Snowpiercer (Soundtrack) by Marco Beltrami - Review + Audio

Frozen Motion
by Richard Buxton

Based on the French graphic novel LE TRANSPERCENEIGE, SNOWPIERCER marks BONG JOON-HO’S English-language debut, and the last of the South Korean film industry’s big three directors (Bong Joon-ho, Kim Jee-woon, Park Chan-wook) to venture west in recent years. Though its release was subject to substantial delays outside Asia, Snowpiercer is nothing less than a riveting, refreshing, and downright entertaining science-fiction action film from an immensely talented director.

SNOWPIERCER, set in a grim dystopian future aboard a self-sustaining train without a terminus, charters the uprising of the oppressed within the remnants of humanity’s fragile existence. This ambitious, claustrophobic sci-fi is director Bong’s first foray into action, and has been met with almost universal praise. While his equally talented South Korean colleages Kim Jee-woon, and Park Chan-wook stumbled somewhat with their English-language debuts, SNOWPIERCER’S critical success has made great waves for the South Korean film industry on an international scale.

Aside from Japanese composer TARO IWASHIRO’S score for MEMORIES OF MURDER, music in Bong’s films hasn’t particularly stood out, either in-context or standing alone, nor has the director formed any sort of long-lasting relationship with a composer. As a result, MARCO BELTRAMI boarded the project. Had BELTRAMI produced a by-the-numbers action score, it would have been a missed opportunity to provide something unique for a truly unique film. However, Beltrami has most definitely succeeded in his work for SNOWPIERCER, though in a way that is not entirely satisfying.

The dark reality of SNOWPIERCER’S world is immediately evident in the score’s bleak opening - a fog of desolation that never clears and ultimately represents the divide between the score’s success and failure. As a supporting character in the film, BELTRAMI’S score blends in perfectly, but as a solo act it doesn’t quite have the muscle to boast consistent thrills. Subsequently, those who have not seen the film will have greater difficulty in finding moments worth revisiting.

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How to Train Your Dragon 2 (Soundtrack) by John Powell

How to Score a Sequel
by Edmund Meinerts

JOHN POWELL took the film music world by storm when his utterly fantastic score for DreamWorks’ best film, the atypically mature and ambitious HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, hit shelves in early 2010. It netted an unlikely but thoroughly deserved Academy Award nomination (why it didn’t win – especially considering what did that year – is beyond me) and set the bar into the stratosphere for the film music of the 2010s, a bar that hasn’t been reached by any score since. The score represented the high point of a period of very strong production for POWELL, with both 2010 and 2011 excellent years for him. Since then, however, he has only produced a handful of passable, but comparatively lackluster animated scores, followed by the further bad news that he would be taking a sabbatical from film music. One can only hope that he won’t end up like DON DAVIS did after his break: an enormous talent sadly neglected by Hollywood.

Fortunately, the prospect of returning to the same fruitful pastures that produced his career-best score seems to have nudged POWELL into making exceptions for this series; not only has he returned to score the sequel, but interviews seem to indicate that he’ll be along for the ride on a third and maybe even fourth film in the series. For film score fans, there can be no better news, because enough beating about the bush – HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 is every bit the triumph that its predecessor was. It does what every good sequel score ought to do and which so few actually do: it takes the themes and musical foundation from the first score, builds on it rather than taking the easy route of rehash, and adds several new themes to the mix. The result is undoubtedly the richest score of POWELL’s career so far – thematically-speaking, at least.

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Soundtrack) by Michael Giacchino + Audio Review

Thrills and Feels

Review by Christopher Coleman

Two years ago the movie-watching-world got a pleasant surprise with RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES; however, the bad taste left by Tim Burton’s reimagining of THE PLANET OF THE APES, a decade earlier had not quite left the mouths of some. This somewhat hindered RISE from the box office heights it probably should have hit. That Wahlbergian-foulness was resilient enough to still be found in the detectable quantities come 2014 and the dawning of the sequel to RISE. DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES would see two significant changes behind the camera from director Rupert Wyatt to Matt Reeves and from Patrick Doyle to MICHAEL GIACCHINO as the score’s composer. Would such significant changes continue the resurrgence of the franchise or send it back down the apocalyptic hole from whence it came?

Thankfully, DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES has been both a critical and box office smash, hopefully setting us up for further sequels of similar quality. After a summer of critical failures raking in countless millions and the critically acclaimed under-performing at the box office, it is, on some level, a relief to see that quality story-telling and character development can be equally rewarded. In the case of DAWN, the story in this sequel is brilliantly told and shifts the central characters from the humans to the apes - who were by far the most interesting element of RISE. Caesar, Koba, Maurice, and Rocket are all back and they have built up a peaceful community of apes, thriving but mere miles from some of the humans that survived the ALZ 113 virus that exacted its mortal, global toll. With the humans struggling to maintain their hold on life, and the apes continuing to develop their own, the intersection of the two species was inevitable and the eventual, inherent plagues that seem to stem from intelligent, familial communities such as: hubris, mistrust, miscommunication, bare their ugly head and plunge the two groups into kill-or-be-killed-conflict.

Patrick Doyle’s 2011 score for RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, while adequate enough for the film, provided less emotional lift or personality than some hoped for, especially in comparison to another 2011, Doyle-project, THOR. That said, his triumphant “rise” theme delivered a couple of very emotional moments, especially at the film’s conclusion as the newly emancipated apes literally rise into the nearby forest-trees. If nothing else, this theme alone seemed to provide a solid launch pad for any sequels that might come, but alas, it wasn’t to be.

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Soundtrack) by Henry Jackman - Review + Audio

Listen to this Review!

Oh Captain, My Captain
Review by Christopher Coleman

April isn’t supposed to be a month for blockbuster movies. Captain America isn’t supposed to offer one of the better stand-alone entries in The Avengers series of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and Henry Jackman isn’t supposed to be the one carrying on Cap’s musical story. Yet all these things are.

When last we left CAPTAIN AMERICA he, along with his new Avengers crew, had just saved New York and likely the rest of the world in the process … unless you count his brief Loki-channeled, cameo in THOR: THE DARK WORLD. Regardless, Captain America now finds himself in the post-911, post-tesseract, United States of America. Just as Tony Stark and Thor had to make significant life-adjustments as a result of the “Battle of the Tesseract,” so does Steve Rogers - perhaps even moreso.

It is in this modern, politically-grey, paranoid, and cynical America that Cap finds his next cinematic adventure. Fighting against a mysterious and formidable foe, known as The Winter Soldier, and an even greater, more elusive enemy, Captain America, Black Widow, Nick Fury, and the Falcon take on new biological, technological, and idealogical threats in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER. Leaving behind the nostalgic and simplistic patriotic tones of THE FIRST AVENGER and ALAN SILVESTRI’s pitch-perfect score, this Cap sequel’s original score is equally fitting. Perhaps not as listenable out of context, but it is difficult to argue that HENRY JACKMAN’s score for The Winter Soldier is not a fit for the film.

For those who have only listened to the original soundtrack as released by Hollywood Records, I have the greatest sympathy for you. Jackman’s original score is the poster-child for the need of context. It’s performance on soundtrack, without this context, is painfully disappointing. The score jumps from Bourne-like action to unadulterated Americana, to twisted-metallic-screams. If one has a Captain-America-like grit and determination for repeated listens, then there are threads that do connect many of these seemingly disparate patches together. My advice? See the film and make your subsequent listens to the score a substantially more pleasurable experience.

Henry Jackman’s score is evenly balanced between action, dramatic, and atmospheric cues; seven of the first two type and six of the last. The action and dramatic cues certainly hold the lion’s share of identifiable musical themes and moments, but, if one care to look closely enough, there are a number of interesting moments tucked within the many layers of the synth-symphonic-hybrid pieces as well.


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Rio 2 (Soundtrack) by John Powell

Rio ... Grande!

Review by Richard Buxton

Despite making a large dent in the box-office and receiving a generally warm critical response, 2011’s RIO was a largely forgettable and formulaic production that did little to stand out from the many anthropomorphic animal adventures that queue up for release each year. Its failings were hardly unique and were not quite enough to derail the film to the point of it being unenjoyable, but there was still a sense that RIO was just another run-of-the-mill animated stop-gap before the year’s bigger releases, and it was a feeling that coursed through the entire film. Despite emphasis on the film’s exotic Brazilian setting, RIO could have taken place just about anywhere and had similar results. There was a lack of conviction behind the film’s Latin American setting, and at times this extended even as far as JOHN POWELL’S score. That’s not to say that POWELL’S score was not at times excellent, but on the whole it failed to fully ignite in the way many have come to expect his works to. If his score for RIO 2 is anything to go by, the film’s geographical focus has increased significantly.

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Castlevania: Lord of Shadows (Ultimate Edition Soundtrack) by Oscar Araujo - Review

Highlights in Shadows
Review by Richard Buxton

It has been three years since LORDS OF SHADOW, a reboot of KONAMI’S classic franchise CASTLEVANIA, first graced consoles. Despite initial fan backlash against the game’s distinctly different style to its predecessors, LORDS OF SHADOW went on to become the most successful release of the long-running franchise. Naturally, in a generation of countless re-releases and updates, Gabriel Belmont is called upon to slay the dark lords once again in CASTLEVANIA: LORDS OF SHADOW - ULTIMATE EDITION. The timing of the game’s release has inevitably resulted in a lukewarm reception, as the gaze of the gaming world drifts on to a new generation of consoles. With the release of the ULTIMATE EDITION come new environments, weapons, and boss battles, but most interestingly for the musically-inclined, an extended release of Spanish composer OSCAR ARAUJO’S spectacular original score. Can you really have too much of a good thing? In this case, no, you cannot.

However, perhaps the most surprising target of the CASTLEVANIA fanbase’s ire was the score itself. Understandably, given the popularity of previous CASTLEVANIA music, fans had placed a certain level of expectation on the notably not Japanese composer OSCAR ARAUJO. Given the change in the game’s style, a distinct shift in composer and musical style was surely a given. The tremendously catchy, hook-based tracks of previous releases might have shone in years gone by, but would undoubtedly stick out sorely in a game-world highly dependent on a narrative structure such as LORDS OF SHADOW. One of the common criticisms leveled at ARAUJO’S score, before many had even heard it in full, was that it consisted of an “epic” genericism derived from countless Hollywood film scores of yesteryear. One can only wish that the average Hollywood score approached such a level as this though. Video game audiences are hardly known for their patience, occasionally lacking foresight and even hindsight should it suit their circumstances. Yet it still came as something of a surprise that such an outlook could come from a collective that spends much of each year complaining about the stagnation of major franchises whilst failing to back up their clamours by keeping their wallets shut. Apparently change is only acceptable with express permission. For many of those with an open mind, ARAUJO’S score was nothing short of spectacular, and to this day it remains one of the greatest scores composed for a video game. It may not have the infectious nostalgic hooks of “Vampire Killer”, “Cross Fear”, and the many other iconic themes of the CASTLEVANIA of old, but this is a score that rises above anything previously heard in this musically celebrated franchise. The release of this ULTIMATE EDITION is subsequently one that may interest fans of the score more than those of just the game itself.

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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Special Edition Soundtrack) by Howard Shore - Review

Buried Treasure
by Edmund Meinerts

After getting off to a somewhat uneven start with AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, Peter Jackson’s tripartite adaptation/expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien’s THE HOBBIT seems to have found slightly more secure footing in THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG. Although some of the issues that plagued the first entry continue – there really never was enough material in the source novel to justify three lengthy films, and the subsequent Jackson-inserted subplots, extra characters and protracted action sequences are hit-and-miss – at least the jarring tonal shifts between the brooding foreboding material and the more cartoonish episodes in the first entry have been smoothed out.

Also present, of course, is the score by Middle-earth court composer HOWARD SHORE. His music for AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, despite still being among the very best of its year, was treated poorly in the film. Plenty of fantastic new material made it onto the albums, but much of it was replaced in film by tracked-in or re-orchestrated music from THE LORD OF THE RINGS, occasionally to the point of apparently glaring thematic incongruence – particularly aggravating in a series that has been otherwise meticulous in its leitmotivic attribution. It is a relief to report, therefore, that these issues don’t seem to be present in THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG; although some of what is heard on album has been dialed out in film – quite disconcertingly during the Forest River action scene – at least there is no tracked-in material, and certainly no thematic headscratchers. And neither is there any significant divergence between the standard and special editions this time (i.e. no “Roast Mutton” fiasco or the like, thankfully).

That aside, however, this is probably the weakest score in the series so far. Considering what a high bar that is, perhaps there need be no shame in that – and make no mistake about it, this is still a HOWARD SHORE Middle-earth score through and through, with all of the richness and depth of thematic attribution that entails, and it still stands head and shoulders above most of the competition of its year, just as its predecessors all do. Indeed, THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG introduces us to over half a dozen new themes and motifs, as well as reprising and developing many other existing ones. But what this entry lacks is a core, a central theme that seems to hold the work together and make it unique, as well as fitting within the larger context of the series. The three LORD OF THE RINGS scores each had one: the Fellowship theme for FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, the Rohan theme for THE TWO TOWERS and the Gondor theme for RETURN OF THE KING.

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Ain't Them Bodies Saints (Soundtrack) by Daniel Hart - Review

A Dreary Countryside We’ve Heard Before

Review by Thomas Midena

AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS is a romantic drama set in the picturesque hills of Texas and featuring the small-scale story of an outlaw who escapes from prison to reunite with his wife. This setting and plot is simple and familiar, leaving the tough job of creating a unique and engaging tone to up-and-coming composer DANIEL HART.

Somber independent American dramas have come to sound alike in the past few years. The long hollow tones and eerie, wailing strings are joyless and persistent. In this way AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS is a predictable score. Sustained drones are an easy way to fill the sonic space with (seemingly meaningful) sound, and it wasn’t long before they became uncomfortable in my ears.

The dream-like nature of the score as a whole wears thin quickly, and there is little substance to latch on to. This is a common drawback of the ambient, minimalist style soundtrack, but sometimes there is something unique or interesting enough to hold your hand and pull you through. An entry point, so to speak. So what makes AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS stand out? Possibly it’s use of human body percussion. For the most part DANIEL HART forsakes drum beats for the more natural sounds of clapping hands and slapping thighs. I am, in general, an emphatic fan of clapping sounds in music. It’s often rather rousing, a fine way to make the music feel alive, and in some strange way - social. It can engage the listener in the momentum. To some extent it is similarly effectual in AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS, however the rest of the score is so desolate that it’s hard to get too excited. This clapping quirk is not unique enough to make AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS musically interesting for me. 

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Thor: The Dark World (Soundtrack) by Brian Tyler - Review

Thunderous

Review by Edmund Meinerts

Another day, another Marvel film…With no end to the superhero craze in sight, THOR: THE DARK WORLD sees the hammer-swinging thunder-god’s home, Asgard, under threat from the Dark Elf Malekith, wielding a strange and evil force known as the Aether, and things become so desperate that Thor has to turn to his imprisoned brother (and eternal fan-favorite, who once again gets to smirk behind bars) Loki for help. The first film was directed by Kenneth Branagh and brought with it a strong but divisive PATRICK DOYLE score that has been hailed by some as a successful update of the composer’s style into the modern Hollywood blockbuster arena, and derided by others as a dumbing-down and repression of said style. With Branagh replaced by Alan Taylor for this sequel, the odds of DOYLE returning were slim; initially, CARTER BURWELL (of all people) was announced as his replacement, but he was ultimately replaced with the far safer choice of BRIAN TYLER, fresh off of his own Marvel excursion with IRON MAN 3...

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The 25th Reich (Soundtrack) by Ricky Edwards - Review

Darth Hitler
by Edmund Meinerts

A low-budget Australian-made homage to the pulp B-movies of the 40s and 50s, THE 25TH REICH details the time-travelin’, Nazi-punchin’, robot-smashin’, spaceship-crashin’ exploits of five World War II-era OSS agents who are recruited to go forward in time and stop a future Nazi alien invasion. The jury’s still out whether that’s the most ridiculous or the most awesome premise ever, but the 3.1 rating on imdb speaks volumes for itself. IRON SKY, in comparison, has a 6.0 and is apparently the superior of the two Nazis-from-space movies that came out in 2012. The most important thing to take from that is we now live in a world where two Nazis-from-space movies came out in one year. My life is complete.

The score for this opus, released a year after the fact by the ever-diligent MovieScore Media, comes courtesy of one RICKY EDWARDS, an orchestrator for DAVID HIRSCHFELDER with only a few TV credits to his name. Things get off to an eyebrow-raising start with “The 25th Reich March” (1), which immediately slaps you over the head with an outrageous homage to the ultimate theme of evil, JOHN WILLIAMS’ “Imperial March,” right down to the first three harsh brass notes blasting on key. Given what kind of film this is, it’s safe to assume that it’s all done with a huge wink and a nod, especially when the interlude sequence throws in a theremin for good measure. You can’t help but smile despite (or perhaps because of) the obvious influence.

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Skylanders: Swap Force (Game Soundtrack) by Lorne Balfe

The Limit's The Skies
Review by Richard Buxton

The ACTIVISION money train rolls ever onwards with the release of SKYLANDERS: SWAP FORCE - the third in the phenomenally successful SPYRO THE DRAGON reboot series -and with it comes LORNE BALFE’S third score release of the series. For those who find themselves outside the video-gaming loop, or those without children who happen to be clinically addicted to the Pokemon inspired collecting-based franchise, SKYLANDERS is a combination of video game visuals and physical toys that are connected through the use of near field communication, which sees those toys you purchase transported on to the screen and controlled by the players. Ultimately, SKYLANDERS is yet another gimmick with the sole aim of emptying the wallets of parents the world over, and to publisher Activision and the various development studios’ credit it’s one that is working tremendously well.

Having scored both SPYRO’S ADVENTURE and GIANTS, LORNE BALFE has returned for the third installment, SWAP FORCE. Like the music for the previous two releases, SWAP FORCE is endlessly playful but it is a score that is heavily restricted by the nature of the SKYLANDERS games. Like countless platformers before it, SWAP FORCE takes the player through various themed levels, and with each level comes differing musical thematic ideas. The style of gameplay within the platforming genre demands an open ended-musical structure, allowing the compositions to move along with the gameplay fittingly, despite a lack of rigid scripting within each level. This means that BALFE’S score rarely drops out, instead maintaining a consistent level of exuberance. Whilst suitable for the game itself, the score quickly becomes monotonous despite a noticeable restructuring on disc.

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Captain Phillips (Soundtrack) by Henry Jackman - Review

A Tension
Review by Richard Buxton

 Released to rave reviews, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is another feather in the cap of PAUL GREENGRASS, a master of the “based on true events” sector of Hollywood cinema, and yet another standout performance from the ever-reliable TOM HANKS. A potential hurdle for a suspenseful biopic thriller in the vein of CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is the fact that many audiences will go into theaters with prior knowledge of the outcome of the film’s real life inspiration. In the hands of lesser talents, this would lead to a film bereft of tension and suspense, but GREENGRASS has proven time and again that he is able to inject the silver screen with palpable anxiety, and he has clearly succeeded once more. With frequent collaborator JOHN POWELL on an extended break, GREENGRASS sought the talents of the rapidly rising HENRY JACKMAN. How does this new, but likely temporary, partnership fare in pirate-infested waters?


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Pacific Rim (Soundtrack) by Ramin Djawadi - Review

Category 7 ... out of 10

Review by Christopher Coleman

Big robots. Big monsters. Neither have had much critical success on the big screen in recent years. Put the two together and you could just be doubling up the level of fail. But under the skillful direction of Guillermo Del Toro? Well, that’s a different story... a different movie.

Del Toro’s PACIFIC RIM has, for some, become the darling of the 2013 Summer film season. It’s a movie that turned out to be just what it was promised to be... and even what it was marketed to be. What a concept! While this would have been enough to put an untainted smile on my face, PACIFIC RIM even went a bit further. It actually features a personality of its own and delivers a character or two to care about, which sadly can’t be said for all that many of it’s contemporaries.

Composer RAMIN DJAWADI may best be known for his memorable theme for GAME OF THRONES, but caught ears (for better or worse) with his rock-and-rolly original score for IRON MAN back in 2008. I happen to think it was very much for “the better.” Djawadi’s score for PACIFIC RIM is, in part, the spiritual successor to IRON MAN. His title theme, featuring the distinctive guitar work of Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine), is the only track you’ll need to hear to make the connection.  But you shouldn't stop there...go on and listen to more ... of both scores.

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The Paradise (Original Television Soundtrack) by Maurizio Malagnini - Review

Paradise Found

Review by Richard Buxton

Riding the crest of DOWNTON ABBEY’S period drama wave, drama series THE PARADISE confirms that audiences’ desires to have their belief that English people, as a rule, speak with such meticulousness that the Queen herself would writhe with envy, has yet to waver. Airing on the BBC in the UK and PBS in the US, THE PARADISE tells the story of England’s first ever department store and its effect on the surrounding community, and introduces a composer who is likely to be cropping up on the radar of many in the wake of this release - MAURIZIO MALAGNINI. MALAGNINI’S career is still in its infancy, but the Italian composer is already displaying a panache far beyond that which his relatively little experience might suggest.

Many scores, particularly those from television, suffer from a wavering in quality resulting from a lack of consistency. THE PARADISE shows no such weakness in what is a remarkably dependable album that is unfailingly engaging despite lacking the highs that could decisively elevate it into greatness.

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Ender's Game (Soundtrack) by Steve Jablonsky - Review

Oh Bugger.

Review by Edmund Meinerts

It’s taken long enough, but Orson Scott Card’s classic sci-fi novel ENDER’S GAME – about a school where gifted children are trained to become ruthless commanders in a war against an alien menace – has finally made the leap to the silver screen. The film has had to struggle through a thicket of production problems, not to mention controversy over the author’s, shall we say, less than enlightened politics. One thing you often see when a film is going through issues like this at a late stage is a rejected score, simply because it’s one of the last things to be completed on a film and is therefore one of the only things that can still be changed. And that is apparently what happened with ENDER’S GAME, with JAMES HORNER leaving the project (ostensibly before he was able to record any material) and being replaced with one of the film score community’s favorite whipping boys, STEVE JABLONSKY. Reactions to this news were, to put it mildly, rather displeased.

Not all of the criticism heaped on JABLONSKY has been entirely fair – he is undoubtedly a talented composer, as his outstanding score to STEAMBOY continues to prove – but he is so rarely allowed to use the full extent of his musical muscles. He is the epitome of hit-and-miss, and with each score he puts out, you simply have no idea whether it will be a hugely enjoyable, thematic guilty pleasure along the lines of TRANSFORMERS, or rather a vicious, noisy, intellectually bankrupt assault on the ears a la BATTLESHIP (we can take STEAMBOY out of the equation as it looks less and less likely that JABLONSKY will ever revisit that sort of writing, sadly). ENDER’S GAME exists somewhere in between those two ends of the spectrum, but unfortunately it resides far, far closer to the latter than the former.

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The Ultimate Life (Soundtrack) by Mark McKenzie - Review

Beyond Doubt

by Richard Buxton

Regardless of your stance on humanity’s origins as a race, and the existence of beings greater than our own, there can be no doubt that themes of religion and faith in film frequently result in music of outstanding beauty. Composer MARK MCKENZIE has hardly been the most prolific in recent years, but he is no stranger to matters of faith illustrated on screen. THE ULTIMATE LIFE, a sequel to 2006’s THE ULTIMATE GIFT, comes two years after MCKENZIE’S critically acclaimed score to THE GREATEST MIRACLE, and while THE ULTIMATE LIFE itself has suffered critical damage in the media, MCKENZIE has once again crafted an often spellbinding score that is underpinned by sumptuous themes.

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A Single Shot (Soundtrack) by Atli Örvarsson - Review

Atonal for Your Sins

by Edmund Meinerts

A dark psychological thriller, A SINGLE SHOT sees Sam Rockwell playing John Moon, a down-on-his-luck hunter who accidentally shoots and kills a girl, finds a large sum of money on her person and ends up on the run from criminals who are after that money. The music for this difficult story is provided by Icelandic composer and Remote Control “graduate” ATLI ÖRVARSSON. Ordinarily, the combination of thriller and RC composer tends to result in largely electronic (and, frankly, largely awful) scores of drones and drum loops; his concurrent score to EVIDENCE is exactly such an effort. For A SINGLE SHOT however, at the urging of director David Rosenthal, the composer was led down an entirely different and even more challenging path.

ÖRVARSSON likens his time working on A SINGLE SHOT to a master’s course in modern classical music, citing ARVO PÄRT, GYÖRGI LIGETI and JOHN TAVENER as some of the composers whose music he researched. Make no mistake about it, this is extremely difficult music to stomach on an album which is completely devoid of warmth. Essentially, the curiously structured MovieScore Media/Kronos album can be divided into two portions: the stark, lonely “thematic” material in the first three and final cues, and the outright atonal suspense contained in the three lengthy “John Moon Variations” (4-6) in the middle....

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Colette (Soundtrack) by Atli Örvarsson - Revioew

Örvarsson's Emerging Voice

Review by Edmund Meinerts

A love story set against the horrific backdrop of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, the Czech film COLETTE would seem to be the last place you’d expect to find a composer bred from HANS ZIMMER’s ubiquitous Remote Control studio; ordinarily one finds them on all sorts of B-rate thrillers and action movies. And while ATLI ÖRVARSSON has scored his fair share of those, he now seems to be branching out considerably, with 2013 turning out to be a varied and prolific (if not a little hit-and-miss) year for the Icelandic composer.

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Europa Report (Soundtrack) by Bear McCreary - Review

The Wonder of Space Realized

Review by Thomas Midena

A scientific expedition travels further into space than humanity has ever gone before and uncovers an incredible mystery about our universe? Sounds like the recipe for an excellent science fiction soundtrack! 

The EUROPA REPORT film uses a realistic “found footage” format to present a fictional story of the first crewed mission to one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa. You only need to listen to the first minute of this score to have a good idea of the style of the whole album, and that’s all the time it took for me to be hooked.

The same rapid, pulsing beat which opens in “Lift Off” (1) can be heard through a large portion of the score, providing a consistent and wonderfully exciting tonal base. Similar to MCCREARY’s other recent science fiction score, “Defiance”, swirls of increasingly emotive strings wash over the low beat. There’s nothing unique here - or in any of this soundtrack - but MCCREARY certainly has a way of playing with melodies that is very easy to listen to. There’s nothing too musically complex going on here, so the vast majority of listeners will enjoy themselves to some extent.

However, unlike “Defiance” - which is deliberately hyped up to eleven with screaming electronic sounds - EUROPA REPORT is notably subdued. MCCREARY shows remarkable restraint, keeping the music at a temperate level even when he needs to communicate shock and excitement. Sure, the bombasity of “Defiance” may be more unique and memorable, but EUROPA REPORT is arguably a more beautiful, tonally-consistent album.

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Gagarin: First in Space (Soundtrack) by George Kallis - Review

The Russian Stuff

Review by Steven Sharratt

Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, was the first human in space when he orbited the Earth on 12 April 1961, effectively winning the first round of the space race for the Soviet Union. While the USA's side of the space race has been well accounted for in Hollywood, the Soviet-side has seen considerably less dramatic-representation.  It should be noted that Hollywood's presentation of the space race has yielded some pretty impressive movie scores such as: THE RIGHT STUFF (Bill Conti), and APOLLO 13 (James Horner).  If such dramatic treatment was given to a slice of the Russian space program, we'd expect there to be plenty of opportunity for equally compelling musical expression.  Thanks to MovieScore Media's recent release: GAGARIN: FIRST IN SPACE, we finally afforded such an opportunity.

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