MUMBAI: Mumbai, India— August 6, 2024 — Today, Amazon MGM Studios announced The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Season Two: Amazon Original Series Soundtrack) will be released worldwide on August 23rd, tied to the highly-anticipated return of the series later this month. Available across all music streaming services, the full episodic score for the second season of the Amazon Original series was composed by Emmy® Award-winner Bear McCreary (Da Vinci’s Demons). The soundtrack will also include two new songs featuring renowned vocalists Rufus Wainwright and Jens Kidman, respectively.
Digital and streaming of the Season Two soundtrack will be available on August 23rd, and on that same date, vinyl can be pre-ordered at Amazon Music and HERE. A special Collector’s Edition will also be available for pre-order exclusively on Amazon Music. Following each episode, Amazon Music will release a weekly soundtrack album containing the score for that episode, only available on Amazon Music.
For the epic first season of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, composer Bear McCreary wove a tapestry of symphonic orchestra, bombastic percussion, and folk instruments from across Europe and North Africa, combined with solo vocalists and choirs singing in the iconic languages of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books. For the gripping second season, McCreary has built atop that foundation with dynamic new themes and colors, including Bulgarian women’s choir and gadulka for Rhûn, children’s choir for the pastoral city of Eregion, Hardanger fiddle for new character Estrid, and deathly whispers for the terrifying Barrow-wights.
After collaborating with the iconic Fiona Apple for the first season’s “Where the Shadows Lie,” McCreary continues the tradition by inviting two featured vocalists to join him on new songs for the Season Two score. Grammy-nominated artist Rufus Wainwright brings thoughtful introspection to his rendition of “Old Tom Bombadil.” “The Last Ballad of Damrod,” a song about a vicious Hill-troll, is brought to terrifying, screaming life by Jens Kidman, the unforgettable lead singer of Grammy-nominated Swedish extreme-metal band Meshuggah. Even while balancing these many diverse and eclectic musical influences, McCreary always refers to Tolkien’s writings for inspiration. “I am honored to continue forward on this journey, bringing the events of Tolkien’s Second Age to life on the screen,” says McCreary.
Series stars Sophia Nomvete, Benjamin Walker, Rory Kinnear, and Daniel Weyman also lend their vocal talents to several songs on the soundtrack. Nomvete’s dwarven character of Princess Disa is a lead resonator who sings to the mountain, while Walker, who plays an Elven king, sings a sorrowful tune in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish language. Kinnear, who joins the show this season as the first live-action version of fan-favorite character Tom Bombadil, and Weyman, who portrays the mysterious Stranger, also collaborate on a reprise of “Old Tom Bombadil.”
“This new soundtrack is a stunning companion to the series’ continued exploration of the Second Age” said Bob Bowen, worldwide head of music for Amazon MGM Studios. “With the debut of Season Two on the horizon, we’re excited to give fans a further glimpse into the epic series.”
Season Two of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will debut on Prime Video on August 29, 2024, in more than 240 countries and territories around the world, and in multiple languages.
In Season Two of The Rings of Power, Sauron has returned. Cast out by Galadriel, without an army or ally, the rising Dark Lord must now rely on his own cunning to rebuild his strength and oversee the creation of the Rings of Power, which will allow him to bind all the peoples of Middle-earth to his sinister will. Building on Season One’s epic scope and ambition, the new season plunges even its most beloved and vulnerable characters into a rising tide of darkness, challenging each to find their place in a world that is increasingly on the brink of calamity. Elves and dwarves, orcs and men, wizards and Harfoots… as friendships are strained and kingdoms begin to fracture, the forces of good will struggle ever more valiantly to hold on to what matters to them most of all… each other.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth's history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.
The first season of The Rings of Power has been an unprecedented success, viewed by more than 100 million people worldwide, with more than 32 billion minutes streamed. The highly anticipated series attracted more than 25 million global viewers on its first day, marking the biggest premiere in the history of Prime Video, and also debuted as the No. 1 show on Nielsen’s overall streaming chart in its opening weekend. The show has driven more Prime sign-ups worldwide during its launch window than any other previous content to date. The season finale also created a global cultural moment, with multiple series-themed hashtags, including #TheRingsofPower and others, trending in 27 countries across Twitter for over 426 cumulative hours throughout the weekend.
The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is produced by showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. They are joined by executive producers Lindsey Weber, Callum Greene, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, and Gennifer Hutchison, along with co-executive producer and director Charlotte Brändström, producers Kate Hazell and Helen Shang, and co-producers Clare Buxton, Andrew Lee, Glenise Mullins, and Matthew Penry-Davey. Additional Season Two directors include Sanaa Hamri and Louise Hooper.
To view and download The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power assets, please visit the Amazon Studios press site HERE.
TRACK LIST (DIGITAL):
1. Old Tom Bombadil (feat. Rufus Wainwright)
2. Rhûn (feat. The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices)
3. Life in the Canyon
4. Golden Leaves (feat. Benjamin Walker)
5. Cirdan’s Perfection
6. Stone Singers (feat. Sophia Nomvete)
7. Sandstorm at the Well*
8. Eregion
9. Emissary at the Forge
10. Shelob
11. The Pyre (feat. Raya Yarbrough)
12. Estrid
13. The Great Eagle
14. The River-daughter (feat. Raya Yarbrough)
15. Barrow-wights
16. Forgiveness Takes an Age*
17. Candles on the Tide (feat. Clydene Jackson)*
18. Army of Orcs
19. The Last Ballad of Damrod (feat. Jens Kidman)
20. Battle for Eregion
21. Durin’s Bane*
22. Last Temptation
23. The Staff
24. Old Tom Bombadil Reprise (feat. Rory Kinnear and Daniel Weyman)
25. The Sun Yet Shines
*Track excluded from the vinyl release
About Bear McCreary:
Two-time GRAMMY® Award-nominated, Emmy® and BAFTA Award-winning composer Bear McCreary began his career as a protégé of legendary film composer Elmer Bernstein, before bursting onto the scene scoring the influential and revered series Battlestar Galactica in 2004. Since then, McCreary has been a four-time Emmy® Award nominee and Emmy winner for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme for Da Vinci’s Demons, a musical palindrome that sounds the same forwards and backwards, and has won multiple International Film Music Critics Association Awards. He has been named the 23rd Most Definitive Bear in Popular Culture by the Ringer and has also been the subject of a clue on Jeopardy! Recent projects include the Amazon Original hit series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power; Foundation for Apple TV+; the beloved Starz series Outlander; Netflix’s Academy Award-nominated documentary Crip Camp (produced by Barack and Michelle Obama); Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla: King of the Monsters; Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot Films’ 10 Cloverfield Lane; AMC’s global phenomenon The Walking Dead; Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.; and the video game Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge for Disney. McCreary’s acclaimed scores to Sony PlayStation’s blockbusters God of War and God of War Ragnarök have earned him honors including a GRAMMY® Award nomination for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and awards from the Game Awards, the D.I.C.E. Awards, the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, the International Film Music Critics Association, the ASCAP Composers Choice Awards, and the BAFTA Games Awards.
In 2024, McCreary released The Singularity, an epic hard-rock concept album and accompanying graphic novel. The album, which he first began writing as a teenager, features a legendary lineup of rock talent, including Slash, Serj Tankian (System of a Down), Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Rufus Wainwright, and many more. The Singularity was co-written and co-produced by McCreary’s brother, Brendan McCreary, who is also the album’s primary vocalist. The accompanying story is revealed on the album in three spoken-word monologues lifted directly from the graphic novel, performed by celebrated actors Lee Pace (Foundation, The Hobbit), Danai Gurira (Black Panther, The Walking Dead), and Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy, God of War Ragnarök).
McCreary has long enjoyed collaborating with artists from across the musical spectrum, including Hozier, Fiona Apple, Shirley Manson (Garbage), and the late Sinéad O’Connor. He has composed concert commissions for the Calder Quartet and Getty Center, the Hagen Philharmonic and Ballet in Germany, the Television Academy, the Seattle Symphony, and the Golden State Pops Orchestra. In July 2014, Maestro Gustavo Dudamel conducted a suite of McCreary’s music with the L.A. Philharmonic and L.A. Master Chorale at the Hollywood Bowl.
About Rufus Wainwright:
Praised by The New York Times for his “genuine originality,” Rufus Wainwright has established himself as one of the great male vocalists, songwriters, and composers of his generation. The New York-born, Montreal-raised singer-songwriter has released ten studio albums to date, three DVDs, and three live albums including the GRAMMY® nominated Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. He has collaborated with artists such as Elton John, Burt Bacharach, Miley Cyrus, David Byrne, Boy George, Joni Mitchell, Pet Shop Boys, Heart, Carly Rae Jepsen, Robbie Williams, Jessye Norman, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Sting, and producer Mark Ronson, among many others. He has written two operas and numerous songs for movies and TV.
His 2020 GRAMMY® nominated studio album of original songs, Unfollow the Rules, finds Wainwright at the peak of his powers, entering artistic maturity with passion, honesty, and a new-found fearlessness. In 2023, he embarked on a journey to his family folk roots with his newly-released, GRAMMY® nominated album Folkocracy featuring reinvented folk duets with artists like Chaka Khan, Brandi Carlile, John Legend and Anohni and many more.
His first musical of John Cassavetes’ Opening Night for the West End with Ivo van Hove premiered at the Gielgud Theater in March 2024. During this time, he also completed a Requiem which premiered with the Orchestre Philharmonique de la Radio France in June of 2024. Co-commissioners for the Requiem are the Master Chorale in Los Angeles, the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, the Helsinki Symphony Orchestra, the RTE Orchestra in Ireland, and the Royal Ballet London.
About Jens Kidman:
Jens Kidman is the vocalist and the frontman in the internationally acclaimed metal band Meshuggah from Stockholm, Sweden. Meshuggah was formed in Umeå, Sweden back in 1987 in which Jens was one of the founding members.
Although Jens is known as a vocalist, his musical journey started as a guitarist. He received acoustic guitar lessons at school which he hated because he loved punk and distorted guitars and wanted to play music in the likes of Sex Pistols. At the age of 13, his parents gave him an electric guitar which set his music career in motion. It allowed him to form a band with a drummer kid in the neighborhood, Fredrik Thordendal (who later became one of the guitarists in Meshuggah), in a small town Sävar, located just north of Umeå, Sweden. Jens’ musical style developed throughout the years. His punk influence made him want to listen to metal bands with attitude such as Megadeth and Anthrax. Then the door of metal opened for him. His earlier favorites include Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, Accept, Black Sabbath, and Metallica.
As a singer and guitarist Jens had been in a couple of bands, The Voices, Metallien, and Calipash. After finally settling in with Meshuggah, Meshuggah released their first self titled album in 1989, commonly known as “Psykisk testbild” (Mental Test Pattern [EN]). In the earlier albums of Meshuggah, you can hear Jens’ Megadeth influence in his compositions and his critical attitudes to modern society in his dark lyrics. Jens continued to play the guitar and sing, however, he decided to shed the responsibility as a live guitar player, in order to concentrate more on his vocals in the year 1993. Since then, guitar has become merely a tool for his compositions. The album “Destroy Erase Improve” (1995) cemented Meshuggah’s name in the history of heavy metal. One of the fans’ most favourite riffs in the song “Future Breed Machine” was written by Jens. Meshuggah have released a total of 10 full-length studio albums and toured all over the world including Europe, North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.
In addition to his main music endeavor with Meshuggah, Jens occasionally lends his voice to external projects with friends. He’s been featured as a guest vocalist in songs by bands such as Mushroom Head, Monolith, and Holy Moses. The most recent project Jens is involved in is the concept album “Singularity” by Bear McCreary. Bear is a celebrated film composer known for his works in PlayStation games The God of War, television series Battlestar Galactica, Outlander, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Jens voice can be heard on “Roko’s Basilisk”, one of the tracks in Singularity.
The personal life of Jens is just as extreme as his music taste. He is a motor enthusiast and likes automobiles with engines that scream. His interests range widely from classic cars from the 1950s, hot rods and rat rods, to modern American muscle cars. He also loves watching mixed martial arts.
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