queue this up in the background for Halloween and nobody would know it was from a video game unless they've played it.

THE COMPOSER: DANNY BARANOWSKY

Heyyyy, it's our man Danny again! I've talked about him before when I wrote about Crypt of the NecroDancer. The most recent project of his was Cadence of Hyrule from last year, which was a mash-up of Zelda and NecroDancer. I found that set of music to be alright, but not his best. Here's hoping we see some new stuff from him in the future! In any case, Danny's work here on The Binding of Isaac wasn't his first job with Edmund -- he also did the composing for Edmund's previous work, Super Meat Boy. Good combo all around, don't you think? For the most part, I think Danny is the Danny Elfman of video games. He has that catchy, sinister vibe going. I guess that makes Edmund... Tim Burton? I'll let you be the judge!