Night of the Hunt - Urian, the Divine Usurper

Also available on Loudr, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon and Spotify.

Night of the Hunt is my second original album inspired by Bloodborne. The first album - Borne in Blood, was made before the game came out and was more of an imagining of what the music could be like. Night of the Hunt however is directly inspired by the game itself and its soundtrack. You can almost imagine this as a musical expansion to the game with more bosses and locations. I've tried to make this feel like my own take on the Bloodborne sound but I've also given nods to the original soundtrack to make it feel more connected. I hope this album gets people excited about Bloodborne again as it's really fantastic.

Album artwork by DelinquentMuse:
(She usually streams Friday through Monday playing Dark Souls and Bloodborne challenges, also creative art)

Night of the Hunt logo artwork by Alex Roe

[MirthlessMorrows]

Interestingly, similar to Beast of Braildorn, I think of a person and not another entity.

Divine Usurper can mean two things for me. It can mean an entity of a divine status that usurps, or an entity that usurps the divine. When I hear this music, I think of a person, so I believe in the latter interpretation.

Laurence and the Healing Church was born from a schism with Byrgenwerth and we get an impression that the Healing Church was a mostly stable group, but we know Mensis was once a part of the Church and it looked like it broke away immensely. So if one group can break or branch off from the Healing Church, why not another?

Enter Urian, and potentially his followers. All scholars since Byrgenwerth sought to ascend to the Great Ones through any means. Urian sought something else. He sought to not to evolve mankind to the level of Great Ones, but to give mankind the power to take the Great Ones' place as the higher beings. This is why he's called the usurper. Of course there would be those who follow him. Emboldening man without transforming into something else would be fantastic.

Obviously this would produce great conflict with the rest of the Church. I can imagine scenes of conflict between followers of Urian (let's call them the Usurpers and make them a covenant too) and Church Hunters, including people from the Choir and Mensis.

When we fight Urian (maybe making his base in the remains of the Sacred Parish), I think of a powerful man using the arcane in ways never seen before, perhaps techniques unique to the Usurpers. He is the symbol of mankind achieving greatness without forfeiting themselves to the Great Ones. But as the fight progresses, his body changes (the phases if you will), not to become more beastlike, but more like a kin of the cosmos. He becomes frantic at this point, terrified at what he's becoming. At the very end of the battle, he's transformed completely into a kin and just... stops. In his eyes, he's already lost the battle, and is just waiting for you to deliver the final blow (which should be a few hits at that point).

In the end, beast and kin are no different, for humanity is lost in both.

[ooccttoo]

I imagine Urian as a man who ursurped the power of a Great One, and now resides at the top of a grand cathedral. In the battle against him, he wields the arcane effortlessly, merely flicking his wrist to fire showers of light upon you. But, being a mere human, he begins to lose control as you damage him and his own powers take their toll on him, until the power he is wielding begins to burst from his body almost beyond his own control. The music reflects the inherent foolishness of him try to control a Great One's power (shown by the slight note of sadness almost like pity that underlines the song) as light burns through his eyes and, as you lay the final blow, he erupts into cosmic dust with a howl and once again becomes part of the infinite cosmos.

[marmaladedragonturtle]

You walk in, the corpse of a beautiful transcendental great one lying bloated and bloodied on the ground before you. A man stands tall, his skin slightly glowing, the blood soaking him. His friends lie dead around him, he was the only one who survived. He turns towards you, the power filling him. You witness him transcend and transform throughout the fight, but the metamorphosis happens too fast, it was an act of desperation. In his final moments of triumph, a hunter came too soon and cut him down.

[ex_oLL]

Discovered your work through Elden Ring, and I must say.. you truly are an artist.

[CheekiBreeki]

This would be a late game boss, maybe in an abyss-like area (but full of stars), where you need to maintain high insight to survive. In the first phase, the boss uses melee and arcane like Micolash, but is agile like Gehrman or Maria. In the second phase, he ascends into something like Amygdala or Ebrietas.

[Thmmy]

This is so fucking beautiful, oh my god. Alex how can you not have 500k+ subscribers. I get that a Souls remixer (and exceptional original artist that tends to float towards "Souls-like music" and i love you for that) probably won't get millions of subscribers because it's fairly niche, but still. 23k? You deserve tons more. I love your music, always have.

[xshullaw]

I'm rewriting Urian right now.
Until then: This is hands down my favorite piece yet, 3:36 onward is brilliant.

[Sensorielle]

LORE THOUGHTS

"Divine Usurper" is an interesting sobriquet given to Urian, who I presume is the sovereign of the sacred parish and its community. In my head these pious individuals received the blood of a Great One, blood that was given willingly by Ourania the Great Muse. Perhaps it had properties in common with Ebrietas' blood, like an impure panacea. Maybe it really was a panacea. Whatever the case, these people deign it proper to live merrily because of it ("Dance of the Blood-Drunk").

It isn't uncommon that the Great Ones interfered with mankind, or that Great Ones interacted with each other on Earth. (Remember Mergo and the Moon Presence?) Much like Ornstein and Smough, I find it an entertaining thought that Urian (as a fellow eldritch abomination) employed Volucer as his warden, imprisoning Ourania and assuming the divine role she held over Braildorn's residents. Those who resisted were either fed to his beast (were it only one) or forced into blood ministration (which may very well have turned the Braildornians into beasts). It's also possible that Urian, in his attempt to replace Ourania, bestowed his own blood to the parish with horrible results.

[alex-roe]

Hmm still waiting on Amazon, thought that'd be up by now. I already uploaded all of this on Monday but I'm making them public day by day, but if you check out the playlist you can listen to them all now. People are already talking about possible lore and ideas behind these songs and I've been responding so check out those comments to gather...insight, hot damn you see what I did!

[mrp]

this sounds amazing on reference headphones

[Zyyzzx]

On all of youtube I am excited most for your releases and anything by Austin Wintory. I don't know where you get the creativity for the amazing chords during 3:37 to 3:45 for example, but its damn inspiring stuff.

[sethlassiter]

This is so inspiring to see! I'm writing a book inspired from the Souls series and Naruto/Naruto Shippuden. It's so cool to see someone who made game-inspired project. The music is wonderful, please, never stop creating.

[PigSlayer]

Hands down my favourite, would make a great track for a boss fight, keep up the great work Alex :)

[briankelly]

One thing I noticed towards the end is how almost theatrical it gets, as if this is something that would play during an opera or a play and now I'm just picturing this fight taking place in the stage area of an abandoned music hall. I'm getting serious Phantom of the Opera vibes from the whole thing.

[Its-Elroren]

Always so fantastic, I'm going to have to replay Bloodborne while listening to this album now.

[XRandomXShinigamiX]

I honestly cried listening to this, how beautiful and epic this track this whole ALBUM really is! But this one, after reading @Golden Gootsgamesh's fan lore of what this song could represent, I really got into it :) BRAVO!

[Insidious]

Holy mother of pyromancy.. I am in awe...

[RaydicalOnline]

Right around 4:04, it TOTALLY sounds like a throwback to your Praxis album, Alex!

[half_a_nut]

"dark souls boss name generators"

[highestqualitypigiron]

I simply must know where you got your inspiration from during 3:37 to 4:31. It sounds absolutely amazing