One has to wonder if Beltrami and his crew would have
been better served by straying closer to the industrial influences of
the latter for the context of such a uniform apocalypse. The organic
portion of the mix for
World War Z is never convincingly played,
the orchestra often present but not the defining characteristic of the
music outside of its ability to create rough rhythms and an ambient
dissonance that might have been better achieved with strictly electronic
elements. The presence of an electric guitar as a discomforting
background performer in even the score's most palatable symphonic
portions is easily evident. The sound design of
World War Z is
really what drives this score, the thumping electronics and meandering
haze of discontent tuned to whatever rhythm Beltrami is hashing through
with the orchestra. There are ostinatos of John Powell origin to be
heard here, of course, but despite some critical references to
connections between the Jason Bourne and
World War Z chase
mechanisms, Beltrami seems far happier thrashing through standard horror
techniques than using contemporary chase rhythms. To that point, you'll
hear everything from stereotypical stingers ("Hand Off") to the
heartbeat-like thumps of Ennio Morricone's
The Thing ("Like a
River Around a Rock," not surprising given Beltrami's work on the
remake). A tremendous amount of unpleasantness with Christopher Young
precision marks the heightened suspense moments, though outright action
does seem to degenerate into basic pounding at times. Thematically,
Beltrami is not negligent of the compelling side of the storyline. He
applies two themes to
World War Z, one for the individual warmth
of humanity and the other for the larger plight for survival. The former
uses the deep piano thuds and a similar progression to the theme at the
end of Haslinger's
Underworld and is featured in "The Lane
Family" and "Wales." The latter is built around a rising three-note
structure of hope that bursts out of the darkness in the middle of "The
Salvation Gates" and closes out the score in "Like a River Around a
Rock" (after mingling with the other theme near the very end). The
conclusions to the final two album tracks offer an almost awkward amount
of relief, reflecting the sudden shift in tone at the end of Beltrami's
Scream 3, the "Wales" cue in particular presenting a brief
snippet of harmonious choral beauty. Regardless of this respite,
however,
World War Z is a frightfully generic tackling of the
concept, even considering Beltrami's intelligent orchestral
applications. There is very little narrative development in the work,
and its textures and ambience seem recycled more often than not. As
such, you get a work that bores you far more than it should, a
disappointment in any "end of the world" context.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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