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Music / Miracle of Sound

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Gavin Dunne, video game-themed musician

Gavin Dunne (born 1980) is an Irish indie musician who produces mostly video game themed music, under the name "Miracle of Sound".

Miracle of Sound began as a hobby during a lull in Dunne's music career. After playing Half-Life 2 he began thinking of song lyrics related to Gordon Freeman, the protagonist. He wrote it all down, recorded it and released it on the net. After seeing the mild popularity of the song, Dunne wrote and released more.

This side project quickly became popular after his Commander Shepard song was released and went viral. Soon afterward, his show was picked up by The Escapist for a biweekly (later monthly) music video, with a monthly behind-the-scenes article called "Encore". He left The Escapist on good terms in 2015.

All his work can be found on his YouTube channel, and various music storefronts and streaming services, such as Bandcamp and Spotify.

He also has an official website, which can be found here.

As of April 2019, Gavin has released twelve albums, detailed below:
    open/close all folders 

    Level # ( 2011 - Present) 
Released yearly since 2011, these albums are the bulk of Gavin's output, being Compilation Rereleases of all the singles he's released throughout the respective year. The vast majority of the songs are inspired by video games, ranging from the ultra-popular like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to the more obscure or Cult Classic like Planescape: Torment.

Less frequently, a song will have been inspired by a movie, such as Guardians of the Galaxy, or a TV show, with Game of Thrones being the most frequently highlighted. Occasionally a song will be completely original, with no ties to any previously existing media.

The tracks are remastered from their original single release.

    Press X To Rock (2011) 
A selection of tracks from Gavin's first album, Level 1, Press X To Rock consists of his biggest hits from 2011. The only Miracle of Sound album to get a physical release, it was released exclusively on The Escapist's online store and is now out of print.

Windows identifies the genre as "Awesome".

    Vistas (2014) 
Vistas is a collection of instrumental, relaxing ambient tracks, most of which are not based on any particular media. Includes an instrumental version of "The Call", which was inspired by The Elder Scrolls Online.

Another track, "Hitoshio", was rereleased on Gavin's YouTube channel in 2017 as a tribute to Ōkami, in celebration of the announcement of the eighth-gen remastered version of said game.

    Metal Up (2015) 
Taking a small break from his usual output, Metal Up consists entirely of original metal songs. When released, this was the best-selling Miracle of Sound album, as well as the best-selling metal album on iTunes.

    Collaborations and Unsorted Songs 
Despite all the albums, a handful of the singles have never found their way onto any of them:

Gavin has also contributed to many other artists' tracks:

Tropes associated with Gavin 'Miracle of Sound' Dunne include:

  • Added Alliterative Appeal: Uses this in spades.
    • Witness its use in "Road Rage".
      "Guns and gas and gods!"
      "I will redden the road, release the rage!"
      "I can hear the drums in the distance / Bedlam in the blare."
    • "London Town" is another prominent example.
      "Slaves in seas of soot we drown,
      come on down, to London Town,
      the cogs they creak, and the pistons pound,
      come on down, to London Town".
    • And another one in "Fires Fade":
      "Cold kings clutch crumbling crowns"
    • The chorus to "Wheatley's Song" includes this line:
      "There is no conundrum that my core cannot compute."
    • One more in "Ditto":
      "Courtship of chemical and chrome"
    • "When Forever Comes To Be"
      "Plots and plans to pluck the petals free."
    • In the refrain of Shadow of the Ash:
      Broken Blade, revenge is calling,
      Savage Shade, in the Dark I Dash.
      Broken Blade, Black Blood falling,
      Shadow of the ash.
  • Affectionate Parody: "Shooter Guy" is one to the entire First-Person Shooter genre and the people who play it. More specifically for "modern military shooters" (Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Ghost Recon, Medal of Honor (2010), Battlefield, etc.)
  • Alliterative Title: "Fires Far", "Fires Fade" and "Forever Flame" are about the same game series and start with the same letter. Subverted with "You Died", which is Odd Name Out due to Early-Installment Weirdness.
  • Arc Words: He does this for songs about games in the same series (if not about the same game):
    • For his Assassin's Creed songs he has "Justice runs in crimson rivers"
    • For his Bioshock songs he has "And I dream of the (blank)".
    • For his Dark Souls songs, he uses "Mourning bells."
    • For his main series Fallout songs, he uses "Sterile Soil/Will Harden/Wasted World/My Garden"
    • For his 3 GTA V songs, he has "I get in my car and drive"
    • The Far Cry songs all feature the line "Come into this world of mine".
    • Red Dead Redemption and its sequel both feature the line "There ain't no more cowboys, only men with violent hearts".
    • All three Cyberpunk 2077 songs feature the line "running out on the edge".
  • Art Shift: The first few seconds of "Hell To Pay" start with Doom starting in the old sprite graphic and midi music before shifting to modern graphics and shredding guitars.
  • Author Appeal: Loves to layer his vocals, experiment with non-mainstream genres and tends to default to or infuse things with metal. Also Skyrim. More specifically, for "Life in Bullet Time", he took cues from Faith No More, to the point of him admitting that he basically ripped them off. In an appreciative way.
  • Author Avatar: In his "Place In Nature" video for Monster Hunter: World, he designs his character to look like himself. It's best seen when he and the Handler are escaping the Great Jagras at the beginning of the game.
  • Auto-Tune: Averted, in that the artist has never used it and has gone on multiple rants saying that it is one of the biggest problems with today's music industry.
  • Badass Boast: The chorus of "When Winter Comes" can be considered one from the perspective of the White Walkers.
    Walls will not hold the winter
    Over and under crawl
    Walls will not hold the winter
    All in the way will fall
  • Ballad of X: Did one for Clayton Carmine.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Do not accuse him of using Auto-Tune.
    • On Social Media, it's been making claims that every country's politics and social issues are exactly like America's.
  • Bilingual Bonus:
    • In "The Day The World Died", there's a brief verse in slightly broken Russian, saying: День, когда умер мир; which translates to: "The Day The World Died".
    • Similarly, "Silver and Steel" has the lines with the song title sung both in English and Polish, the original language of the Witcher novels. According to his blog, he found out later that the pronunciation is completely wrong.
    • "My Revolution" has verses in French. People seem to be split on how accurate the grammar and pronounciation is.
    • "Sirona" and "Gráinne Mhaol, Queen Of Pirates" from Metal Up have verses in Irish.
    • The Skyrim song "Legends of the Frost" has a verse in the dragon language from the game.
    • A rather subtle one in "Mojave Song": the verse about the New California Republic contains the line "Resurrect the ol' soul of America." "Oso" is Spanish (the earliest European settlers of California) for bear.
    • "Soul of Sand," for Dune (2021), has guest singer Sheymi Rochdi providing vocals in Arabic, which is extremely fitting.
  • Blog: He occasionally produces vlogs, often talking about what he's working on next, or doing things like thanking everybody who got him to where he is now.
  • Call to Adventure: "The Call" is about this, specifically about the people of Tamriel to rise up and answer the threats of Molag Bal's invasion and the civil war for the Empire's throne.
  • Call-Back: Gavin really likes this trope. Also crosses over with Arc Words above:
    • "Take it Back", a song made for Mass Effect 3, has a bridge that includes the first line from "Commander Shepard", his first Mass Effect song, and a line similar to the chorus from "Normandy" , his second.
    • "Blood Of The Creed" ends with the verse "Musket guns and silver slivers/Justice runs in crimson rivers/Words of ancient truth we follow/Bleed these veins into tomorrow". The exact same verse turns up in "His Father's Son". The first part ("Justice Runs In Crimson Rivers..") turns up yet again in "Beneath The Black Flag," as well as an instrumental nod to "His Father's Son." "My Revolution" contains the verse "La justice est une rivière rouge", French for "Justice is a red river." Following that is the verse "Crimson are the rivers/Bleed our grief into the sea" from London Town. "Hallowed Land" has "The Nile runs red tonight". "Crimson are the rivers" appears again in "My Odyssey", along with numerous other lines that will sound familiar to people who have listened to his previous Assassin's Creed songs, such as "Take a leap of faith" and especially the lines at the end of the song (just listen to "My Revolution" followed by "My Odyssey"), "Valhalla Calling" also includes the lines Wind and the waves will carry me/Wind and the waves will set me free" echoing "My Odyssey", as well as "sails a-swaying on the crimson rivers."
    • Also shows up in Ballad of Clay Carmine and The Grind ("We won't stop because we're brothers in blood now/We'll meet again at the end of the line").
    • "Hengsha" shares part of its melody with "The New Black Gold".
    • "Joker's Song" references "Mind of the Bat" ("I have studied the mind of this bat").
      • "Mind of the Bat" is again referenced in "I Am The Night" ("Check my head, I guess the joke's on me/I'm not laughing at the irony").
    • "Dream of the Sky" has this call back to "Little Sister" towards the end: "And I dream of the sky/Broken clouds drifting by/And I dream of the sky/My utopian lie".
      • "Dream of Goodbye" has a similar call back at the end: "And I dream of goodbye/Sinking sea falling sky/And I dream of goodbye/No more tears well's run dry".
    • "The Call" has a clear instrumental callback to "Nord Mead", and according to Gavin, it also has a hint of "Legends of the Frost" in the chorus and "Sovngarde Song" in the harp and verses.
      • Similarly, "Winter Still" reprises some of "Sovngarde Song" in instrumental form.
      • The 2016 version of "Sovngarde Song" features an instrumental callback to "Legends of the Frost" at the end.
    • All of his GTA V songs ("Drive", "Rampage", and "Hard Cash") contain the line "Get in my car and drive", or some variant thereof, which was part of the chorus of "Drive". "Hard Cash" also ends with the same lyrics as "Drive" ("Gonna drive my blues away/just another sunny day").
    • His Dark Souls II "Fires Far" ends with a melodic call-back to "You Died", his first Dark Souls song. Used again for the Dark Souls III song.
    • Part of the chorus of "Shadow Of The Ash" is a lyrical call back to "Call Of Home" his previous The Lord of the Rings related song: "Through rubble, rock and stone/The ashes are my home/The silver sting of hatred/It creeps into my bones".
    • "All As One" has a couple of musical callbacks to "Age of the Dragon" and actually uses a slightly modified version of its chorus towards the end.
    • "Lady of Worlds" has several lyrical callbacks to Gavin's earlier Witcher 3 song "Wake the White Wolf", such as the words "hatred's sails" to describe the Wild Hunt, and the line "Wake the wolf with a distant roar" appearing in one of Geralt's parts.
    • "I am the Night", released to celebrate the release of Batman: Arkham Knight, calls back to almost all of his previous Batman-related songs. One set of lines and a short melody change calls back to "Mind of the Bat", while the general feel calls back to "Rise" (which isn't even related to the Arkham series but the Dark Knight trilogy!).
    • "London Town", as well as having the usual callback to the line "Justice runs in crimson rivers" has several contrasts to "My Revolution." The line "Revolution holds us bound" in the chorus is the opposite of "My revolution sets me free" from the other song's chorus. As well, the lines "Cry Revolution, Broken Dreams" and "Cruel Revolution, Smoke and Steam" are sung in the same way as My Revolution's chorus.
    • "Friends to Foes" has the line "I was there by your side" from "Reclaimer", sung in a darker, more hushed and reserved tone, to give it a more remorseful feel instead of the more angry, mournful tone of the line in "Reclaimer".
    • "Some Things Never Change" has a lot of motifs carried over from "Beauty Bleak", such as its somber tone and focus on pianos, as well as using the chorus "Sterile soil/Will harden/Wasted world/My garden"
    • "The Path", due to being his conclusion to the Witcher Saga, carries a nice lyrical nod to "Wake The White Wolf".
      Wake The White Wolf: Wake the white wolf at the dawn of war, the end of the age is a-comin' now. (later) Lost and aloof are the loves of my past, wake the white wolf, remembrance at last!
      The Path: Weary wolf at the end of war, loves aloof are apart no more.
    • "The Natural Heart" plays this straight and inverts it, since The Natural Heart carries a lot of motifs over from The New Black Gold (including a very similar opening riff and some recurring lyrics) but it's lyrics provide tonally flipped themes to reflect the change from Deus Ex: Human Revolution to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided regarding augmentation technology.
      The New Black Gold: Broken body built anew, spirit lingers torn in two, metal fingers grip my heart so cold.
      The Natural Heart: Broken bodies line the walls, Midas empires crash and fall, wings that melt when we try to soar.
    • "Clockworks" contains one to "Distant Honor"
      Distant Honor: And the sad, sad faces of the weary and worn / Live in bad, bad places that are dreary and torn
      Clockworks: And I have been to some bad, bad places / Taken gifts at the darkest shrines / I have seen despair in the saddest faces
    • "Numbers" borrows the line "I rush and I run" from "Digital Shadow", and the line "Freedom is a backlight" is a callback to Shadow's "Freedom is a greenlight/redlight".
    • "Break Of Dawn" has many callbacks to "Cataclysm" in the music itself.
      Cataclysm: We are the last / Children of the cataclysm / Awoken in a silent prison
      Break of Dawn: Just another silent prison / Ride into the cataclysm
    • "Revolution Spark" reuses the lines "flawless has no face" and "rightness has no race", from "Resistance". "Revolution Spark" also reuses some of the opening bars of "Resistance", and the "Revolution Spark"'s lyrics further develop the hope mentioned in "Resistance":
      Resistance: Hope is an ember in the dust / Spark of resistance will combust
      Revolution Spark Hope is a burning fusion / Spark of a revolution
    • Jaime's section of "Only Us" contains the line "I'm no man of honor", which was also in Gavin's first Game of Thrones song, "Halfman's Song," which was about Jaime's brother Tyrion.
    • "A Thousand Eyes" contains two references to his previous Bloodborne song; "Paleblood will guide your way" is the first line of the chorus, and The cogs creak a melody forms the first line of the bridge.
    • "Mojave Song"'s final lines are similar to the chorus of "Wasteland Soul".
      Wasteland Soul: Someday the rains will come and wash it all away / The heart of the wasteland will awaken on this day
      Mojave Song: Someday the change will come and wash the doubt away / The heart of the desert will beat harder on this day
    • "Open Air" brings back an updated version of the bridge from "The Day the World Died" to reflect the new reality of the world, along with a few calls to the original song's ending. Two sets of lyrics also form thematic mirrors of each other.
      The Day the World Died: And the future's a tunnel stretching endlessly / Into nothing stumble in the black / And the light at the end is but a treachery / It will blind you and force you back
      Open Air: And the future's a railroad stretching endlessly / All our hopes keep rolling on the track / As the shadows of home become a memory / They will haunt us but they can't pull us back
      The Day The World Died: The day the world died / we kindled doom / We burned the outside / took to the gloom
      Open Air: I watch the sun rise / in skies so clear / We learn the outside / there's hope out here
    • "All As One" for Dragon Age: Inquisition has basically the entire last minute as call-backs to "Age Of The Dragon" for Dragon Age II. Both share the lines "Fight for your values/And fight for your friends/Fight through this Blight/Find the light at the end/Through the age of the dragon" (though the next line changes, from "The people will talk" to "Through chaos and hate"), the basic musical riff from "Age Of The Dragon" reappears, and the final chant is "Hope! Hope! Hope!" in the same cadence as "Hawke! Hawke! Hawke!" from "Age Of The Dragon."
    • Between "Savage Side Of Me" for the Tomb Raider reboot and "Edge Of The World" for Rise of the Tomb Raider:
      Savage Side Of Me: And when the night falls blue / Watch it from a bird's eye view
      Edge Of The World: Another savage story / Another night falls blue ... Another territory / Another bird's eye view
    • In his back to back Final Fantasy VII Remake songs, "Through Life And Loss" and "When Forever Comes", call backs to the former abound in the latter. One of the lines in the second verse of "Forever" is actually "Through life and loss."
      Through Life And Loss: When we lose everything that defines us / Can we hold to the promise that binds us / And carry on into tomorrow's sorrow / When we're facing the ghosts of our destines / Will we turn or remain in the memories / And choose to lead or follow sorrow?
      When Forever Comes: When I learn of the loss that defines me / Can I hold to the promise that binds me / And carry on into tomorrow's sorrow / When I'm facing the ghosts of my destiny / Will I turn or remain the memory / And choose to stray or choose to follow?
    • "To Be Better" calls back to "Ode to Fury", taking a more hopeful spin on the words of the latter.
      Ode to Fury: Grief in the snow / The Winter of Woe / Has come now to judge and bereave me.
      Always within / To lurk in the skin / The wounds ever aching so deeply.
      To Be Better: Keep the beast deep within / Always under the skin / Let it claw at the mirrors glass.
      In this winter of woe / seeds of hope they still grow / sheets of white over rock and glass.
    • "SKAL!" has some subtle musical cues reminiscent of "Nord Mead," both being songs about Horny Vikings feeling The Need for Mead.
  • The Cameo: "Second Chance Song" features backup vocals from YouTube's 402THUNDER402 raging at the titular perk.
  • Chew Bubblegum: Referenced when commenting on Duke Nukem's Badass Decay.
    Shit- I guess you found more gum.
  • Circus of Fear: "Call of Duty Circus" portrays Call of Duty as one of these.
  • Clone Angst: The lyrics of "Ditto", a song inspired by SOMA, revolve around the concept of Brain Uploading and the philosophical question of what happens when you exist at the same time as your artificially created clone with all of your memories and personality. Which one is the "real you"? The original? The clone? Both?
    Stare through the mirror of the self (divide the zero)
    Reflect the face of someone else...
  • Content Warnings: Occasionally Gavin will put one in at the start of the video that accompanies a song; usually it consists of a serious warning that quickly turns into a joke. For instance, "Hell to Pay" opens with:
    WARNING: This music video contains images of extreme violence, gore, metal, awesomeness, chainsaws, and a severe lack of diplomatic solutions to interpersonal conflicts. Viewer discretion is advised.
  • Creepy Circus Music:
    • "Joker's Song" opens like the theme for a Circus of Fear and keeps to that tune while Joker invites Batman to his "Fortress of Fun."
    • "Call of Duty Circus" also uses this trope.
  • Crossover: He collaborated with Try Hard Ninja on the latter's Call of Duty: Ghosts-themed song "Calling All Ghosts".
  • Curse Cut Short: In "Rampage". He has no problem with swearing, but prefers to keep his songs PG-13.
  • Dancin' in the Ruins: The lyrics of "Higher Tonight!" allude to this.
    And when the world is comin' down around me... I'm just gonna keep on dancin'... I'm just gonna keep on dancin'!
  • Deadpan Snarker: His responses to some of the more idiotic comments on his videos.
    Youtube Comment: I master prestige so f all of u
    Gavin: You don't need to tell us, we can already tell by your social skills.
  • Destructive Romance: "Only Us" reflects on the toxic nature of Jaime's and Cersei's relationship. No matter how hard Jaime tries to atone for his sins and become a better person, his and Cersei's emotional and sexual addiction to each other is impossible to let go of.
  • Determinator:
    • Gavin developed tinnitus, which is a condition that causes you to constantly hear a high pitched ringing. He has yet to allow it to stop him from making music, although it's a significant obstacle when it comes to live performances.
    • His song "Embers Rise" is about someone who never stops rising, no matter how many times he's knocked down.
    • "Forever Flame" also has a line about never giving up in is chorus:
    Forever Flame: Winding round / Over and over again / Fated to wander / Strike me down / Over and over again / To come back stronger
  • Drunken Song: He made a song about these for Skyrim, "Nord Mead".
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The first handful of songs were much more explicit in referencing their subject matter, to the point of directly mentioning characters or places from the games by name. Later songs would take a more indirect, metaphorical approach. Especially noticeable with Fire In Your Hole, Gordon Freeman Saved My Life, and Commander Shepard. Earlier songs also tended to be more humorous, while later song are more serious and engage with the mood, themes, and tone of the material that inspires them. Compare Hell In The Headspace with the earlier Necromorph Soup, both inspired by Dead Space.
  • Even the Subtitler Is Stumped: In the video for "Niko It's Your Cousin!", when the song gets to a brief segment of Little Jacob singing, the subtitles give up and go "Uhhhh..." before Niko takes over again.
  • Evil Laugh: He pulls a particularly magnificent one in "Joker's Song". You'd be forgiven for mistaking it to have come from the man himself.
  • Foil: Befitting their status as alternate-company foils, his Batman song "I Am The Night" and his Spider-Man song When I Swing By" perfectly counterpoint each other, from the persepectives of the ultimate Terror Hero and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Even the direct inspirations are complimentary opposites, "I Am The Night" being most directly inspired by Batman: Arkham Knight (and the whole Arkham series, more or less), while "When I Swing By" is inspired by Spider-Man (PS4). "I Am The Night" is all about Batman being an even scarier predator who preys on Gotham's criminals; "When I Swing By" is about Spider-Man being a Hope Bringer.
    I am the night / A tyrant of the shade / I am the spite / I am the pain repaid / I am the night / A fear that's raised in shadows cannot fade, crush the light / I am the night.
    And when I swing by / I'll sling away your troubles / Yeah when I swing by you'll shine / And I know that life can often be a struggle / But you'll soon be feelin' fine / When I swing by.
  • The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In "Don't Say A Word", the chorus says that "You are the voice in the song/It's yours when you sing along", in reference to the game's twist that you were playing as a body double of Big Boss the whole time, thus making yourself part of his legend.
  • Glamour: From "A Dog's Life":
    No glamour or garb can hide the animal heart inside of me
  • Haiku: Most of the verses of "When Honor Dies", his song about Ghost of Tsushima are haiku poems, though the chorus is not.
  • Hated by All: "Only Us" has Jaime and Cersei reflect on the fact that everyone hates them and they'll go down in history as villains because of their various horrible deeds and their incestuous relationship. They decide to turn their back on the world, no longer caring about anything or anyone but each other.
    And they will raze our towers
    And spit upon our names
    And the ravens black over the fields of ash
    Will whisper our tales of shame
  • Heavy Mithril: The metal version of "Wake The White Wolf" takes The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and infuses electric guitar and pedals with the original bouzouki-using piece. "Shadow Of The Ash" for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is possibly the most literal version of this trope.
  • I Am the Band: He does all work on the music himself, without assistance from other musicians, with a few exceptions, such as "Sweet L.A.".
  • "I Am" Song: Numerous songs are written from the first-person perspective of the or a main character from the work in question as they describe themselves in song.
  • In the Style of: Part of Gavin's genius is his ability to write music in a wide variety of musical styles, and while he clearly favors elements of hard rock, alternative rock, and heavy metal, he's not limited to those by any means. He's exceptionally good at taking a certain style, or even a certain artist, and emulating them without directly ripping them off.
  • Instrumentals:
    • Vistas is an entire album of them.
    • "The Strut", described as "Music to rob banks to."
    • "Winter Still" reminiscent of the ambient themes from the actual Skyrim soundtrack. Compare with "Far Horizons" from Bethesda.
  • Interspecies Romance: "PLOUGHING A TROLL" is about relationship between a human and a troll. This being the Witcher-verse, it ends badly.
  • Kinda Busy Here: The second verse of "Niko, It's Your Cousin" goes like this.
    Roman what the hell!
    Now is really not the time
    I'm kind of in the middle of
    A quite demanding crime

    I'm driving like a maniac
    I'm on a high speed chase
    And you want me to desist
    So you can stuff your fatty face?
  • Last Note Hilarity:
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: The music video for the updated version of "Redemption Blues" ends with John Marston's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Loudness War: The "Everything Up To Eleven Mix" of "Reclaimer" invokes this.
  • Madness Mantra: "Ditto" ends with the whispered chant, "Divide the zero down, sunder and multiply me, divide the zero down" that gradually becomes more intense before abruptly coming to a complete stop.
  • Monster Clown:
    • "Joker's Song" is sung from the perspective of Mr. J himself.
    • In "Call of Duty Circus", he compares that one player who is constantly sneaking around to a clown.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: From "Joker's Song"
    But you'll not make it end, 'cause I'm your only friend. We are opposites, but we're the same.
  • Oddball in the Series: "Valhalla Calling" became this after the rock version was released, for as of now, it is the only song in the series that covers two different series - the original version is for Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, while the rock version is set to scenes from Vikings.
  • Ode to Intoxication: Nord Mead is essentially an in-character Nordic ode to mead.
  • Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: The video for "Higher Tonight" has been rated "W for Wubs. Unplanned exposure to wubs may cause erratic bouts of rhythmic head nodding and/or dancing and in some cases feelings of extreme rage and betrayal towards your favorite musicians."
  • Precision F-Strike: Any song from Billy Butcher's perspective was never going to be PG-rated, but the fact that there's only a single curse in the chorus arguably makes it more powerful.
    I've seen the beauty burn
    And I'm still FUCKING fuming
    And as the tables turn
    I'm feeling superhuman
  • Real Men Wear Pink: When asked about having a lot of pink customized cars and weapons in Grand Theft Auto V, gave this:
    Gavin: I like the idea of such hyper-masculine, aggressively macho characters having pink cars & weapons, I think it's funny.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: "The Day The World Died" is one to humanity as a whole. In his words, it's "A tribute to man's eternal folly". The chorus ends with "The day the world died, nothing was learned".
  • Repulsive Ringmaster: "Call of Duty Circus" is sung from the point of view of one of these, presenting the people who play Call of Duty as freaks at a Circus of Fear.
  • The Rock Star: Gavin used to be one in the band Lotus Lullaby.
  • This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: He's comin' for your tank, bitch!
  • Sanity Slippage Song: "A Thousand Eyes" is about Provost Wilhelm from Bloodborne descending into gibbering madness as he gains more and more Insight, which causes eyeballs to grow on one's brain (the thousand eyes are not metaphorical, and insight is a darkly comic pun).
  • Scrappy Mechanic: Second Chance in Goodbye Black Ops and Second Chance.
  • Self-Backing Vocalist: As a one man band, most of Gavin's songs use multiple layers on the vocals. Especially prevalent in Little Sister.
  • Single Stanza Song: Beauty Bleak features only three lines. Sterile soil will harden/Wasted world, my garden/Beauty bleak in a wasted world
  • Singing Voice Dissonance: He sings with an American accent, but in interviews, he speaks with whimsical Irish accent. He has explained this to the fans who think he's putting it on. (Especially after "Nord Mead", in which he uses his natural accent.)
  • Song Style Shift: Dream of The Sky is a mish-mash of musical styles emulating the alternate realities and anachronistic music featured heavily in its inspiration.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Special Guest: While he has a lot of collaborations with other musicians, "Fallen Leaves" is unique in that it features narration from Vaatividya, a prominent Soulsborne youtuber who has not done music before.
  • Stealth Insult: His "I Am Pudge" song was based on his experience being taught how to play DotA 2 by Grey Carter. Grey edited the video that went with the song and slipped 'Gav is a casual' into one of the frames.
  • Take That!:
    • "Roll Out" features a line in its chorus that says "we're making a bigger mess than Michael Bay".
    • "Trip to Vegas" ends with Fallout: New Vegas crashing, and Gavin uttering a soft "Oh goddamn it, not again...".
    • "The Call of Duty Circus" is essentially one long take that towards the various types of players in Call of Duty. For example:
      Roll up and see the amazing moving statue! SNEAK ATTACK!
      He waits in corners till you pass then shoots you in the back. (Ha ha!)
      He never moves or shoot so he will always blow.
      For all he cares about in life's his Kill/Death ratio!
    • "Doorfighter" is a short song dedicated to directing one of these at the bizarre trend of smashing down and destroying doors.
    • "Wigglesticks" is a quick song directed towards the abundance of QTEs in Resident Evil 6.
    • A brief one happens during "I Am the Night" that refers to the changing of Riddler challenges to races.
      "Wit for pace this riddle's just a race..."
    • A somewhat ambiguous one comes up in his Iron Man Trilogy song, "My Iron Skin"
      Gavin: "I've been tryin' to take a detour from these patriotic Rhodes."
  • Title Drop: The majority of his song titles feature in the lyrics, usually the chorus.
  • Twilight of the Old West: "Redemption Blues" and "Setting Sun", following the theming of Red Dead Redemption and its prequel where the era of cowboys has ended/is about to end.
    Our days are [all almost] over
    Times have changed around these parts
    There ain't no more cowboys
    Only men with violent hearts
  • Updated Re-release:
    • Gavin re-released "The New Black Gold" for his 100th video, completely re-recording the song in the process.
    • "Brothers of The Creed" was re-released with an updated verse, replacing "I kill for good... under my white hood" with "signal's out of range... I was forced to change" after people raised concerns about The Klan imagery the original line carried.invoked
    • "Take it Back", his Mass Effect 3 song, got an updated version with better layer balancing to celebrate the release of the 'Extended Cut' patch for the game.
    • "Digital Shadow" has an updated version with different balancing, called "Digital Shadow 2014".
    • "Wake the White Wolf" was originally released as a folk song, but he later decided to redo it as a metal song.
    • "Shadow of the Ash" was later released again with an "alternative vocals" mix.
    • "Sovngarde Song" was completely re-recorded and updated, nearly five years after its initial release. It apparently took him over 200 hours of work before he was satisfied with releasing it.
    • He rerecorded "Redemption Blues" from Level 1 to coincide with the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018.
  • Villain Song:
    • "Joker's Song", which is from the Joker's point of view about his obsession with Batman.
    • "Savior's Seed" is sung from the point of view of Far Cry 5's antagonist, Joseph Seed. Gavin was worried that, without the context of the music video to link the lyrics to the game, the song would be taken at face value as his own opinion.
    • "Only Us" with a side of Then Let Me Be Evil, basically Jaime and Cersei Lannister deciding that if the world won't love them, it can all burn down.
    • Similarly to "Only Us," "When Winter Comes" is basically the Night King stating that nothing can stop winter from freezing the whole world solid.
  • Visual Pun: In the video for "My Iron Skin," the lyrics, I been tryin' to take a detour from these patriotic roads, play over a picture of War Machine, real name James "Rhodey" Rhodes.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Gavin has this relationship with Jim Sterling.
    • Even more so with Grey Carter, to the point that people who see them interact for the first time tend to think they hate each other.
  • Woman Scorned: In "PLOUGHING A TROLL", the she-troll eats the farmer once he grows tired of her.
  • War Is Hell: The basis of the song "Pawns of War".
  • Word Salad Lyrics: To someone unfamiliar with Soma, the lyrics for Ditto can be a tad obtuse, particularly its main recurring line of "Divide the zero down/Sunder and multiply me" and the variations thereof, resulting in some confusion in the YouTube comments section.
  • You Are Worth Hell: Of the Destructive Romance variety in "Only Us". In the end, Jaime and Cersei decide that it doesn't matter if they're horrible people and the entire world hates them as long as they have each other.
    Let it all burn down around us
    Let the cruel consume the just
    Let the sin we swim in drown us
    Let the world shatter into dust
    Nothing else matters, only us
  • You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: From "A Dog's Life," about werewolf protagonist Bigby from The Wolf Among Us:
    Don't shake me
    Don't make me bare my teeth
    You really don't wanna meet that guy
    Don't wake me
    Don't let it off the leash
    There's a monster living under this hide

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