Neil Davidge - Halo 4 Original Soundtrack

  by Fiona Hutchings

published: 31 / 10 / 2012

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Review

I asked to review this album because the idea of a soundtrack for a computer game intrigued me. I rarely notice the music in computer games (although I do have a sneaking fondness for the offerings of both Fall Out 3 and Left 4 Dead.) The Halo franchise has sold over 43 million game copies world wide and the upcoming Halo 4 is eagerly anticipated by several self-confessed computer nerds I know (and several million more besides). Still, does anyone really get excited by a game soundtrack? Billed as a 'stunning orchestral/electronic opus' the man behind this offering is the award-winning producer and composer Neil Davidge. Davidge has worked as co-writer, producer or sonic realizer (I want that job) for artists as diverse as David Bowie and Snoop Dog. To add even more musical weight to the album it was recorded at Abbey Road and features amongst other things a hand picked sixteen strong male tenor/bass choir, ten female members of the London Bulgarian Choir and a fifty piece orchestra. Well, that is all very impressive but is it actually any good? It is certainly well produced, it is slick and has a real sense of both scale and depth. It is like classical music for the digital age. Without lyrics or a story to latch on to we are given a hints of what is going on with the track titles, 'Awakening', 'Solace' and 'Nemesis' for example. A good soundtrack should evoke images and feelings that tie in to and reflect their part in the story. The rest is either left to the imagination of the listener or absorbed during the action for the game player. Halo 4 has duel themes of regimented militaristic relentless pursuit and the elevated heart beat of a soldier under fire in an alien landscape. 'Belly of the Beast' is a good illustration that showcases just that. 'Requiem' is somehow both grander and more introspective. I have never played Halo so the fact it communicates these themes so well to me indicates it is successful in doing just that. The tracks are more varied then I had expected. My husband, who has dabbled in the odd Halo session, says it does lack a link to the three previous Halo outings. There is the lack of that hook to define this unequivocally as part of the Halo family, the sort of hook you expect to crop up in every Bond film for example (interestingly tracks such as 'Arrival' could happily feature in a Bond film). Maybe this a deliberate choice of Davidge's? A computer game soundtrack is not something I would ever have considered buying but I am glad I listened to this one. Maybe centuries from now this kind of album will be in the same section of the intergalatic music hypermarket as Holst and Mike Oldfield.

Track Listing:-

1 Awakening
2 Belly of the Beast
3 Requiem
4 Legacy
5 Faithless
6 Haven
7 Nemesis
8 Ascendancy
9 Solace
10 To Galaxy
11 Immaterial
12 117
13 Arrival
14 Revival
15 Green and Blue

Band Links:-

http://slolight.com/
https://www.facebook.com/davidgemusic
https://plus.google.com/+Neildavidgemu
https://twitter.com/neildavidge
https://www.youtube.com/user/NeilDavid

Label Links:-

http://www.7hzrecordings.com/index.htm
http://www.propermusic.com/label/7HZ-P