When it comes to music for spooky or haunted areas, you usually get something slow and ominous. Something atmospheric; not the sort of thing you’d blast out of your radio whilst cruising down a highway. But you can’t have something like that for a racing game, especially one starring Sonic the Hedgehog – a character who’s whole thing is going really fast. Well, that’s where musician Tee Lopes steps in.

While maybe not one of my favourite racetracks from Team Sonic Racing, Haunted Castle earns points for its unique setting, tricky layout and general atmosphere, but its best quality (like all of the other racetracks probably?) is its music. It manages to have the same, fast-paced energy you’d expect from a Sonic game, complete with guitars, but have this sort of ghostly feel to it as well. It’s probably the organ at the beginning that helps, which perfectly fits an area that almost looks like it belongs in a Castlevania game.

Also, I don’t know who Tei Sena is but she kills it on the violin. It’s easily the best part of the whole piece, and I hope Sega brings her back for future Sonic soundtracks, if only so she can flex her musical skills more and add some variety.

Team Sonic Racing may be a flawed racing game, but music tracks like this one show that it’s soundtrack is stellar and that music is one thing this series is unlikely to fail at any time soon.