It's time to return to the music of Middle-earth. Season 3 of Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres exclusively on November 11, and Amazon MGM Studios has announced that Bear McCreary's Season 3 soundtrack will be released digitally on November 13. The album has 22 tracks. CD and vinyl editions will be available to order the same day through Mutant Records, and an expanded digital collector's edition will follow later. For anyone who has followed Seasons 1 and 2, that means you can check the music against the show just two days after the premiere.

Five Years After the Fall of Eregion: The Sound on the Eve of the One Ring

Season 3 is set five years after the fall of the Elven city of Eregion. Sauron's armies keep overrunning Middle-earth, and only the Dwarven kingdom of Khazad-dûm and the Elven strongholds of Lindon and Rivendell still stand. In Barad-dûr in Mordor, Sauron is obsessed with finishing the One Ring that will rule them all. It's the darkest stretch of the series so far. The season runs eight episodes: the first four drop at once, followed by two each on November 18 and 25.

The story's weight shows up plainly in the tracklist: "Insurrection in Númenor," "Battle at Gundabad," "Fell Beast," "Mûmakil on the March," "The Balrog," "Sammath Naur," "One for the Dark Lord," "Embarking from Barad-dûr"... Just reading the titles from top to bottom, you can feel the war and ruin closing in. Names like "Sammath Naur" (the Chambers of Fire in Mount Doom) and "The Doom of Men" will put any Tolkien reader on edge. This season also reportedly gives a Balrog lines for the first time in the series, voiced by Simon Pegg, so "The Balrog" should be one of the album's big moments.

A Meshuggah Voice at Track 2: The Outlier Called "Nazgnagôl"

The track that jumps out most is number two, "Nazgnagôl," featuring Jens Kidman, the vocalist of Swedish metal band Meshuggah, along with Morgan Sorne. Nazgnagôl is an armored servant of Sauron who first appears this season. In other words, the new enemy's theme gets the full force of an extreme-metal voice.

McCreary has always been good at bringing folk instruments and rock energy into an orchestral score. In The Walking Dead, Battlestar Galactica and Godzilla: King of the Monsters, he has happily gone past the limits of a traditional score. On The Rings of Power, Howard Shore wrote the main title theme and McCreary has written the score. It'll be interesting to hear where a metal voice fits next to the classic Middle-earth sound Shore established. Listening to the whole album may show that this season's sense of an intruding, foreign presence was built in on purpose.

An Album Told Through Voices: AURORA, Disa and Galadriel

The other notable thing is how many voices are on it. The opener, "Morning Shall Come," is an original song co-written by McCreary and Norwegian singer-songwriter AURORA, released early on November 6. Beyond that:

  • "The Most Devoted": featuring Katrine Stenbekk
  • "Searching in Stone": featuring Sophia Nomvete, who plays the Dwarven princess Disa
  • "Echoes of Ancient Music": featuring Morfydd Clark, who plays Galadriel
  • "Where the Shadows Lie (for Children's Choir)": a children's choir version that closes the album

Guests, cast members and a choir show up at key points throughout the album. Disa's singing stood out in Season 1 as the Dwarves' song that speaks to stone, so it's a nice touch that "Stone" is in this track's title too. And the closing title, "Where the Shadows Lie," is the last line of the Ring verse. A season about the Ring nearing completion ends with children singing of the land where the shadows lie. That choice alone hints at how McCreary wants the season to land.

Two Days After the Premiere, Listen in Track Order

Seasons 1 and 2 put a huge amount of music out into the world, including per-episode digital releases. This time it's a tighter 22-track selection, with an expanded edition to come. For now, these 22 tracks are the place to hear what kind of Middle-earth McCreary has drawn between two extremes: a metal roar and a children's choir. Watch the first four episodes on November 11, then play the album straight through on the 13th. It looks set to be a dense soundtrack well worth spending those two days on.