Playlist for The Night Chemist

If you haven’t noticed from the website background, I’m a musician. Specifically, I’m a guitarist and a vocalist. Music is a huge part of my life and always has been. I’ve played the guitar since I was ten, and I’ve been singing since I first learned to speak. One of my earliest memories is of playing in the kiddie pool in my backyard, circa age three or four, making up a song about trees.

All that to say, I like music. A lot. I’m not one of those writers (or readers) who likes to have music on in the background while I write (or read). I fixate too much on the music itself to the point of distraction from what I’m supposed to be doing. I lose myself in the melody and the lyrics instead of whatever it is I’m supposed to be writing/reading. If there’s music, I’m gonna music. If I’m writing, I need silence.

If you’ve been here for more than a minute, this won’t come as a surprise to you, but I’m something of a metalhead. Favorite concert? When Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium co-headlined the Poisoned Ascendency tour and played in Washington, DC last summer. EPIC. Favorite band? Any given day, it’s a tossup between Black Veil Brides, Periphery, and Lumen (a Russian dissident band). Anyway, that’s the kind of music I listen to; it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Favorite song? Don’t ask me that. That question is too hard.

I discovered Sleep Token when I already finished writing my first draft of The Night Chemist (working title for now; what shall it’s final title be? No one knows) and was halfway through drafting its sequel. By ‘discovered,’ though, I really mean more like started listening to. I was tangentially aware of the band since their album Take Me Back to Eden came out, because Bob—former (alas) rhythm guitarist for Olga’s Burning Sparrows—introduced me to them, but their music didn’t really resonate with me until more recently. Once it did...boy howdy, did it resonate. They became the unofficial soundtrack of this series I’ve been writing; “Alkaline” became the FMC’s theme song. The title track of Take Me Back to Eden...the first time I listened to it, I mean really listened to it, I got chills because the chorus fit PERFECTLY with a specific scene.

A specific spicy scene (look to the left).

So I decided to make a full playlist to capture the vibes of the book and follow along (loosely) with the plot. There is a lot of Sleep Token on it (no shock there), but a lot of other bands, too, which run the gamut from metalcore to power metal to not really metal at all, really, yet are still in my regular rotation. Some of it’s old; some of it’s new. All of it’s good (debatable, but to me it is lol).

I refuse to use Spotify because they’re terrible for the actual musicians on their platform, from lack of royalties to their pushing of AI “music” (ugh), so I built my playlist in Apple music instead. Might be only marginally better, but I gotta stream my jams from somewhere. If you use a different streaming service and want to build the playlist on that, have at it! I included the list of the songs in order. And if nothing else, I at least recommend you check out some of the bands. Even if you just want to binge Sleep Token, Dayseeker, Spiritbox, and Bad Omens, that will give you a solid vibe of the book.

Link to Playlist on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/the-night-chemist/pl.u-06ox7Xyuoqke4R

1.     Bad Omens, “Nowhere To Go”

2.     Ghost, “Hunter’s Moon”

3.     Dark Divine, “Permanent”

4.     Catch Your Breath, “Lost”

5.     Malevolence, “Silhouette”

6.     Kami Kehoe, “Dopamine”

7.     Dayseeker, “Without Me”

8.     Sleep Token, “Chokehold”

9.     Soen, “Jinn”

10.  Opal in Sky, “The Sacral”

11.  Blackbriar, “Through the Crevice”

12.  Motionless in White, “Another Life”

13.  Pierce the Veil, “Kiss Me Now”

14.  Spiritbox, “Blessed Be”

15.  Falconer, “Entering Eternity”

16.  Dayseeker, “Shapeshift”

17.  In Hearts Wake, “Flow”

18.  Architects, “Royal Beggars”

19.  STARSET, “Manifest”

20.  Twenty One Pilots, “Chlorine”

21.  Bring Me the Horizon, “Follow You”

22.  Florence & the Machine, “Howl”

23.  Sevendust, “Is This the Real You”

24.  Imminence, “Infectious”

25.  Bullet For My Valentine, “Letting You Go”

26.  Counterparts, “You’re Not You Anymore”

27.  Dark Tranquility, “In My Absence”

28.  36 Crazyfists, “Only a Year or So”

29.  Coheed and Cambria, “Dark Side of Me”

30.  Falconer, “Portals of Light”

31.  Florence & the Machine, “No Light, No Light”

32.  Sleep Token, “Alkaline”

33.  Within Temptation, “Memories”

34.  Arch Enemy, “You Will Know My Name”

35.  Nightwish, “Storytime”

36.  Polyphia, “Nightmare”

37.  Meliorist, “Memories”

38.  Poison the Well, “Nerdy”

39.  Erra, “Hourglass”

40.  Oceans of Slumber, “A Path to Broken Stars”

41.  Bad Omens, “Never Know”

42.  Bring Me the Horizon, “Can You Feel My Heart”

43.  Earshot, “Wait”

44.  Silent Theory, “Afterthought”

45.  Spiritbox, “Too Close/Too Late”

46.  My Chemical Romance, “Ghost of You”

47.  Insomnium, “While We Sleep”

48.  Kittie, “Into the Darkness”

49.  Black Veil Brides, “Ballad of the Lonely Hearts”

50.  Twenty One Pilots, “The Contract”

51.  Lacuna Coil, “Reckless”

52.  Kamelot, “Under Grey Skies”

53.  I prevail, “Scars”

54.  Jacky Vincent, “If You Were Mine”

55.  Bullet For My Valentine, “My Reverie”

56.  Dayseeker, “Crawl Back to My Coffin”

57.  Sleep Token, “Rain”

58.  Periphery, “Lune”

59.  Sleep Token, “Take Me Back to Eden”

60.  STARSET, “Dark On Me”

61.  Nevertel & Sleep Theory, “Break the Silence”

62.  Meliorist, “Sins & Secrets”

63.  Currents, “Forever Marked”

64.  Vigil of War, “Stitch Me Up”

65.  Black Veil Brides, “Die For You”

66.  Delain, “Moth to a Flame”

67.  Architects, “Mortal After All”

68.  Motionless in White, “Eternally Yours”

69.  Sleep Token, “Even in Arcadia”

70.  Dreamshade, “Autumn Leaves”

71.  Imminence, “God Fearing Man”

72.  Bring Me the Horizon, “True Friends”

73.  Fleshwater, “Last Escape”

74.  Amaranthe, “Burn With Me”

75.  Black Veil Brides, “We Stitch These Wounds”

76.  Archers, “The Dirt”

77.  In This Moment, “Fighter”

78.  STARSET, “Let it Die”

79.  New Years Day, “Skeletons”

80.  Jinjer, “Pisces”

81.  Unleash the Archers, “Through Stars”

82.  Erra, “Orchid”

83.  Poppy, “Guardian”

84.  Nita Strauss & Alissa White-Gluz, “The Wolf You Feed”

85.  Kim Dracula, “Iris”

86.  Periphery, “Wax Wings”

87.  Epica, “Our Destiny”

88.  Bad Omens, “Just Pretend”

89.  Sleep Token, “Provider”