Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War II - The Official Soundtrack (3LP) - Mint Vinyl Vinyl

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War II - The Official Soundtrack landed in 2009 alongside Relic’s leaner, meaner take on Warhammer’s brutal battlefields, and it still hits like a drop pod. Composed by Doyle W. Donehoo, who was part of Relic’s audio brain trust around the time of Company of Heroes, the score ditches the fat and goes straight for muscle. It mirrors the game’s shift from base building to scrappy, squad-level pushes, with cues that surge, break, then surge again. You can feel the weight of ceramite in the brass, the grit of a ruined hive world in the low strings, and the bark of command in those martial drum figures.

Donehoo writes with a clear sense of faction identity, which is half the fun. The Space Marines of the Blood Ravens get proud, chest-out motifs that move like a column advancing under fire, awash in deep brass and measured snare. Orks come through as a rolling, giddy avalanche, all tom-heavy rhythms and lurching riffs that feel half riot, half stampede. Eldar themes tilt toward the spectral, with cold choir pads and high woodwind colours that cut like glass. Then there are the Tyranids, whose music crawls under the skin. Dissonant clusters, scraping textures, and throbbing pulses make you picture chitin and teeth long before a gaunt rounds the corner. None of that is a lore lecture. It’s the way the album plays, and it gives you a reason to spin these tracks away from the screen.

The opening stretch sets the tone with slow-building menace and a sense of ritual, then gradually widens into battlefield panoramas. Donehoo is good at pacing. He’ll hang back in a minor-key fog, let a single horn line test the air, and then the whole arrangement snaps to attention as the percussion hits. It’s not wall-to-wall bombast. There are breathers where a haunted choir or tremolo string passage gives you a view of the wider war, as if the camera pulls up above a blasted sub-sector and you see how small the squads look under the stars. When the heavy cues return, they feel earned.

Sonically the record sits in that satisfying late 2000s space where orchestral sample libraries had grown teeth, but the writing still does the heavy lifting. The percussion is chunky, the brass convincingly savage, and the choral layers add that Warhammer sense of crumbling cathedral and eternal struggle. If you crank it on a decent system, the low end thumps like a power fist meeting armour plate. I’ve played it in a tiny Melbourne record store after hours, and it made the fluorescent lights feel like auspex glare. It’s built for volume.

Context helps. Dawn of War II was a bold pivot for Relic, and the music follows suit. Instead of open base-building arcs, missions were knife fights through ruins and jungles, with the Blood Ravens squaring up against Orks, Eldar, and the newly introduced Tyranids. The score supports those shorter, more dramatic beats, darting between ambush, rally, and last-stand. You hear it most in the transitions, where a brooding motif suddenly hardens into a march, as if a sergeant just barked orders over the vox.

If you’re the sort who hunts soundtracks that work as albums, this one stacks up. It has a strong thematic throughline, distinct textures for each faction, and enough dynamic range to keep your attention without the on-screen cues. It’s also one of those records that makes sense for collectors. If Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War II - The Official Soundtrack vinyl ever crosses your path, grab it. The heavy percussion and choir would bloom nicely in the analogue space, and the cover art possibilities are obvious. I’ve seen people ask for Doyle W. Donehoo vinyl on the shop floor, and while there isn’t a glut of Doyle W. Donehoo albums on vinyl, the appetite is there. If you like to buy Doyle W. Donehoo records online, keep an eye on specialty labels, and don’t sleep on local sellers dealing in vinyl records Australia wide.

As a game soundtrack it ticks the boxes you’d want: memorable motifs, clear character for each faction, and cues that punch hard without getting cartoonish. As a standalone listen, it’s surprisingly rich, with enough shadow and texture to reward a proper sit-down. Put it on, let the horns call the banners, and try not to start planning loadouts. That’s part of the charm. It invites you back into the war, but it also stands tall on the shelf next to your other black, brassy bruisers. And if a customer asks what to try after a spin, I point them here with a grin, then steer them toward the sci-fi section, just in case that Warhammer itch turns into a full-blown campaign.