{"id":4142,"date":"2012-01-18T16:26:32","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T21:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4142"},"modified":"2012-01-18T16:26:32","modified_gmt":"2012-01-18T21:26:32","slug":"cd-darkest-hour-the-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4142","title":{"rendered":"CD: Darkest Hour, The (2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>D<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Label: Lakeshore Records\/ Released: January 17, 2012<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length: 19 tracks \/ (50:00)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: n\/a.<\/p>\n

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Composer: Tyler Bates<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

For his second feature film as director, Chris Gorak carries over his taste for electronic textures and has Tyler Bates craft one of his least aggressive scores in years. Like Gorak\u2019s debut, Right at Your Door <\/a><\/strong>(2006), scored by tomandandy, Bates opted for electronic textures that organically flow, ebbing and occasionally cresting with thick waves of distortion or pressurized clusters of electronic notes. Most of the action cues don\u2019t\u2019 materialize until the end, leaving the album\u2019s first two-thirds as a moody, non-melodic sea of textures, ripples, and bass slams.<\/p>\n

Bates does employ some orchestral sounds at times \u2013 notably in the kinetic \u201cNight Club Attack,\u201d which in one instance bears more than a passing resemblance to Brian Reitzell\u2019s 30 Days of Night<\/a><\/strong> (a sign of an overloaded temp track, perhaps?) \u2013 but they tend to be rather amorphous, constantly wafting from orchestral to digitally processed sounds. Bates is a master at blending material into fluid dramatic cues, yet his use of samples and processing never pushes a score into an over-produced work.<\/p>\n

The trick with Hour<\/strong> is to give it multiple plays, because without a firm, lengthy central theme, much of what plays is purely atmospheric, and like Reitzell\u2019s 30 Days<\/strong> (2007) or Michl Britsch\u2019s Pandorum<\/a><\/strong> (2009), the sleekness of the composer\u2019s bleak vision grows on the listener. Bates tends to get hired for heavy action or gory thrillers, but in Hour<\/strong> he seems to have been given long scenes where mood tends to dominate any action; his cues frequently infer potential mayhem before it occurs, allowing for long stretches of sonic angst (notably \u201cHere\u2019s Our Mission\u201d) before the album\u2019s final handful of cues provide a needed action-oriented wrap-up and emergence of his compact theme.<\/p>\n

Lakeshore\u2019s CD (also available as a download) tags 9 mins. of two source songs at the beginning, but the score feels complete and satisfying, and much of the nuances inherent to Bates\u2019 writing come through nicely in this well-mastered album.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/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>\/\u00a0D<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews \/ D . Rating: Very Good Label: Lakeshore Records\/ Released: January 17, 2012 Tracks & Album Length: 19 tracks \/ (50:00) . Special Notes: n\/a. . Composer: Tyler Bates . . Review: For his second feature film as director, Chris Gorak carries over his taste for electronic textures and has Tyler […]<\/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":[1026,438],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-14O","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142"}],"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=4142"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4146,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142\/revisions\/4146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}