Holy cow, has it really been over six months since the last entry? Well, a new year is already bringing about bigger and better things for us all and I will see to it that there are more regular updates to this.

Speaking of changes in general, what was formerly The Music Vault is now called The Rock Vault, because everything is more rock-oriented anyway.

With that said, we’re going to take a look at some of the best game-related artists of this time period, but don’t be surprised if there are a few obscure ones on the list to enjoy. Things might get loud!

To start off the list, we have, Avatar from Sweden. Of no relation to James Cameron’s latest space adaptation of Dances With Wolves, Avatar is a melodic death metal band who write songs about the emotional array of a human being . . . and StarCraft.

Wait, StarCraft?! That’s right. Avatar’s most recent success has come from Blizzard Entertainment posting about their Sarah Kerrigan-inspired song on Facebook and Twitter. “Queen of Blades” attracted a lot of attention after the release of their 2009 self-titled album for nerds and nerdy metal enthusiast alike. What the future holds as far as game songs remains to be seen, but this one track is pretty awesome all on its own.

– Queen of Blades

We’ve previously mentioned this band, but van Canto‘s name bears repeating. As one of the most prominent (if not only) Power A Capella bands in existence, they’ve used their voices to spread the metal love to fans everywhere and injected the MMO Runes of Magic with some extra win.

Using their song “Magic Taborea” as a basis, a new music video was put out fusing the MMO’s gameplay, van Canto’s epic fantasy attitude and tons of ran-dan-diddly-ans, the band even went as far as to change some of the original song’s lyrics to be more game-centric. Not only are they fantasy lovers and likely gamers to boot, Inga’s a babe with a beautiful voice. What’s not to love?

Canto – Magic Taborea (Runes of Magic Edition)

Blind Guardian are no strangers to the big media machine, having several studio and live albums under their belt, writing a kickass original soundtrack to a really awful movie directed by Uwe Boll, and the band was even in negotiations to put some original music into the Lord of the Rings trilogy while the movies were in production.

So, of course they were going to take the chance to write an original tune for a video game. Sacred 2: Fallen Angel was the game of choice where the band’s original tune, “Sacred,” not only serves as the game’s theme song but as a quest reward. You might be wondering what kind of quest would involve a song as a reward, but Ascaron saw it fit to not only include the titular song, but the band as well. The quest involves the player scouring Ancaria for the band members’ instruments so they can play their concert. After completion, the player is treated to a music video featuring in-game representations of the band members and a crowd full of the game’s monsters.

And not only that, the band gives you their instruments after the show which turn out to be some pretty sweet weapons!

Guardian – Sacred

You have no idea you’ve heard their music, but you’re probably already familiar with it. It’s like the Gin Blossoms—you know all their songs, but you haven’t the slightest clue who they are. Well, Ashtar Command have done music for The OC, Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy and even ad campaign music for Nissan and Microsoft.

Most recently, however, they’ve upped the ante (so to speak) by writing an original tune for Rockstar’s critically-acclaimed Red Dead Redemption. The song, “Deadman’s Gun,” is a heartfelt, moving tune that could easily bring a tear to your eye.

Command – Deadman’s Gun (Live)

You are probably already familiar with the synthpop powerhouse Freezepop, but the long and short of it is that they love video games and video games indeed love them. Getting their start just before the turn of the century, they’ve appeared in countless games like Dance Dance Revolution, FreQuency and Karaoke Revolution, but their popularity exploded when Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II featured “Get Ready 2 Rokk” and “Less Talk More Rokk,” respectively.

Now, their songs are prominently featured in the Rock Band series with not only the aforementioned songs appearing, but other big Freezepop favorites like “Science Genius Girl” and “Brainpower.”

– Less Talk More Rokk

Vomitron are a strange entity—more a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, all tucked away inside metal shredding, actually. Little is known about the band except that they dabble in original tracks, have one album, and do some wicked covers of old school Nintendo games.

You’ve probably heard the epic nine-minute medley of Contra, but lesser-known Vomitron covers include Castlevania, Blaster Master and Zelda I and II.

– Contra

The face and voice of nerd culture, Jonathan Coulton has proven his nerd-dom time and time again. From his unabashedly soft acoustic cover of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” to his wonderfully famous “Still Alive” (featured during Portal‘s credits), JoCo uses dry wit and excellently understated humor to convey a multitude of of dimensions of geekery.

Other songs like “Re: Your Brains” (which was featured in another of Valve’s games, Left 4 Dead 2) and “Code Monkey” (prominently featured on tech website Slashdot) have garnered a fair amount of popularity as well.

JoCo is also known for offering up a ton of free songs and not using DRM on any of them. All of his songs fall under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 License with “Still Alive” being the only exception (as it’s owned by Valve). Jonathan Coulton is a geek of the people, which is not something many can lay claim to. Many of his songs are also available for Rock Band in the game’s store and through the Rock Band Network!

Coulton – Still Alive (Acoustic)

Raheem Jarbo is probably not a name you’re familiar with, but you might know him better as Random, Random Beats or Mega Ran. Random is an underground rapper, fusing his slick lyrical styles with video game music (similar to Team Teamwork’s stuff except with original lyrics).

In fact, Random is so awesome that his 2007 album (titled “Mega Ran”) landed him a licensing agreement with Capcom and he got to perform at the booth during that year’s Comic Con.

His 2010 album, Forever Famicom, has a plethora of NES and SNES samples and is rife with nostalgia. And already in 2011, his new album Black Materia is available for purchase with a free eight-song sampler available on his site.

(Mega Ran) – Aerith (Final Fantasy VII)

MegaDriver are a four-piece Brazilian heavy metal band who specialize in being metal and video game metal covers. Claiming to be the original Game Metal band, with six albums and four full soundtracks for the Metal MAME project, MegaDriver are a force to be reckoned with. The band considers themselves a non-profit independent project, so all their songs (and I do mean all) are made available at no cost right on their website.

Besides being totally awesome and a cool bunch of dudes, how many bands can lay claim to having instruments made out of a SEGA Mega Drive and in the likeness of Sonic the Hedgehog? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

– Courage And Pride (Chrono Trigger)

Grant Henry (better known as Stemage) is a man well-known for his project Metroid Metal. In 2003, he sought to completely own Metroid‘s soundtrack with a metal vengeance and did just that. Come 2005, he was recording his radical metal mixes with epic bassist Dan Taylor (aka chunkstyle). As the years went on, Stemage recruited some more musicians and in 2009, Metroid Metal Live was born, complete with guitars, bass and drums.

Not only that, projects outside of Metroid Metal include his own personal recordings and the soundtrack for the Xbox LIVE Indie Arcade game Alpha Squad, a twin-stick shooter full of bloody mayhem and big-breasted beauties, for only $3 (240 MSP)!

Stemage is also writing music for another game called Radiant Escape, and if you’re heading to PAX East 2011, you can catch Metroid Metal Live playing alongside other big names like Jonathan Coulton, Paul & Storm, The Protomen, MC Frontalot, and The Video Game Orchestra.

Metal – Lower Norfair

The MiniBosses are classic. Not necessarily doing anything outrageous with their game covers, but the guys put together some strong, thoughtful songs that aren’t too shred-a-riffic, but excellent all the same.

Drawing strongly from the NES roots, The MiniBosses have covered music from MegaMan 2, Castlevania III, Contra, and Super Mario Bros. 2 and are always expanding their catalog.

MiniBosses – MegaMan 2

Daisuke Ishiwatari is probably not a name you’re familiar with, but you’re probably aware of his designing and musical work via the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue games. Not only did he design all the characters and the storyline to the entire Guilty Gear series, Daisuke is also responsible for every single rock/metal composition in that series, as well as the BlazBlue games, Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift.

Lots of intricate guitar work abounds here and there’s plenty of homage to classic rock and metal acts to be found throughout. You’d be doing yourself a treat by picking up any of the soundtracks to the games.

Calamity Trigger OST – Queen of Rose (Rachel Alucard’s Theme)

Call me biased, but Machinae Supremacy is easily among the cream of the crop when it comes to speaking of both musicians and people with an adoration for games. Not content with just writing songs about anime, video games and the many ends of the human race, MaSu have breached the walls of simply being a rock/metal band and assimilated the lovable and quirky sounds of retro games. Using a SidStation (with a SID Chip from a Commodore 64), the band brings an old school vibe to their heavy sound, creating a perfect marriage of two fairly dissimilar worlds.

Not only have they written about games, they have written a soundtrack specifically for a game. Jets’n'Guns is a 2D side-scrolling shoot ‘em up with action-packed gameplay and an incredibly rockin’ soundtrack courtesy of these Swedish gentlemen. In addition to being a bunch of awesome dudes, they also offer up a bunch of free songs right on their website. Does it get better than that?

Supremacy – Edge and Pearl

A rather obvious choice for the list, The Black Mages are a Japanese metal band spearheaded by Nobuo Uematsu, Kenichiro Fukui, and Tsuyoshi Sekito, three composers from Square-Enix. Very big names for a very epic band, really. Almost exclusively re-arranging music from Final Fantasy to give it more of that rocking edge, The Black Mages kick all their songs over the edge with screaming guitar solos, elegant key arrangements and thumping bass and drums.

Essentially, you haven’t really experienced a Final Fantasy song until you’ve heard it played by The Black Mages. That’s really just how it is.

Black Mages – Battle With The Four Fiends (Final Fantasy IV)

And who else to take the top spot than the mighty Powerglove? With an incredible love of video games and all things video game-y, Powerglove have brought game metal to the fore by not only paying delicate homage, but being above and beyond the mightiest arrangers around. Recently breaking away from exclusively playing video game music, Powerglove have paid delicious homage to Saturday morning cartoons in the likes of Batman, X-Men, The Simpsons and several other huge names with excellent theme covers.

Having risen in ranks very quickly thanks to touring with the mighty DragonForce and more recently power metal masters Sonata Arctica, Powerglove have become synonymous with game metal. You can catch them on tour in a few months with metal titans Symphony X, Nevermore, Soilwork and Black Guard. With fantastic live shows to boot, Powerglove have reached skies far beyond that of an average tribute band and certainly made a name for themselves.

– X-Men

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Didn’t list one of your favorites? Don’t agree with the list or the order? Let us know in the comments below! I had to trim a few bands away to get a Top 15. This was originally supposed to be a Top 10 list!

Thanks for reading!