Listen To Ian Hultquist’s The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 3 Soundtrack

September 14, 2026

Soundtracks, Scores and More Staff

The Walking Dead: Dead City—Original Music From Season 3 is out now, featuring an original score by composer Ian Hultquist (Assassination Nation, “Dickinson”). Hultquist, who has scored each season of The Walking Dead: Dead City, expands upon the dark post-apocalyptic themes to match the ever more epic storylines utilizing synths, bass, drums and the performance of the Arnema Orchestra recorded in Porto, Portugal. The series starring Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, is airing now on AMC and AMC+.  Listen to the track, “The Optimist vs the Gym Teacher” from the album below.

Notes Hultquist: “What a thrill it is to be back with The Walking Dead: Dead City for Season 3. The story is such a monumental turning point for our characters, and the music follows suit. Sonically, I got to expand the scope of the score to feel even more fun and rockin’ than before with some truly beautiful moments mixed in. Distorted Rickenbacker Bass Guitar, live drums, synths, and a 20-piece string orchestra (performed by Arnema Orchestra in Porto, Portugal) all came together to make the score feel even more cinematic and epic than ever.” 

 
Listen to “The Optimist vs the Gym Teacher”:

Purchase/ Stream: [Choose Your Service]

Listen on Spotify:

  
Track List

01. Wanted, Again

02. Vertical Food Chain

03. Domo Sam featuring Kieran Brunt

04. A Good Push / A New Life

05. Smiling Suits You

06. Droppin’ Bricks

07. Safe, Not Secure

08. The Optimist vs the Gym Teacher

09. Bring Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Undead

10. Hillbilly Hamburger Helper

11. Power Doesn’t Mean Better

12. Beaconite’s Dance featuring Paul Jacob Cartwright

13. The Lantern Song featuring Paul Jacob Cartwright

14. Sinkhole

15. The Dirty Dozen

16. Hell Haven

17. Some is Better Than None

18. We Make Quite a Pair

19. I’ve Seen Good Places Fall

20. Friends in Another Life

21. Cold-Blooded Murder’s Not That Simple

22. Earth Belongs to the Freaks

23. Decay Saves the Day

24. Officer Mason W. Dillard

25. Forever Connected

26. We’re Taking Our Home Back

27. The Eccentric Survivor

28. I’m More Than What I Thought 

29. Earth Two Main Titles (Bonus Track)

RELATED:

Ian Hultquist on Dead City, One Of Us Is Lying, Assassination Nation and Frequent Collaborators

ABOUT IAN HULTQUIST
Ian Hultquist is an American Composer & Producer currently based in London, United Kingdom. Over the past decade plus, he has made a name for himself composing the scores for numerous films, documentaries and TV shows. Ian started his career in music as a founding member of the band Passion Pit, which started in Boston, MA where he was earning a degree in Film Scoring at Berklee College of Music. He spent many years touring around the world with the band & building up his Production and Arranging skills. He also created remixes for Artists such as Portugal the Man, Imagine Dragons, and Tegan & Sara. 
 
In 2014 he, along with his wife & fellow composer Sofia degli Alessandri-Hultquist (aka Drum & Lace), relocated to Los Angeles in order to fully dedicate himself to working in music for film. Since then, he has created music on a global scale composing on over 50 film titles, and over 20 television shows. He has written scores for some of the most renowned filmmakers working in the medium today, such as Sam Levinson (Assassination Nation), Erin Lee Carr (How to Fix a Drug Scandal, At the Heart of Gold), Alena Smith (Dickinson) & Karen Maine (Yes God Yes, Rosaline).

In 2016 Ian formed Little Twig Records, an imprint label focused on releasing soundtracks for Film & TV, and in 2020, Ian was the sole composer named on the 40 Under 40 list for Doc NYC. Ian has composed Scores for projects for every major streaming platform, as well as major studios such as 20th Century (Rosaline) and New Line Cinema (Turtles All the Way Down). 
 
He most recently composed the scores for Unknown Number: The High School Cat Fish (Netflix, dir. Skye Borgman), All of You (Apple TV, dir. Will Bridges).

 
ABOUT LAKESHORE RECORDS

Lakeshore Records is a GRAMMY-winning record label, and the soundtrack arm of the Cutting Edge Group.  Lakeshore Records is the global independent leader in top line soundtrack album releases, including such popular, critically acclaimed and classic soundtracks as Bridgerton, Stranger Things, Wednesday, Fallout, John Wick, Whiplash, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Drive, Severance, Cyberpunk 2077 / Edgerunners, Star Trek: Picard, Bojack Horseman, The Walking Dead, Napoleon Dynamite, Red Dead Redemption 2, Masters of the Universe, The Vampire Lestat, the Grammy-winning Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok, the Academy Award nominated Lady Bird and Academy Award winners Moonlight, Little Miss Sunshine, American Factory, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Hurt Locker and many, many more.

Watch the Season 3 Trailer:

ABOUT THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY SEASON 3

In Season 3, Maggie (Cohan) and Negan (Morgan) finally put aside their differences to build the first thriving community in Manhattan since the apocalypse, but when chaos in the city begins to arise, they are forced to question: have they learned from their old wounds or will their dark past spell doom for the entire city? 

In addition to Cohan and Morgan, season three also stars Jimmi Simpson, Raúl Castillo, Aimee Garcia, Logan Kim and Michael Emery. The Walking Dead: Dead City is executive produced by Scott M. Gimple, chief content officer of The Walking Dead Universe, showrunner Seth Hoffman, Cohan, Morgan, Brian Bockrath, and Colin Walsh.