2 out of 5

Label: WaterTower Music

Produced by: Junkie XL

Hey, here’s that beat-heavy Middle-Eastern-chanting chugging-guitar rock soundtrack you wanted.  Anything else I can get ya?

‘300: Rise of an Empire’ isn’t boring: Junkie XL has been in this game for a while, and even got to work with Hans Zimmer on the ‘Man of Steel’ soundtrack, so the album hits all the marks it needs to.  Having not listened to Junkie’s prior albums or soundtrack work, I can’t say how much this might’ve varied from his previous approach, but either way, the Zimmer influence is apparent in the overall structure of the soundtrack, which quickly establishes all of its baselines – a theme, some chanting, some heavy distortion – in the opening ‘History of Artemisia,’ and then rearranges those elements throughout.  I realize this is a very generic description of soundtrack work, but its one of the reasons I have trouble getting into Zimmer – it just all feels too professional and clinical.  And thus Junkie XL, borrowing that approach, even on a soundtrack like ‘Rise,’ which wants to fly its hard-rock flag pretty high, ends up sounding like the calculated ‘hardcore’ rock of the over-produced early 00’s.

The production is notably top-notch, and that’s where the artist’s history in the biz shines through: Junkie plays with mixing elements up and down in a creative fashion that brings focus to tracks which other producers would probably just treat like filler.  This doesn’t escape the overall predictability of the album, though – every anthemic moment does what it needs to for as long as it needs to, cue a softer moment, cue a build-up, and etcetera.  An appealing luster, not very filling.  Say something appropriately witty about the accompanying film.