OST: 300 Soundtrack

OST: 300 / 2007 WB / 25 Tracks / http://www.300themovie.warnerbros.com /

Pretty much everyone has seen 300 at this point. It is the story of the valiant Spartan army against the evil Persians; what individuals may not be immediately familiar with is the work of Tyler Bates. Bates, who composed the score to this movie, is best known for creating the soundtrack to movies like Dawn of the Dead and The Devil’s Rejects. The subject matter is a little different, but Bates comes up with a score that fits the movie and the current period well.

For example, the disc starts out with “To Victory”. “To Victory” is a track that blends Mortal Kombat music with the writings of Homer and other Greek poets. While there are Middle Eastern and Hellenic elements to the music on the disc, this is couched in a very current and contemporaneous style. The choral sounds that are a major part of “Returns a King” seem to give themselves into something that has commonalities with a stomp fest and the aforementioned video game store. The instrumentation present during this track is bold and boisterous, so much so that the absurd, cartoony action during the movie is matched well. Each of the compositions during this score are short enough to fade out and allow for Bates to go and more accurately capture the action with eir compositions. What Bates does best during this album is paint a very dichotomous sound to the score.

While the compositions present during “Submission” may be loud and noise, there is a lot of work within the shadows during “The Ephors”. I am not sure how well this album would translate to repeated listening, as the disc itself seems to hold back at all the most vital times. One expects more in the way of nuanced arrangements during “What Must A King Do?”, but they are only left with a very broad stroke by Bates eirself. The movie has a tremendous amount of action and a tremendous eye to detail, but I think a weakness is present in Bates’s score, due to this broad sound and lack of definition. The scores that Bates created for eir earlier commissions made more sense given their genre, but there does not seem to be congruence with the film at all points of this score. There are high points, such as the female vocals during “Goodbye My Love”, but these are not present in the amount that is needed for this score.

Top Tracks: Goodbye My Love, Fight In The Shade

Rating: 5.2/10