Soundtrack Review: Doomsday by Tyler Bates (2008)
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This is a review of the motion picture score for Doomsday by Tyler Bates.
I have a love/hate relationship with Tyler Bates. I loved his score for “300″ and hated his score for “Dawn of the Dead”. I thought his score for Halloween was great and his score for Slither OK. So what is Doomsday like? The movie is more like Dawn of the Dead than 300, but what is the music like? I’m a big fan of Charlie Clouser’s score to “Resident Evil: Exctinction” and also John Murphy’s scores to “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later” so since this movie can in some ways be compared to those I hope it is just as good. Tyler Bates will also score the potentially huge movie The Day The Earth Stood Still later this year. Here is the track listing of Doomsday:
- Dog Eat Dog (By Adam And The Ants)
- Two Tribes (By Frankie Goes To Hollywood)
- Prologue
- Exodus
- Boat
- Piss & Vinegar
- Block 41
- It’s Medieval Out There
- Hospital Battle
- Strung Up
- Sinclair Slips Free
- Sword Fight
- Train Escape
- Train To Kane
- Tolamon
- Captured
- Prime Suicide
- Same Shit Different Era
- Slayer
- Finish Her Off!
- Bentley Escape
- Headless Love
- The Can Can (By Ariel Rechtshaid)
20 tracks by Tyler Bates is good and 3 songs as well, including the classic “Two Tribes” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Total play time is 1:03:53 (52:08 by Tyler Bates). Like I wrote earlier, some of Tyler’s work is lacklustre, but some of it is genius and it makes me curious each time he composes. For a movie like this, I expect kind of a score that represents solitude as well as end of the world kind of feeling. I’m happy to say that right from the first track, Tyler Bates delivers in spades. He hasn’t focused on melody, but more of the “feeling” of the movie, which is a bold and great choice by Tyler Bates. He comes from a rock background, which is cool and would make him suited for a movie like this. I saw an interview with him about this score and he said his inspiration to this was the movies from the 80s. You can clearly hear that in cues like “Block 41″ where he mixes old 80s synths with more modern percussions.
It feels like he has looked to Charlie Clouser and John Murphy for experience, but it doesn’t feel like he has used their cues, it feels fresh and original. Scores like this make me more curious about Tyler Bates, especially “The Last Time I Committed Suicide” which he mentions in the interview I saw. His older scores are hard to find however. Tyler Bates has succeeded in making a great score which reflects the fun mood of the film as well as pleasing the John Murphy crowd. I highly recommend you check out Doomsday which might be his best work so far, yes at least as good as 300 if not better. Superb! The best I’ve heard so far this year. Listen to Doomsday below:
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(3 votes, average: 9 out of 10)
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Comments
Yeah, the synths used in this sometimes reminds me of eary Vangelis stuff and also lot of the 80s movies. I love the sound.
There are lots of examples of terrible movies and great soundtracks as well as the other way around. As for the popularity, it depends on if you mean financially, which I think there are none or few examples.
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I liked the first track. Some of the rest sounded generic.
Vangelis’ score for Alexander sucked. It sounded too much like Blade Runner’s score. Why would you place that over a sword and sandals movie?
Film-Book dot Com’s last blog post..Snake Eyes Revealed
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Generic is a great thing if you like the style. I hate it when I hear an amazing first track and the rest is crap. It’s interesting. I like a lot of varied music, but I rarely like it if it’s in one album, that’s especially true with scores. A great example of this is We Own the Night by Wojciech Kilar. He has 13 cues on this and they are all based on this one theme, but the theme is absolutely beautiful so you don’t mind it being just small variations throughout.
I loved Vangelis score for Alexander, one of my all-time favorites. I’m a big fan of “if it’s good, steal it and use it”. If it ain’t broken, why fix it? 
Right now I think Doomsday is better than the 300 score. I had to listen to 300 again after listening to Doomsday. 300 is still a great score, but this one has the edge. And why? Probably because of the link to the 80s, anything 80s related and I’m there. I liked the way it was mixed with new soundscapes. Great use of synth, guitar and percussion throughout.
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That is a high rating! From what I hear, the film sucks. But if the score is good….I may just go see it. The score is very decent indeed. I never would have guessed!
Nick Plowman’s last blog post..Review: The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)
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Aw, don’t say it suck. I need this to be good, excellent even ;). Well at least I can enjoy the score for years to come, because this is truly excellent.
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I really liked this movie (as the campy homage that it is) and loved the soundtrack. I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one, since several friends didn’t exactly care for either the visual or audio aspects of the movie.
Brendon’s last blog post..Coming up the pipeline
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I wonder if the soundtrack is easy to notice in the movie? In a lot of movies, it’s just bakground noise. I’m sure that when I see the movie, I will pay extra attention to it so it won’t be a problem.
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O, you definitely hear it. The soundtrack is pumped in Doomsday. The train chase is probably the best example of that. Everyones running and the music is just swelling and really makes what would be a simple chase pretty epic.
I enjoyed Doomsday. It’s just one of those good old fashioned violent films but it plays its material smart. And there’s a running gag with the girlfriend throughout the film thats hilarious.
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Great stuff Scott! I’m getting more and more excited about seeing this now. The music, the visuals, old fasioned violence. Can’t beat that!
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one of pieces (i think its “strung up”) sounds like it directly borrows from 28 days/28 weeks later.
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Hmm, I couldnt find the passage you were talking about, but I only listened to “Strung Up” though.
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I don’t usually pay attention to the soundtracks of the movies you mentioned, but this one seems halfway decent. There’s a track that reminiscent of Vangelis’ synthesizer music from Blade Runner. Kinda cool.
Now the question is, does a movie make the soundtrack, or the soundtrack makes the movie? I love to see examples of soundtracks more popular than the movie.
Rudy’s last blog post..Punctuation
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