Soundtrack Review: NHL 09

It's time to move on, dear

This is part eight of the NHL Soundtrack Project. Here’s where you can find NHL 2002, NHL 2003, NHL 2004, NHL 2005, NHL 06, NHL 07, and NHL 08.

Here we are, at the end of the 2000s and the end of this series. Coming off the heels of NHL 08’s random grab bag of genres, we’ve got the much more popular and mercifully shorter soundtrack to NHL 09. Throughout this series I’ve been talking about EA’s apparent efforts to identify up-and-coming artists on the verge of popularity, part of their goal to curate a list that sounds like the “future of hockey”. NHL 09 is a bit different, and sets the tone for future games (which I will not be covering). As impossible as it may seem now, when NHL 09 came out the series was extremely popular and hugely acclaimed, racking up “Sports Game of the Year” awards and getting attention even from non-hockey fans. I’m just speculating, but maybe the music team got a bit more of a budget, because instead of going out there and finding the next big thing, EA licensed tracks from groups that were already really popular, including some like Avenged Sevenfold and Bullet For My Valentine that they’d featured before they blew up. Did this approach result in a better list than ever? Let’s find out.

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Airbourne - “Runnin’ Wild”

In case you didn’t notice from the NHL 08 article, I hate Airbourne. I hate their whole AC/DC-rip-off stand up for rock and roll devils horns up let’s turn it up to eleven some bands still make real music deal. But “Runnin’ Wild” is fine. It sounds kind of like those Nickelback songs where they do the hard rock thing, and the little “you can cry me a river cry me a river of tears” bit is catchy enough that I didn’t even realize how stupid that line is until I just typed it out now. I still hate his stupid Brian Johnson impression, and I hate the other Airbourne songs on NHL games like NHL 11’s “Bottom of the Well” (3/10) and NHL 13’s “Live it Up” (3/10), but I can tolerate this one. 5/10

Apocalyptica feat. Tomoyasu Hotei - “Grace”

The first instrumental track in an NHL game since NHL 2001, “Grace” is a symphonic metal piece by Finland’s Apocalyptica, a popular if admittedly kinda gimmicky band who have gotten three decades of mileage by answering the question “what if heavy metal was played with cellos instead of guitars?” Weirdly enough, strings are the signature sound of NHL 09 and “Grace” is kind of the glue guy in the lineup, slipping into the background as a solid enough mood piece, even as guest guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei’s effects-laden vibrato-happy performance tries to grab your attention. It works well as a menu song, even though it would probably be more compelling with vocals. 7/10

Avenged Sevenfold - “Afterlife”

“Afterlife,” Avenged Sevenfold’s third and surprisingly final contribution to an NHL game, is a symphonic pop-metal quasi-ballad extravaganza, with a full string section, all kinds of riffs, and carpe diem lyrics about dying young and longing to return to Earth from heaven. It’s simultaneously completely over-the-top and dead earnest, a departure from the chaotic fun of NHL 06’s “Bat Country.” The band’s 2007 self-titled record was widely considered to be a pretty open (and effective) bid for even more mainstream success, and the fully melodic chorus, which uses the notorious “four chords” progression, is plenty of evidence of that. Fortunately, what could have been a boring mid-tempo slog is constantly livened up by the performers, especially guitarist Synyster Gates who keeps the verses rhythmically interesting and delivers a pretty ridiculous guitar solo (which was almost impossible to play on Rock Band 2 if I’m remembering right). The strings are incorporated very smoothly, especially in the beginning of the bridge, although unfortunately the EA censor threw up his hands and cut out most of it including the fan-beloved section where drummer James “The Rev” Sullivan (who died at 28 in 2009), contributes great background vocals to a desperate prayer to come back to life. Singer M. Shadows isn’t quite as strong as his bandmates here, with his voice being maybe a bit too over-the-top and silly for the serious subject matter (he just couldn’t help but throw in a funny little “li-ee-ight” in the last chorus eh), but all in all it somehow works. 8/10

Billy Talent feat. Anti-Flag - “Turn Your Back”

Billy Talent is back, hauling along since-disgraced Justin Sane of Anti-Flag. “Turn Your Back” deviates from “Red Flag”’s blazing fast punk template, bouncing along with a bit of a swing and a sing-song melody. The lyrics point an accusatory finger at people who are content to ignore injustice and suffering until it inevitably affects them. A message like this can come across as preachy and annoying, and Mr. Sane’s (retrospectively ironic) verse does, but the chorus is a lot more elegant, with the refrain “When the storm hits your front door with a roar you can’t ignore you’ll run, run away but there’s no place to hide, mate!”¹ “Turn Your Back” is no “Red Flag,” and I much prefer the band’s punk tracks, but it’s catchy and the bridge is a cool change-up. 7/10

Black Tide - “Warriors of Time”

If you spent any time playing NHL 09 (especially the game’s demo), the phrase “warriors of time” is probably enough to send you into either a nostalgic reverie or a traumatized flashback.

Black Tide were a bunch of teenagers who made heavy metal music in the late 2000s, gaining recognition and notoriety as prodigious talents who many fans considered to be the future saviours of the genre. Lead singer and guitarist Gabriel Garcia was only 14 years old when “Warriors of Time” was written and recorded, making him four years younger than anybody who appears in NHL 09 (except Sabrina Ladha I guess). You wouldn’t be able to guess that from his guitar performance, which is extremely impressive from the phenomenal acoustic intro to the shredding solos that pepper the track, but you could 100% guess it from his lyrics, which are (sorry kiddo) without a doubt the stupidest ever to appear in an NHL game. What are Warriors of Time? They’re the ones who fight for our right. They fight alone and get what they want. They love the battle and will die for their cause. They live for the people.

Obviously I’m willing to cut a 14 year old metalhead some slack for writing lyrics that sound like they were written by a 14 year old metalhead, but the song is so repetitive that I can’t just ignore them; he says the phrase “warriors of time” over 20 times. Even if I try to set them aside, the track has its moments but generally I’m not that into this brand of woah-oh-oh-oh pop metal. I know this song has shooters, but I’m afraid I’m not one of them.

Despite all the expectations placed on Black Tide by fans who saw them as the next Iron Maiden, these warriors were not long for this earth. 2011 follow-up Post-Mortem saw them pursue more of a tacky metalcore sound with lyrics unfortunately focused more on how much of a stud Garcia is and less on whether the Warriors of Time live for the battle (they do, for the record). The album included NHL 12’s “That Fire,” a 3/10 track with a 0/10 music video. The band broke up after their 2015 album flopped, and the members pursued separate vocations: drummer Steven Spence became a TikTok celebrity with 2.8 million followers, bassist Zakk Sandler briefly hopped on board the Falling in Reverse trainwreck, and Garcia became a porn star. But listen to “Warriors of Time” and you can forget all that and be transported to a simpler moment, when a bunch of teenagers put all their musical talent into making some heavy metal about how they would fight (they would fight!) ‘til the day that they die.

And now you can tell (you can tell!) all the stories about the Warriors of Time. 5/10

Bullet For My Valentine - “Hearts Burst into Fire”

Bullet For My Valentine were a staple in NHL games for about a decade, but never with quite the same sound. There was the screamy metalcore of “4 Words (To Choke Upon)” in NHL 06, the dopey chug-fest of “Your Betrayal” in NHL 11 (a 3/10), and the unforgivable Judas Priest pastiche “Riot” in NHL 14 (a 1/10). No matter what style of metal they adopted, it came out so polished and sterile and lacking any visceral energy or creativity that I have no choice but to conclude that these guys are not all that good at being a metal band.

You know what they are pretty good at apparently? Making straight up melodic pop. From the genuinely pretty intro to the compelling melodies in the verse to the flashy and over-the-top instrumental performances, “Hearts Burst into Fire” works just as much as their tough-guy material falls flat. There’s something almost relieving about hearing these guys actually play to their strengths for once. Things that I find stupid in their heavier songs, like the squeaky-clean production and tossed-in double-bass drumming, are actually somehow charming here. That includes the dumb lyrics; for example, why does the chorus go “when I see your face my hearts burst into fire?” Why not just say “my heart bursts into fire?” How many hearts does he have? These are the questions that drive me crazy when hearing a song like “Riot” but here I just nod along. 8/10

Coheed and Cambria - “The Running Free”

We haven’t seen a lot of prog-rock in this series, and despite Coheed and Cambria being one of the more popular bands working in that genre at the time, “The Running Free” barely counts. This is one of their occasional bids at mainstream airplay, and other than some vaguely sci-fi lyrics (which Genius informs me are about “Claudio Kilgannon getting ready to face his destiny as The Crowing and destroy the Keywork”) it’s a pretty straightforward alt-rock song. It’s not a great song that the most musically interesting part of the track is the electronic bleep blooping in the first few seconds. Like “Afterlife,” the chorus follows that generic four-chord progression, but unlike “Afterlife” there isn’t any cool shredding or fun variation, and the relative normality of the track only makes singer Claudio Sanchez’s trademark high-pitched and hyper-enunciating vocals seem even more bizarre. Too boring to be good prog, too weird to be good pop. 5/10

The Elms - “The Shake”

It’s time to say goodbye to possibly my most-maligned genre, throwback retro rock. Indiana’s The Elms, the type of band to make sure to specify that they play “rock and roll” music, mostly made agreeable if forgettable power pop along the lines of Tom Petty. But they decided to get their dancing grandpa slippers on for “The Shake,” a thankfully short upbeat bluesy tune about how all the guys and girls come out onto the dance floor to do a little move called the Shake. By gum, they shake it til’ they can’t shake it out no more. There are some okay bits and pieces here — the riff’s pretty good, the instrumental is generally competent enough — but I just can’t get over those Footloose-ass lyrics. 4/10

From First to Last - “Two as One”

Tampa’s From First to Last had a problem in 2007; after finding significant success in the post-hardcore scene, their lead singer Sonny Moore decided he was tired of shredding his vocal cords and wanted to try making electronic music under the name Skrillex. The band’s guitarist took the microphone and the band aggressively relaunched, polishing up their sound on a new self-titled record and pushing songs to five EA Sports titles. I can’t really contrast it with their older work since it really wasn’t my scene, but “Two as One” basically sounds like a emo-pop song with the overdrive cranked up and a more active kick pedal. The combination of the weak yell-y vocals, squeaky clean production, and generic riffing ultimately comes off kind of off-putting for whatever reason. I just have two more observations: first, I noticed that the album art for From First to Last is basically identical to PlayRadioPlay!’s from last week:

Second, I want to give the EA censor some credit. I’ve called him out for mangling a bunch of songs, but this is one of the few that he legitimately improved. There’s an unnecessary “fuck!” chucked into in the chorus which throws everything off and sounds stupid, and the track is better for losing it. But not that much better. 5/10

Johnossi - “Execution Song”

A short and punchy garage rock track from Sweden’s Johnossi — a duo consisting of a dude named John and his friend Ossi — “Execution Song” has that NHL 06 feel to it, probably in part because it comes from their 2005 album and not their 2008 one. I doubt it’s anybody’s favourite track, but it’s energetic enough. The most notable thing about it for me is that it’s another win for EA’s censor; like “Two as One,” the original chorus of “Execution Song” awkwardly crams in the word “fucking”, but in a display of McCartney-level talent Mr. Censor replaces it with a note from earlier in the song which not only sounds cleaner but improves the melody considerably. A+ work there. Johnossi would later abandon the garage rock sound to adopt whatever genre is trendy at a given time, showing up in later NHL games with the horrible “Air is Free” from NHL 18 (it’s a 2/10) and the forgettable Twenty One Pilots-esque “Something = Nothing” from NHL 22 (a 5/10). 7/10

The Kills - “Cheap and Cheerful”

For the past few years, especially since the end of pandemic restrictions, there’s been a bit of an obsession with the idea of “indie sleaze,” a thing that never really existed but can vaguely be used to describe a nostalgic vibe and aesthetic from the late 2000s including digital flash party photos and American Apparel ads. Whatever that trend is supposed to signify is captured in “Cheap and Cheerful,” with its “It’s alright to be mean” mantra and contrarian desire for a partner who’s unstable and dangerous. Backing up the cheerfully sneering vocals is a bare-bones rhythm section instrumental with little flourishes of palm muted guitar and marching band snare that refuses to really kick in. I can’t fully tell whether the austere arrangement helps the song or hinders it, and I maybe prefer the maximalist SebastiAn remix a bit more, but either way it’s a winner. 8/10

Millencolin - “Done is Done”

Swedish skate-punk vets Millencolin took a bit of a turn on their 2008 Machine 15 record, considered by most fans to be comfortably the worst of their 30 year career. On “Done is Done,” the breezy and up-tempo pop-punk I would most associate with them is replaced by string-infused melodramatic emo-pop, and it’s not a look I would say they wear particularly well. It’s a loud and pounding track but aside from the charm of the somewhat broken English in the chorus (“What’s done is done, you need to set your ways! And that is you, you in your future days!”) and a bit of creativity with the strings in the bridge it’s not a pleasant listen. 5/10

Panic! at the Disco - “Nine in the Afternoon”

Licensing the new Panic! at the Disco single was probably a no-brainer, but I can’t imagine anybody expected it to sound like “Nine in the Afternoon.” Panic! had launched themselves to the top of their scene with their cabaret-techno-mall-emo debut but chose to pivot sharply to sunny psychedelic baroque pop for their follow-up. This anti-commercial decision immediately split the band in two, laying the foundation for Panic! to become the banner for singer Brendon Urie’s solo career, but the result, Pretty Odd, has become something of a cult classic. “Nine in the Afternoon” is gorgeously orchestrated, has a great performance from Urie (whose voice usually triggers a fight-or-flight response from me), and although it’s not a great fit for a hockey game it shares the string section motif with a bunch of the other tracks here.

Panic! have unfortunately become a fixture of NHL games in recent years, and every time they release an album, you can pretty much count on an appearance: “Hallelujah” on NHL 16 (a 3/10), “High Hopes” on NHL 19 (a 2/10), and “Say it Louder” on NHL 23 (also a 2/10). That doesn’t take away from how briefly solid the group were, though. 8/10

Phantom Planet - “Do the Panic”

Phantom Planet’s two claims to fame come from the early 2000s: actor Jason Schwartzman was their drummer and their song “California” was the theme song of The OC, which ended up being a massive hit. They didn’t disappear after 2003, though, and spent the rest of the decade putting out moderately successful and acclaimed garage rock revival stuff along the lines of bands like OK Go and Spoon. “Do the Panic” is a down-the-middle entry in that genre with a simple but catchy riff, and the only issue I really have with it is the really annoying and feeble vocal, which I guess is supposed to put across the apocalyptic themes of the song but comes off more mopey than panicked and sabotages what would otherwise be a solid track. 6/10

Protest the Hero - “The Dissentience”

Whitby, Ontario’s Protest the Hero are back to do a whole lot of riffing and noodling in various time signatures. “The Dissentience” is somehow even less approachable than NHL 07’s “Divinity Within,” gleefully leaping between sections and solos within a structure that’s completely indecipherable to me. I’ve heard this track a bunch of times and I could not recount any of it except maybe a bit of the opening riff. That said, it all does sound pretty cool. Fortress seems to be considered their best album, and I’ll take fans’ word for it. I’ll give EA credit for creating a soundtrack where a song like this leads straight into a Panic! at the Disco song. 6/10

Sons & Daughters - “Gilt Complex”

EA didn’t exactly have a perfect record when looking across the pond, usually winding up with landfill NME stuff that sounded more like FIFA rejects than hockey music, but they do well with Scotland’s Sons & Daughters. “Gilt Complex” is a tense but catchy post-punk revival track with an especially great minimalist guitar part, from the simple but striking opening riff to the pitch-perfect contribution in the pre-chorus. Singer Adele Bethel approaches the song with the perfect gritted-teeth sneer and her dynamic performance guides the mood of the track and keeps it from feeling nearly as repetitive as it actually is. The only thing holding it back a bit for me is the chorus, which lands a bit awkward and unclenches the tension without releasing it in a satisfactory way. 8/10

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For the past couple weeks I’ve been using NHL draft analogies to talk about EA picking bands for these games, but this is more like their July 1st free agent frenzy. For me personally, none of the tracks here hit that stone cold classic level that so many of the ones I’ve written about this summer do, but there’s something more than the sum of its parts here. It might just be a coincidence given trends across genres, but there are some motifs between these songs that make the soundtrack as a whole work very well: the pretty extended intros, the string sections, the catchy and straightforward guitar riffs. As much as I miss the core of punk and alt-rock that anchored the earlier games, this is a list that really captures the moment in music, and that’s something I really value retrospectively.

Let’s get to these superlatives.

Most Valuable Player: “Afterlife”

This is a really tough one, but barely edges out “Hearts Burst into Fire” for me.

Aleksander Barkov Award: “Gilt Complex”

This one took me by surprise, I didn’t remember being into it at the time but I’ve listened to it a ton since I rediscovered it here.

Healthy Scratch: “The Shake”

I will not shake.

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 09 songs.

124 songs later, we’re finally at the end. I’ve had a couple people ask why not keep going, and the main reason is that NHL 09 is pretty much the last EA NHL soundtrack that I actually remember. EA introduced a feature where players could upload their own local music files into the game, and starting with NHL 10 the first thing I did when I got the new game was immediately replace the licensed soundtrack with my own playlists. By that point I didn’t need these games to discover new music, and (partly because EA continued the pivot to more mainstream artists) the soundtracks were more and more filled with stuff I already disliked. Why suffer through Dragonforce and Nickelback and Buckcherry and Bullet For My Valentine when I could just hear my own music? When the Xbox One games came out that that capability was taken away, they’d pivoted so hard to EDM, pop, and truck commerical rock that I just automatically started to turn the music off entirely.

I’m probably going to do one more wrap-up post next week (possibly ranking the soundtracks and doing some other miscellaneous things), but in the meantime I’d like to thank you guys for reading and following along. 124 song reviews totally over 26,000 words was a pretty ridiculous indulgence, but I had a lot of fun diving back into these songs, discovering old and new favourites, and getting to write about something other than expected goals for a change. I hope you enjoyed, whether you read one or all of them.

These were the community ratings for NHL 08:

1. A great song with this same concept is “When All Your Fears Collide” by Winnipeg’s Propagandhi.