Title - 'Snowpiercer' (Varese Sarabande)
Artist - Marco Beltrami
It's been 17 years since we froze the earth. The few remaining humans live on the Snowpiercer, a train on an infinite loop around the globe. For those at the front, it's a lavish paradise of drugs and sushi in the lap of luxury. For those trapped in the tail section, life is short and cruel.
Award-winning composer Marco Beltrami (The Wolverine, World War Z, Trouble With The Curve, Warm Bodies etc.) has worked on en masse of dark, grey-toned movies and is kinda now making the accompanying soundtracks his own genre. Here on 'Snowpiercer,' Beltrami has notably created three basic ongoing themes for the 20 tracks on the CD.
The first is a state of perpetual motion, not unlike the Snowpiercer itself, tracks such as 'Take The Engine,' 'We Go Forward' and 'Steam Car' are propelled by pacey rhythms; the second was created to represent the frozen world outside the train, like on such tracks as the opener 'This Is The End,' 'Preparation,' and 'Snow Melt'; and the third brought to us the emotional substance of the characters, as is fully understood in tracks like 'Requesting An Upgrade,' 'Yona Lights' and even the last track on the album, the haunting 'Yona's Theme.'
In the film Curtis (Chris Evans), desperate to escape the tail of the train, plans an uprising aided by his mentor,Gilliam (John Hurt). The questions are how far can they go and is there hope beyond the frozen wastes? Listening to the soundtrack, eyes closed and not having seen the movie, as each one plays out the story unfolds. Come 'Yona's Theme' and you yourself will know just by listening to Beltrami's intimate score the answers to those posed questions.
Reviewed by: Russell A. Trunk
www.VareseSarabande.com