Saturday 17 September 2011

Alex Turner 'Submarine' OST review (for kevchino.com)



See the original article posted HERE!

At times music can take you away to another place, providing a personal soundtrack as you float off to an atmosphere of imagination, into a world all your own. Alex Turner's latest effort, Submarine, does just that on many levels.

The six-track EP is the soundtrack penned by Turner for the feature film Submarine, the directorial debut of Englishman Richard Ayoade (most well-known for his role as computer geek Maurice Moss in the hit UK TV show The IT Crowd). The film centers around fifteen-year-old Welsh schoolboy Oliver Tate and documents the ups and downs of his various coming-of-age experiences—his first love, familial issues, and discoveries of the world's hard truths.

Turner has provided an aptly fitting melancholy soundtrack containing dreamy, mellow, delicate guitar, for the most part, coupled with brooding angst-ridden vocals well fitted to the film’s subject matter. The score is deeply emotional without being overdramatic, and his usual character-filled storytelling lyrics represent the film’s main character well.

Opening with a small vocal snippet of the upcoming track “Stuck On A Puzzle,” the album eases into “Hiding Tonight,” a suiting ballad for the self-conscious and introverted: “Tomorrow I'll be faster, catch what I've been chasing after, and have time to play, but I'm quite all right hiding today.” “Glass in the Park” and “It’s Hard to Get Around the Wind” soothe your troubles with each listen with their soft, intricate guitars and entrancing vocals, the latter track having a very final, epiphanic feel to it.

The standout tracks are definitely “Stuck on a Puzzle,” with its moody elegance and intriguing lyrics, and the final track, “Piledriver Waltz,” which is also a track from the Arctic Monkeys’ last offering, Suck It and See. This version of “Piledriver Waltz” is a million times better than the original. Being a lot more toned down and having lost its original pop elements, it's almost as if the finished version of this outstanding tune was being saved for this soundtrack.

All in all, an amazing effort by Alex Turner on what can only be called a brilliantly moving and mesmerizing soundtrack.

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