Soundtrack Review: NHL 06
He who makes a beast out of himself...
This is part five of the NHL Soundtrack Project. Here’s where you can find NHL 2002, NHL 2003, NHL 2004, and NHL 2005.
When we left off, we saw NHL 2004’s classic soundtrack followed up by something a lot more uneven and distinctly less... hockey-ish on NHL 2005. Not only was it short on big names and memorable tracks, but it kind of also felt like it had been pasted together from songs licensed for other EA Sports games. Its weaknesses also reflected the uneasy transitions taking place in a lot of the series’ most often-used genres, as nu-metal gave way to butt rock and then a burgeoning poppy metalcore, pop-punk embraced more emo influences, retro rock bands tried to figure out how to stand out and make stale sounds come across as fresh and original, and veteran punks strained to evolve and stay relevant. But NHL 06, the last title from the Xbox/PS2/PC generation in the series, is widely considered to have the best music of any of these games, with serious heavy hitters and classics throughout the lineup. Let’s see how they hold up.
American Head Charge - “Loyalty”
We start with a final farewell to the nu-metal genre. Minneapolis’ American Head Charge are mostly remembered for their 2001 Rick Rubin-recorded album The War of Art, which from my understanding is considered to be a minor masterpiece by fans of the genre. “Loyalty” appears on the follow-up, released on an indie label as the group was essentially imploding from conflict and drug addiction. It’s a pretty sick song, and while it lacks the flashiness that its nu-metal predecessors boasted, its churning grooving guitar riff, clever vocal melodies, and a simple but crushing chorus hit really hard. The clean and moan-y verse isn’t anything special but the vocal delivery on the screams is pretty remarkable. This is heavy and pissed off even by NHL standards. 7/10
Animal Alpha - “Bundy”
As difficult as it is to believe, this is the first appearance of a band with a female lead singer on an NHL game soundtrack. Despite being a pretty small Norwegian band signed to a Norwegian indie label who toured almost entirely in Norway, Animal Alpha clearly got the “Bundy” single into the right American hands because it wound up in NHL 06, Burnout Legends, and most importantly the closing credits of the iconic film Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which have combined to make it their most popular song on streaming services by a factor of 11.
I’m pretty sure the lyrics here are about a battered woman waiting for the right moment to take revenge, with “Bundy” referring to notorious serial killer Ted Bundy. That’s pretty serious business for a franchise so quick to pull the trigger on censorship that they literally cut out a reference to getting a nosebleed from these lyrics. Lead singer Agnete Kjølsrud gives a dynamic performance here that mostly matches the intensity of the lyrics, and while I don’t love the little snippets of babyish moaning it’s pretty thrilling when she really lets it rip. In the chorus, unfortunately a bit mangled by EA’s unwillingness to let the sentence “shut your face up” be too discernible, her voice is almost a percussion instrument. The other performances are nothing too special but they’re heavy and straightforward and get the job done. Kjølsrud’s post-Animal Alpha band Djerv would go on to contribute a song called “Get Jinxed” to the League of Legends soundtrack, which is apparently incredibly famous although I had never heard of it. 7/10
Avenged Sevenfold - “Bat Country”
I feel like I’ve heard this song too many times to actually know if it’s any good. After successfully leveraging their festival appearances and EA Sports soundtrack selections to secure a major label deal, Avenged Sevenfold made the most of their first crack at stardom by transforming their metalcore sound into something both accessible and technical and entirely their own. I think it would be equally appropriate to describe “Bat Country,” which was not yet a hit when it was chosen for NHL 06 and Madden NFL 06, as “varied” and “a total mess,” and I’m not sure exactly where I land. The non-vocal performances here are pretty sick, and the drum part in particular has always been one of my favourites to play even if it kind of sounds like it was recorded on a Rock Band controller. M. Shadows’ vocal is certainly a lot more distinct than it was on NHL 2004’s “Chapter Four,” and I think it’s pretty clever how guitarists *sigh* Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance mirror his tone with their squealing (and unreal) solos. Lyrically the Biblical references of that prior song are replaced with Hunter S. Thompson worship, which inspired the VMA-winning video. I’ll split the difference here because I feel like my take on the track will vary wildly depending on whether I’m hearing it with a clear mind (probably not going to enjoy it) or whether I’ve had a few drinks or are behind a drum kit (gets rid of the pain of BEING a mannn UGHHHH) 7/10
Beatsteaks - “Atomic Love”
I like to think that I’m pretty savvy when it comes to alternative rock music, especially from this time period. Hearing “Atomic Love,” I was absolutely sure that it came from some hotshot young NME-hyped indie-rock band from either the UK or New York drawing inspiration from Bloc Party and the Strokes. Nope. The unforgivably-named Beatsteaks were in fact wily veterans, one of the most successful German punk groups ever, and this song is a deep cut and pretty serious deviation from their usual work which sounds more like the Clash than anything else. Nonetheless, these guys do a pretty solid job at the whole post-punk revival thing. The track is punchy and energetic, with tastefully lo-fi production and synthesizers and an especially great hyperactive drum part. It has the vibe of something that might play at the end of an emotional episode of How I Met Your Mother, although any sentimentality is undercut by the nonsensical refrain of “This is atomic love!” repeated a million times or so. Overall it sounds more FIFA than NHL but it’s a nice palate-cleanser. 7/10
Billy Talent - “Red Flag”
“Red Flag” is the best NHL song of all time. It checks every box: it’s Canadian, it’s high-energy, it gets you insanely pumped to play hockey in one form or another, and most importantly it rules. There might be other tracks on these soundtracks that I personally like a little better depending on the context, but nothing encapsulates that NHL vibe quite like it.
Billy Talent are probably not familiar to a lot of Americans, but within Canada’s tightly confined and government-insulated alternative radio rock landscape they were a pretty dominant presence in the mid- to late-2000s with a string of hits that at least someone in any given group of younger millennial Canadians will know by heart. They typically veered between alt-rock, melodic hardcore, and pop-punk, and “Red Flag” falls somewhere in the middle of that Venn diagram. It’s driving, one of the fastest songs we’ll see here, and extremely well put together. I love the way the guitars and bass are locked in during the minimalist verse, adding an interesting counter-rhythm to the air-tight drum part before the track explodes in the chorus. The lyrics have a revolutionary “the younger generation are coming to set things right” thing going on, including some clever similes and the great alliterative “Cast off the crutch that kills the pain” chorus.
While I loved “Red Flag” from the first time I heard it, time’s also made me even fonder of it. There was a charming early YouTube (like, 240p early) hockey highlight compilation set to it which I must have watched about 200 times between 2006 and 2007:
Years later, my university’s rink would let me control the aux cord during our drop-in hockey sessions and I’d inevitably put on the NHL soundtrack playlist; when “Red Flag” kicked in, it had a visible effect on the effort level of pretty much everybody on the ice. At cottages or campgrounds when I’ve happened to have an acoustic guitar on hand, it’s not “Wonderwall” or even “Bobcaygeon” people want to sing along to — it’s a shambolic version of the very-not-suited-for-an-unplugged rendition “Red Flag.” It’s happened with three distinct groups of people, from multiple provinces. It endures almost two decades later for a reason, which is that it rules. 10/10
Bullet For My Valentine - “4 Words (To Choke Upon)”
If NHL 06 is an “inflection point” soundtrack, the presence of Bullet For My Valentine is one of the major indicators. The Welsh pop-metal group appeared on four out of nine games between NHL 06 and NHL 14, accompanied by an influx of similarly polished and tacky Hot Topic metalcore acts that essentially replaced the nu-metal and butt rock of the early 2000s. “4 Words (To Choke Upon)” is superficially heavier than almost anything that has appeared in this column, with double-bass kick drum and coarse vocals, but it’s no doubt very approachable and was probably (along with Avenged Sevenfold) an entry-point for a lot of young metalheads at this time. It’s the band’s debut single, which shows just how confident they must have been considering the titular four words are “Look at me now!” and the whole song is basically about dunking on all the people who doubted them in the past. In this series we’ve seen so many fresh-faced major-label signees absolutely crash and burn, and the song could have totally backfired if BFMV had not been successful, but of course that’s not what happened. I do not like this band very much at all, and they’re responsible for a true 1/10 NHL song (“Riot” from NHL 14), but “4 Words (To Choke Upon)” is okay. I don’t like the wheezing lead guitar or the generic riffing, and the “Look! At! Me! Now!” comes off more corny than anything else, but the chorus itself is pretty good. A reviewer at the time described the Scream Aim Fire album as “made for provincial 15-year-olds to get violent with each other,” which in my mind sounds like a description of the ideal NHL game song, but I don’t think this is it. 5/10
Fall Out Boy - “Our Lawyers Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued”
“Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued” is a hyper-self-aware emo-pop track, the opener on Fall Out Boy’s most breakout record Under the Cork Tree. True to form, its wordy lyric is all about fame and the group itself and cheekily addresses their fans’ tendencies towards obsessing over band members, lyrics, and gossip. Depending on your enjoyment of the band, this all lands somewhere between charming and unbelievably narcissistic. At the time, I hated Fall Out Boy, and had whole internet arguments (as a literal eleven year old child) about how Nirvana was way better and FOB were emo losers. I hated this song too. In retrospect, I think I was a bit unreasonable. I do think it’s too wordy and some of these lines are too clever by half, especially the chorus whose solid melody is undercut by the awkward syntax of lines like “we’re only good for the latest trends.” But the pop-punk instrumental is well-executed and heavier than you’d expect and I dig the bridge in particular. Next time around we’ll see what happens when a band with absolutely zero swag tries to write this kind of song. 7/10
Institute - “Bulletproof Skin”
We’ve said goodbye to nu-metal, and now it’s time to bid post-grunge farewell too. The most NHL 2003 sounding song to not be on NHL 2003, “Bullet Proof Skin” comes to us from Bush and Helmet side-project Institute, who dropped one album with a hilarious cover, put out one single, played it on every single late night show and the Tyra Banks Show, opened for U2, and then never did anything again. “Bullet Proof Skin” has some bizarre lyrics (“I love animals, so close to perfect, they’re the only ones who seem to know their heart” and the most memorable one “Doesn’t feel like Christmas in Hollywood”) and kind of sounds like three songs loosely glued together, but it’s not bad. There’s something a bit uncanny about how squeaky clean it all is for an ostensible hard rock song though. 5/10
Kaiser Chiefs - “Saturday Night”
For the second game in a row, we’ve got a track called “Saturday Night.” This one is not Greater Toronto Area ska punk, I’m sorry to say, but a very British indie rock song with lo-fi production. It wasn’t one of the five singles off of Kaiser Chief’s blockbuster debut Employment, and probably for good reason because other than a decent Blur-influenced chorus it’s pretty rudimentary and not that noteworthy. 5/10
Mando Diao - “Down in the Past”
I haven’t been super charitable to songs that fit in that 2000s rock and roll throwback niche, and I that’s become I usually find them to be a bit corny and unoriginal. That doesn’t mean that when it’s executed well I can’t appreciate it, and “Down in the Past” by Swedish act Mando Diao is a great example of garage rock revival done well. Is the Jim Morrison-y singing a bit much? Maybe. But the slinky, swinging riff combined with a catchy and melodically strong chorus win me over. 7/10
OK Go - “Do What You Want”
Speaking of garage rock revival, a pre-Youtube fame OK Go drop a banger in the genre here. Part of the triple punch of inescapable pop-rock that begins their Oh No CD (the Joshua Tree of mid-2000s TV commercial music), “Do What You Want” is a super simple but well-crafted song carried by an upbeat cowbell-enhanced riff and a cliché’d but fun guitar break. Of their three big songs it’s probably the most mindless, especially the chorus, but it gets the job done. 7/10
Pennywise - “Knocked Down”
Melodic hardcore lifers Pennywise were known for their consistency, dropping an album every two years from 1991 until 2005, when they got real lazy and began to take excruciating three- or four-year breaks. Their high-speed skate punk song “Knocked Down” doesn’t reinvent the wheel and it’s never been a favourite of mine, but it fits the assignment pretty well and the “when will you fall” refrain works so well for a hockey game that NHL 2K decided to recycle it a few years later. 6/10
Rock N Roll Soldiers - “Flag Song”
“Flag Song” is a mercifully short song from throwback punkish cornballs Rock N Roll Soldiers, a band so obsessed with their shitty name that when their label helpfully suggested that they choose something less try-hard they responded by recording a single whose chorus went "We're the motherfucking Rock N Roll Soldiers". The album art for So Many Musicians to Kill, the record on which “Flag Song” appears, also features electric guitars, amps, and flames. 2005, man. The vocals of this particular song are bratty and annoying, and while the hook is adequate it’s pretty disposable. But at least it does keep the tempo up. 3/10
This is the EA team’s equivalent of the 2003 NHL Draft. As a result of some improved (for lack of a better term) scouting, NHL 06 does a much better job of including bands and sounds that tell the story of what was happening in the mainstream of the series’ staple genres (punk, alternative rock, and metal) by the middle of the 2000s without losing sight of the type of music that works with the sport. In one go, EA identified Fall Out Boy, Avenged Sevenfold, Bullet For My Valentine, Billy Talent, and OK Go, all before they really broke out, and the result is probably the most starstudded soundtrack they ever put together. Like any NHL game there are weak links but even those are up-tempo and energetic, more filler than actively objectionable. Another 2003 draft comparable is that for me personally it’s a bit low on stone Hall of Fame GOAT-level classics (although I know that won’t be true for many people) and instead just has a whole lot of good stuff. I still take NHL 2004 as the best one, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this ends up at #2 by the time we wrap things up.
Most Valuable Player: “Red Flag”
Duh.
Aleksander Barkov Award: “Down in the Past”
This is a pretty tight race considering how strong across the board the less iconic songs here are, but I’ll give the nod to Mando Diao given how rude I’ve been (and will be in NHL 08) to their genre.
Healthy Scratch: “Flag Song”
I do not support the Rock N Roll troops.
If you’ve been absolutely seething with rage reading my takes here, you can register your own opinion by following the link below and rating the songs yourself in our community vote:
Rate the NHL 06 Songs
Here are the community ratings for NHL 2005:
Next week, we sing along NHL 07’s hollow song and overall get really emo.
great post JFresh, looking forward to you no longer being able to besmirch the good name of butt rock going forward. remember, He who makes a beast of himself…