Silksong is a very good game. A VERY good game. I waited seven years for it and I was met with a masterpiece wrapped up for the price of twenty something dollars and the pain-staking process of combing through bosses and areas to progress.

But there is one track in this game.

One track that struck something very deep in me, and I don't know why.

Choral Chambers.

I haven't reached the area yet. Have no idea what's waiting for me in there, since I've been avoiding spoilers like the plague. But when I was perusing the soundtrack for reasons unknown, I flicked Choral Chambers on and I was *stationary.* Usually, soundtracks are something I listen to in the background (making food, working, etc), but this one demanded I stand still and listen.

There's something almost religious about it. The vocals in the back, rising and falling like a church organ - the soft piano, mumbling a symphony to go along with the orchestra. Turning it on felt like walking into a chapel, unknowing of what creature lies at the altar. What God I'm about to stumble in upon and worship with everything I have. It's so achingly distant yet sad in its entirety that I'm almost at a loss for words of how to describe it.

City of Tears is still my favorite game soundtrack of all time, but by God, Choral Chambers is fighting tooth and nail to take that spot. It feels like watching a stained glass window you know holds no ties to the divine, and still making out God between the pieces of cement binding the glass together. A divine that will never love you, never touch your skin like another of man, and still falling to your knees in worship. Because what else can you do? What else rises to the surface of humanity when struck with the beauty of the indescribable, other than to kneel?

Silksong is a critique of capitalism. This is clear enough from the pollution of Bilewater and the unending labor of the creatures in the Underworks and the fallen husks who weren’t strong enough to climb the mountain, and it’s easy to hate the Citadel. At the same time, what Silksong gets right is its suggestion of how gorgeous the dream is, even in the last days of its decline.