Details:
- Film: The Day The Earth Stood Still
- Soundtrack composer: Tyler Bates
- Original year of release: 2008
- Number of tracks: 28
- Soundtrack duration: 52 mins 58 secs
- Tracks with vocals/distracting aspects: None
- Film score duration (with distracting tracks removed): 52 mins 58 secs
- Suggested suitable book genres: Horror (of pretty much all subgenres), Dark Sci-Fi, Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, Thrillers
DLS Summary:
This is a textbook Tyler Bates soundtrack. Almost an hour of quality, atmospheric, powerfully evocative musical excellence, providing absolutely superb backing music for reading to.
It should be noted that the soundtrack includes many moments where the dominance of the piece takes a noticeable step back, to provide a quieter audio experience, laced with a subtler atmosphere. Even these times though, provide enough audio coverage to assist with masking any background noise and commotion, if you’re using the soundtrack for reading to whilst commuting and the like. However, the vast majority of the score provides the listener with a powerful audio journey, laying down a thick and rich blanket of entirely non-distracting accompanying music.
This, like with so many other Tyler Bates soundtracks, is absolutely perfect for reading to.
DLS Review:
The soundtrack starts out with a collection of eerie soundscapes, giving us a quick sample of the atmospheric intensity of the piece, before settling into a wonderfully evocative tapestry of strings and an underlying harmonious vocal choir piece.
The music remains not-too disruptive with its dominance, but instead a perfectly balanced backing score, with gradually flowing strings and escalating bursts of musical intensity. There are hints of sound bites that sound somewhat akin to some strange alien communication, along with moments that break out into a beating rhythm and escalating pace, like a cross between ‘300’ (2007) and ‘The Rock’ (1996).
Indeed, the tracks seem to jump between those of an evocative, atmospheric soundscape, to that of a thumping, pace-driven track that pulls you along at a steady rate with its enthralling intensity.
There are certainly a good number of quieter, more reserved tracks. However, these are often broken by sudden bursts of explosive orchestras, as something dramatic invariably happens within the film. Track seven – G.O.R.T. – is a prime example of this, lulling the listener into a false sense of relaxation before exploding into a cacophony of orchestral dominance.
Further on in the soundtrack we’re given more strange, alien-like sci-fi sound clips which come across almost industrial like in their otherwise ambiguous nature. Again, these are far from distracting, but instead compliment the musical score perfectly with their puzzling but suggestive nature.
As we get further into the soundtrack, the different tracks appear to become a little more involved and intense. Track twelve in particular is an absolute textbook Tyler Bates offering, with intensity and pace charging forth throughout the track.
For the large part the soundtrack as a whole stays within very familiar “Tyler Bates offering” grounds. Tracks of urgency followed by segments of quieter, more atmospheric elements. The use of plummeting bass like a bomb dropping from a high height, is something that recurs throughout the soundtrack. This is an aspect which is definitely strongly complimented by some good quality headphones.
Finally, the latter tracks on the CD provide a sort of ‘audio magnificence’ which most would agree Tyler Bates has mastered so effectively over the years. This again uses a wall of strings to deliver a powerful and evocative layer of music which sounds as rich as it does deep.
All in all though, this is a solid, rich and atmospheric score that is perfectly suited for reading with.
As a soundtrack for reading to:
The soundtrack as a whole:
© DLS Reviews
