Halo 3: ODST
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CD Details
Edition: Music CDAudio: English (Unknown)
Format: Soundtrack
CD Release Date: 2009-09-22
Music Label: Sumthing Else
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Overture
- The Rookie
- More Than His Share
- Difference For Darkness
- The Menagerie
- Asphalt and Ablution
- Traffic Jam
- Neon Night
- The Office of Naval Intelligence
- Bits and Pieces
- Skyline
- No Stone Unturned
- One Way Ride
- The Light At The End
- Data Hive
- Special Delivery
- Finale
Music reviews of Halo 3: ODST
Music Review: Ominous & Dark Sound Track: not on par with previous Halo OSTs, but still worth buying...
Rating: 3 Stars
To be honest, although I am a longtime fan of the Halo series, I did not even bother buying ODST (the game), due to the several less-than-stellar reviews I read, and mostly due to my utter disappointment in Halo 3, after the unforgettable experience that Halo 2 had been...
Nevertheless, I am a collector and estimator of good film scores, and I have always considered the epic, mesmerizing, lush, gorgeous, epic music textures woven by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori for the previous Halo games among the _best_ scores ever composed, not only for any game, but also compared to most film scores you can hear today (the epic, gorgeous notes of "This is the hour", for instance, will never fail to send a good chill down my spine); so, I did not wait a second when I saw this CD on Amazon, and I ordered it instantly.
Unfortunately, I must tell you right now that this production, IMHO, turned out to be definitely not right on par with the previous scores, perhaps for the same reasons why the game has not shared the same success of the previous installments...
The opening seconds of the first track ("Overture") of this score, IMHO, definitely set the tone for this entire OST: the sound of heavy rain, followed by a sad, soulful theme, will introduce you to a series of tense, mostly percussive, sometimes bleak, often scary and always intriguing tracks, which will accompany you in a descent through a mysterious and dark journey, where light awaits you only at the end of the tunnel, to quote one of the track tiles...
In other words, since its inception, I think this score completely lacks the epic scale, the heroic moments and the otherwordly atmoshperes that marked Halo 1, 2 and 3 (hence the missing star). For instance, there is no trace of the good ol' "Truth and reconciliation theme", that accompanied all of us Halo players through our campaigns... And do not even _think_ of Steve Vai's screaming guitar in Halo 2: there is just a faint echo of that in the "Street Sweeper" section of track n.7, probably because the story of this game is more akin to a thriller, as far as I know.
Therefore, I could not avoid feeling disappointed, at first, until I got to the 4th track, (the "Rain" section), where I was finally surprised by a beautiful, sad piano theme, accompanied by soaring cellos and strings, that reminded me of the most ethereal, amazing and emotion-stirring themes in Halo 2 ("Unforgotten"/"Heavy price paid", which are worth the price of the Halo 2 OST alone, IMHO). _This_ was exactly the kind of music material that I was actually looking for, so this track radically changed my opinion on the score.
Then, I found another absolutely wonderful track, the real pearl in this score, IMHO, the starting section of n.6 "Asphalt and ablution" ("Still grounded"), which left me totally awestruck by its beautiful, poignant, unforgettable piano theme, again, inspiring an almost tragic atmosphere. And one other similar piano tune is also contained in track n.8 ("Neon night"), which evokes a more thrilling feeling, but not less beautiful.
In my opinion, tracks like these, just like the typical out-of-this-world and epic tracks from Halo 2 and 3, are the sort of musical compositions that completely set apart the Halo scores by these two fine musicians from any other game music: they are so intense, poignant and awe-inspiring, that would really be worth being used in real movies, and are almost too good for a "simple" videogame...
(And that is one of the reasons why I was so sad when I heard that the Peter Jackson's Halo movie project was abandoned: I was really hoping that, one day, I would have the chance to hear such great pieces on a giant screen, underscoring a great movie with our Spartan... who knows, maybe sooner or later this will happen!)
Anyway, there are also other interesting tracks here, or maybe I should say "sections", since this soundtrack, just like the previous one from Halo 3, was created by aggregating very small (often less than a minute long) musical interactive sections from the game into "tracks". For instance, track 3 offers some more "active" parts, just as some sections in track 9: these are mostly percussive sections, and on the whole I noticed a very frequent use (maybe too frequent, sometimes...) of percussions alone for the most "active" parts of this score, with a lack of orchestral textures underscoring such percussions.
This lowered the interest in repeated listenings of these tracks/sections, for me, so I kept browsing for the most lyrical parts, instead.
Problem is, you cannot select the specific sub-sections, but you have to fast-forward through the various tracks to find them; so, if you just want to listen to them, you will definitely need some editing...
Disc 2 also starts with another interesting piano/strings theme ("From the ashes", which at some point reminded me of Philip Glass' Koyaanisqatsi) and then proceeds much like Disc one, alternating other percussive tracks with some more soulful piano/string tracks ("No Stone Unturned", "Light at the end"), in a slight crescendo, that finally opens up in the last sections of track 7, (from "Extra firepower" on), where you can even hear echoes of the Halo 3 themes, and the nice "Finale", which starts subdued and ends up in a fully orchestral, dramatic, intense and utterly gorgeous "final run".
In the end, I would definitely say that, by extracting and/or editing the best parts from these CDs, you can easily put together another nice Halo score: less epic, with a smaller scope and scale, but always interesting, brilliant at times, and absolutely worth its price.
Thanks to Mr. O'Donnell and Mr. Salvatori for bringing the Halo musical torch on!
Description of Halo 3: ODST
2009 two CD set containing the soundtrack to the popular video game Halo 3.Pop CDs
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