Terry's Reviews Page
Terry reviews the latest Movies, Music and Books

Music Reviews:

Crysis 2 - Main Themes by Hans Zimmer
Music by Borislav Slavov, Tilman Sillescu, Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe

La-La Land Records – 2011

You would never in your life think this epic soundtrack was from a video game.  I don't play video games, I'm on computer far too much to want to look at another screen or click more than I already do.  But thankfully I was sent this massive 2-disc CD set, which is hands down the best score music I've reviewed this year.

Hans Zimmer's main themes are amazing as he captures courage, death & destruction and survival of mankind within his composition.  But Zimmer is not alone as he is joined by Lorne Balfe in creating six fantastic cues that explode with emotional power.  Borislav Slavov contributes twenty pulse pounding tracks and Tilman Sillescu nineteen filmic instrumental cuts. 

The game is described within the linear notes as "The world has been ravaged by a series of climatic disaster and society is on the verge of a total breakdown.  Crysis 2 is really a story about a piece of technology - and technological lust.  The Nanosuit is a piece of combat technology so complete, the divide between man and weapon disappears.  Its technology, borrowed from alien sources without question, is handed from one dying man to another in the hope it will save them both and with them the whole human race."

Music Director & Composer Borislav Slavov says, "One of the main music direction goals from the very beginning was to provide not just tension and action feelings but to make you feel a full range of emotions such as fear, anger, sadness, loneliness and anticipation.  Slavov has helps achieve this with this potent contributions to the soundtrack.

The music will transport you into a ravaged New York City, dress you in the Nanosuit and let you experience the adventure that ensues.

Crysis 2 Original Videogame Soundtrack features forty-six pulse pounding tracks that equal up to 98 minutes and 41 seconds running time.  That's over a hour and a half of thrilling cinematic music that you can listen to anywhere.

The sound quality doesn't get better than this.  It is clean with gigantic peaks and valleys at both ends of the sound register.  Instrumentation used is incredibly diverse, with specific instruments aimed at representing specific story targets, such as classical solo violin as a representation of the human sprit and distorted guitar for the alien invaders.

If the visual style of this game is captured with the artwork in the linear notes, then it has to be exciting to play.  I won't be playing the game for reasons previously mentioned.  But you can rest assured this 2-CD set will be playing on all my CD platforms and will no doubt be on my list for the Best of 2011 by year's end.

www.lalalandrecords.com