Soundtrack Review: Death Race (2008)

Posted by Jorn Tillnes

September 15, 2008

If you're new here, you may like to get all my posts in your feed reader using my RSS feed or get all Soundtrack Geek posts by Email. Also check out Soundtrack Fans, a new social network for soundtrack fans. Thanks for visiting!

091408 2109 soundtrackr1 Soundtrack Review: Death Race (2008) This is a review of the motion picture score for Death Race by Paul Haslinger.

Label: Intrada
Release Date: August 19 2008
Price: $13.99

“Your pulse will be racing and DO NOT listen to it while driving, even though your car is an old crappy Datsun Nissan 1982 model, In fact, it should come with a warning label”

Paul Haslinger is back with the score to the sequel of Death Race 2000 from 1975. Having watched the red band trailer for this movie I got very excited. What’s not fun about blood, carnage and fast cars? It’s like The Fast And The Furious on speed, which has to be an entertaining ride from start to finish. I haven’t seen the original movie or listened to the original score by Paul Chihara plus that it’s over 30 years old so I won’t even begin to compare the two. What I have seen this weekend was Death Race the movie, and it was a fun-filled ride from start to finish.

I have to say I like Paul Haslinger’s action scores. They are usually filled with hard and edgy sounds, and I am not being modest here when I say adrenaline filled to the bone. So with that intro in mind, here’s the track list of Death Race with individual rating for each track (I know it’s been a long time coming, and I was just feeling my way around and see what I could do without compromising the rate of publishing etc.):

Track List

A Hard Sport For A Hard Age (***)
Grim The Reaper (***)
Death Race Main Titles (****)
Riot (***)
Prison Arrival (***)
Meet The Monster (****)
Punch It! (***)
Frank Walk (***)
Hennessey (*)
Say What (****)
Man On A Rampage (*****)
You Are Not Fit For Society (****)
Lose Him Or Kill Him (***)
Solitary (**)
The Final Race (**)
Good Luck Joe (***)
Frank Surrenders (**)
Terminal (**)
A Chance For Something Else (****)

I have also chosen the 3 best tracks on the soundtrack by marking them red. This is something I want to try to do with all major reviews from now on and I hope you like it. That way if you check out the album on iTunes or Amazon MP3 or whatever your preference is, you can buy the best tracks for the score if you don’t want the whole album. I do recommend getting the whole album though if you like the samples, and that is what my review is based on as well. I review the score as a whole, even though I will go through the tracks individually and my final rating will reflect that.

Voiceovers

The score consists of 19 tracks and has a total playtime of 41 minutes, although I have to say that 3 cues use voiceovers quite heavily, those tracks are “A Hard Spot For A Hard Age”, “Hennessey” and “A Chance For Something Else”. That being said, I think that “A Hard Spot For A Hard Age” is a nice intro to the score with voiceover done by Ian McShane I believe. Normally I hate voiceovers, but this is done well with some ambient beats in the background. The only track that is annoying is the curiosity “Hennessey” which last 12 seconds. The last track “A Chance For Something Else” also starts with a voiceover, this time by Jason Statham, and like the first track isn’t annoying at all. That scene exactly is also in the movie, but not Ian McShane’s scene. He talks for about 35 seconds and then it really takes off into a heavy industrial sounding song which is a very nice finish to the Death Race soundtrack and is also one of the best tracks.

Weak At The End

Even though the finish is nice, the score loses its appeal towards the end with several weak tracks like “Solitary” which is a kind of continuance to the previous track “Lose Him Or Kill Him”, but not as near as good as the amazingly fast bass guitar is replaced by ultra fast percussion that ends up being more annoying than nice. “The Final Race” is the longest track on the soundtrack, but unfortunately also the weakest. It’s a repetition of what we have heard before and it doesn’t add anything to the soundtrack. It just doesn’t push the envelope. “Frank Surrenders” is nothing special, just more of the same while “Terminal” is just ambient noise.

The Good Part

Now for the really good part, and there’s lots of it. First of all “Death Race Main Titles” is a very good main theme that is rough and edgy. The background retro synth also works well with the grungy guitar and rock-like percussion. Does Death Race have a theme? Absolutely, I think so. It isn’t a great theme and if you don’t listen carefully you might miss it. It can be debatable if 5 grungy guitar notes can be called a theme, but it is recurring through some parts of the score so a theme it is. One of my favourite tracks of the Death Race soundtrack is “Meet The Monster”. It feels a little different than the rest of the tracks, because it consists of electronic bass and drums with a great little underscore. The Middle of the soundtrack is the best with the tracks “Say What”, “Man On A Rampage” and “You Are Not Fit For Society”. Those tracks are the meat of this soundtrack, with heavy electronic beats, crazy guitars and awesome percussion. Especially “Man On A Rampage” is superb and Paul Haslinger is pushing the adrenaline button to the max, it’s just a very cool industrial rocking track which goes perfectly with cars and carnage depicted in the movie.

More To Come?

By the way, after having seen the movie, I have to say that the score sounds spectacular in it. I noticed a few cues that were not on the soundtrack, so perhaps there will be an extended release in the future. There were also 3 songs that are not included on the soundtrack. They are Stereophonics – Maybe Tomorrow (Kissing scene), Mary J. Blige – Grown Woman (Women prisoners and hot woman stepping out of car) and Slim Thug – Click Clack (Fly by of the prison).

Fair Warning

All is well in Paul Haslinger land apparently, and he has done a lot of right with this score. If you like modern action scores like “Doomsday” by Tyler Bates, then you will love this. If your collection only consist of Howard Shore and John Williams and you can’t listen to anything “modern”, then you definitely won’t like this. The only thing I should warn you about is the way you will feel after listening to the Death Race soundtrack. Your pulse will be racing and DO NOT listen to it while driving, even though your car is an old crappy Datsun Nissan 1982 model. In fact, it should come with a warning label. Be sure to rate this score yourself!

091408 2109 soundtrackr2 Soundtrack Review: Death Race (2008)