2 out of 5

Label: Laced Records

Produced by: Ramin Djawadi

It’s gotta be hard being in demand. Though he’s always been busy, working on 2-3 scores a year, Djawadi’s name seemed like one of the small handful of composers you’d see attached to any given project, especially after crafting the incredibly memorably Game of Thrones theme. And coming from the Hans Zimmer school, there was always a bit of that “traditional” orchestral sweep to his works, but what has generally intrigued me about Ramin is the way he’s sincerely always tried to push that with some experimentation, or conceptual overlays, such that you can definitely hear the composer’s style, but also hear how he tries to keep things interesting for himself while still giving people those likely “make it like GoT or Westworld” vibes. And that pushing is present in this Gears (of War) score as well. Unfortunately, just as movies of the blockbuster type, or TV shows of the grand action-adventure variety, have tended towards a bit of sameness in their look and pacing and tone in the 2020s, when Ramin is attached to those, its been harder and harder to find a new sound.

For the big and burly Gears, he goes very much against assumed type: it is slow, often not very loud, and undercuts a big, bassy sound one might expect from a gun-heavy shooter for succinct punctuation, and more paced buildups to standalone climaxes. But in taking this unexpected approach, it really does rob the score of a very notable theme, or even any real memorable moments. The concept of achieving weight through relative subtlety is absolutely intriguing, and I think we get there at points throughout, notably on opener Family, and some of the Combat tracks, which get to parallel more aggressive percussion against this approach. But otherwise, there’s hardly an identity to the music, just as the game is somewhat criticized as doing things other games had already done well, and not having an especially defining narrative.

Additionally, Ramin’s production – though I love, instrumentally, how organic the majority of this is – isn’t very room-filling; the music is soft, and delicate, even when accompanying battles, and when you might want it to be more immersive. Lastly, while the credits don’t list any electronic elements (except, I suppose, guitar), there are pieces that sounds like slight digital additions – distortion on the drums; occasional effects – that distracted from the general m.o. I guess this is impressive if these were achieved analog, but either way, these aspects felt like callbacks to a different type of score that this new War-less Gears was trying not to be.