{"id":2057,"date":"2010-12-31T20:13:55","date_gmt":"2011-01-01T01:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2057"},"modified":"2011-02-14T11:52:02","modified_gmt":"2011-02-14T16:52:02","slug":"cd-unstoppable-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2057","title":{"rendered":"CD: Unstoppable (2010)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/<\/em> T to U<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Rating: Very Good<\/p>\n

Label: \u00a0La-La Land Records\u00a0\/ Released: November 23, 2010<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length:\u00a013 tracks \/ (42:22)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes:\u00a08-page colour foldout booklet.<\/p>\n

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Composer:\u00a0Harry Gregson-Williams<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Harry Gregson-Williams latest paring with director Tony Scott offers up a solid action score that evokes the bombast of the director\u2019s action films, and fleeting moments of peace characters enjoy before Something Horrible and Deadly occurs Very, very Soon.<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s films are excesses of style, which sometimes yield engrossing thrillers \u2013 Man on Fire<\/strong> (2004) \u2013 or indulgent duds like Domino<\/strong> (2005), deadened by soulless characters and mindless psychotic editing. The orchestral middle ground is Spy Game<\/strong> (2001), where Gregson-Williams splintered sounds were used to their most powerful amid chorals, heavy strings, and pinched techno beats.<\/p>\n

Unstoppable<\/strong> is formulaic, and musically it\u2019s Spy Game<\/strong> lite (right down to the reverse-processed keyboard chords), but it hits all the right dramatic markers one expects in both the film and the corresponding score. A steady beat symbolizes another working day for a blue collar train engineer and conductor, as well as the machinations of loading, prepping, and getting a train ready for its delivery of toxic chemicals.<\/p>\n

A lilting piano phrase adds a bit of humanity for the lead characters that will soon become plastic action figures, and imparts a sense of simpatico with audiences, as they too have personal flaws and imperfect social lives. Thunderous booms accent both the machinations of the first act \u2013 the deadly cargo is almost loaded up, the drama\u2019s passing its first point of no return \u2013 and audiences are set for what\u2019s ostensibly a full action score.<\/p>\n

Gregson-Williams\u2019 pounding percussion textures are among his strongest stylistic traits, and \u201cNed\u201d is filled with a cluster of rock and ethnic hits with squealing electric guitar, and brief waves of strings that symbolize a fleeting sense of humanity.<\/p>\n

\u201cDewey\u201d illustrates the near-perfect sonic transitions Gregson-Williams employs in engineering tones which move from clean strings to electric feedback, and bass feedback symbolizes the increase of danger as the two characters are forced to exercise more desperate and dangerous measures to stop the out of control train.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s around \u201cNot a Coaster\u201d where Gregson-Williams takes the high-register guitar riff of \u201cNed\u201d are turns it into an element symbolic of potentially cataclysmic danger, pitting the repeated 3-note motif against reflexive bass tones, rising strings, and sonic echoes which pepper the stereo spectrum before Gregson-Williams slams down another deep-welled bass groove.<\/p>\n

The reason the guitar riff is important at this stage is because parts of the film were clearly tracked with the opening bank robbery cue (\u201cWhy So Serious?\u201d) from The Dark Knight<\/strong>, and rather than mimic the cue, Gregson-Williams opted to take its most dynamic elements and gradually incorporate them into the score, first as part of a collage, later as motifs (\u201cRealign the Switch\u201d has the bass & percussion slams and trailing guitar squeal; \u201cPlaying Chicken with Trains\u201d is largely the rising electrified squeal), and finally bringing the key elements together for the score\u2019s longest cue, \u201cThe Stanton Curve,\u201d which is probably the scene where the Hans Zimmer-James Newton Howard cue was tracked.<\/p>\n

Gregson-Williams\u2019 approach works, making his slight variation less jarring, but it symbolizes the problem composers have when directors and editors cut a scene to a temp track, and demand something similar, since they\u2019ve fallen in love with the thing.<\/p>\n

The only downside to the album is Gregson-Williams gets only one more cue before the CD\u2019s end, which isn\u2019t enough to bring listeners back to the composer\u2019s own world and respective themes. The Spy Game<\/strong> CD may have had two or three too many end cues, but it ultimately brought the score to a more fulfilling close.<\/p>\n

Unstoppable<\/strong> is guaranteed to get regular play from fans of the composer\u2019s action writing, but it should\u2019ve been a longer, meatier album.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2010 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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Related links:<\/p>\n

Film \/ DVD: \u00a0Unstoppable<\/strong> <\/a>(2010)<\/p>\n

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Related external links (MAIN SITE):<\/p>\n

CD: \u00a0Dark Knight, The<\/a><\/strong> (2008)<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0T to U<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews \/ T to U . Rating: Very Good Label: \u00a0La-La Land Records\u00a0\/ Released: November 23, 2010 Tracks & Album Length:\u00a013 tracks \/ (42:22) . Special Notes:\u00a08-page colour foldout booklet. . Composer:\u00a0Harry Gregson-Williams . . Review: Harry Gregson-Williams latest paring with director Tony Scott offers up a solid action score that evokes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[153],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-xb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2057"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2073,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2057\/revisions\/2073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}