I'm Looking for Some Good Combat Music

[Angel Tarragon]

Final Fantasy VII score for battle themes and boss fights.

 

[DeusExMachina]

I'd recommend Metroid Metal. It's someone who converted tunes from the Metroid games into guitar pumping heavy metal melodies. You can download the songs from the website: MetroidMetal.com

 

[Victoly]

I've had a lot of luck using Apocalyptica's originals for battle music. The vast majority of it is instrumental (as a general rule, it's wise to ignore the tracks they do with guest vocalists, though I did like the cover of Bowie's Heroes that they did with Till from Rammstein) and the instrumentation - cellos and some percussion - fits a medieval fantasy motif pretty well.

 

[knightofround]

Anime is another good source of combat music. Anything by Toshiro Masuda, Yoko Kanno, and Yoshihisa Hirano is good.

However, like pulling anything from popular culture, it only works well if your players haven't heard the music before. LOTR has a fantastic soundtrack, but if everyone in your group has seen it they're going to be thinking about LOTR and not the game at the table. Same thing goes for music from anime or TV series.

 

[Nebulous]

Recently i've been using the following music sampled for my KotS campaign:

Ravenous, Half-Life 1 & 2, Baldur's Gate, Session 9, Gear of War, The Longest Journey, and a dozen other small clips i found online that are just generic mood setters.

 

[Henrix]

I usually chime in in these threads and propose Corvus Corax, a german footstomping medieval rock band, and will do so again.

For combat music I'd recommend their live albums, Seikilos, Tritonus, and Viator. (There are samples on their page, go check them out! (Music -> Samples))

 

[merelycompetent]

Here are some movie soundtracks I've used:
* Alien, Aliens (certain players will *NEVER* forget a trek into an Illithid Hive)
* Conan the Barbarian
* Gladiator
* Legend
* Carl Orff's _Carmina Burana_ (mentioned by another poster above, not a movie soundtrack)

It looks like a lot of movie tracks were collected into an album called _The Fantasy Album_ by Jerry Goldsmith and others.

I've also considered using sound tracks from the following:
* John Adams (HBO series)
* Rome (HBO series)
* Underworld + sequel

The artists/groups below also frequently have usable instrumentals:
* Enya
* Loreena McKennett (especially _Parallel Dreams_ and _The Mask and the Mirror_)
* Enigma
* Tangerine Dream (now I'm showing my age)

If you or your group are interested in anime, these might also work:
* Vision of Escaflowne
* Record of Lodoss War
* Ghost in the Shell (movie), Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex (SF setting)
* Armitage III (SF setting)

I checked all of the above on Amazon.com, and they are available. I don't know about the iTunes Store.

Hope this helps.

(edited to clarify that _Carmina Burana_ isn't a movie)

 

[Ulrick]

I usually chime in in these threads and propose Corvus Corax, a german footstomping medieval rock band, and will do so again.

For combat music I'd recommend their live albums, Seikilos, Tritonus, and Viator. (There are samples on their page, go check them out! (Music -> Samples))

Mein Gott in Himmel!

 

[TwinBahamut]

I always recommend music from videogames, particularly Tactical RPG games. The Final Fantasy Tactics battle themes would probably work the best. They are good songs that sustain a great mood for a fight without being distracting (or even all that memorable half of the time). In addition, they come in a lot of variety for a wide assortment of combat types.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Right now I'm listening to Red Steel's Savage Baronies score and am considering how awesome it would be to use the tracks in a future game.