What gives a good diss track its edge? Is it an upbeat tempo? A specificity and heightened meanness in the lyrics? Do you have to know the lore of the track to really understand what makes it such a good diss? This question has come to define the music landscape in 2025 — when Lily Allen came for ex David Harbour, when Rosalía elegantly dunked on ex Rauw Alejandro, or when Taylor Swift allegedly sang about Charli XCX. But there’s one track this year that manages to lap all of these supposed diss tracks, and it can’t be found on any pop album from the past few months. It’s a little tune called “I Am Gonna Claw (Out Your Eyes Then Drown You to Death),” off the soundtrack for Hades II.
Hades II, like any good sequel, ups the ante in every possible way. The 2020 roguelike Hades soared in its imaginative world-building and addictive runs as Zagreus, a fictional son of Hades (god of the underworld), attempts to escape the Hell that’s always contained him. Replete with a Rolodex of figures from Greek mythology (Artemis, Aphrodite, Orpheus, and so on), Hades II, released in early access last year with a full digital version launching on Switch and Switch 2 in September, shares a similarish premise: You now play as Melinoë, the princess of the underworld, fighting your way down to defeat Chronos or up to battle the monster attacking Mount Olympus. There are new weapons, new gods, new subplots, new alchemy — but most essentially, there are new songs. The music was one of Hades’s strongest aspects: a roaring metal-inspired soundscape that mirrored its protagonist’s rage at being held captive. As you progressed in the original game, the soundtrack got more and more frantic and thrilling. A friend once confessed he couldn’t play too late at night or else his adrenaline from the music would keep him awake.
Hades II ups the ante by turning one of its boss fights into an all-out musical sequence. All throughout Oceanus, the second biome in the underground route, an eerie song drifts through the pipes. Just as players once had to fight the three furies in later runs of Hades, the Oceanus boss fight requires Melinoë to fight a trio of sirens — each with their own move set, weapons, and health — in order to move forward. The first time you encounter Scylla (vocals), Jetty (backing vocals and guitar) and Roxy (backing vocals and drums), they play a song for you entitled “Coral Crown” as they chase you around the arena. As you knock out each siren one by one, their respective instruments fall away too. “The idea for the siren boss fight was old,” Supergiant’s composer Darren Korb explained. “We had that idea while making the first game and just couldn’t find the right place for it.”
While “Coral Crown” is an impressive track in and of itself, the sirens boss fight only gets better as you keep playing the game. Once you’ve defeated the sirens for the first time, Scylla warns you that there might be new music to come. Lo and behold, when you return to the sirens for another battle, they’ve got a new tune to play: the aforementioned “I Am Gonna Claw (Out Your Eyes Then Drown You to Death).” Set to a similar melody as “Coral Crown,” this leaner, meaner siren song is almost — almost! — distracting in how engaging its lyrics are. As you zoom around the arena, Scylla insults Melinoë left and right. “You’re so obsessed with me, not that I can blame you for it / I would be too, if I were you / Too bad you must die now,” she wails. The new song is full of jokes about how bad Melinoë dresses and ominous warnings of what various fish in the sea may do to her. The level of detail and sheer amount of words in the song is impressive, and the chorus — raging with electric guitar — lodges itself in your brain the first time you hear it.
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“I was looking at the evil band from Jem and the Holograms as well as Evanescence,” Korb said. “Or even Hayley Williams and Paramore. I try to dabble in as many styles as I can, and with songs like this, I know I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve a little.” The adaptive quality of the music in Hades II (and the original game) is part of what makes its repetitive play so engaging. No two runs are ever the same. The surprise reveal of “I Am Gonna Claw (Out Your Eyes Then Drown You to Death)” allows the game to feel more alive and responsive. “The music should always serve the game and, more importantly, the gameplay. If there’s a risk it’s going to detract from what a player is doing, it’s not worth it. I wanted the music for this fight to enhance the tonal immersion,” Korb added. It’s an immersion that extends beyond the actual gameplay; little insults from the diss track float in and out of my consciousness throughout the day.
Hades and Hades II are such great games because it’s fun to not just beat back bosses and monsters, but also to be beaten by them. To play Hades II is to lose over and over again. The key to any good roguelike is making it fun to keep losing. Bosses in most video games are preloaded with stock dialogue that threatens or taunts the player, but the bosses in the Hades games broaden the world and enrich the textures of gameplay with their specificity and originality. To lose to the sirens over and over again — as I have and continue to do — is to hear their songs practically on repeat. That the music doesn’t grow tiresome or annoying is a feat in and of itself, but each new bout against the sirens deepens my appreciation for their songs. The longer you fight them, the longer they sing. No need for an encore once the battle is won (or lost) — they know you’ll be back to hear them insult you again in no time.
Hades II is now available physically with a bunch of bonus stuff — including the aforementioned soundtrack.
