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SOUNDTRACK REVIEW: SKYLANDERS: SPYRO’S ADVENTURE

WRITTEN BY MARK STEIGHNER | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2011

With its innovative combination of external gadgetry and family-friendly gameplay, Activision’s RPG-platformer Skylanders: Spyro’sAdventure has hit a lot of right notes with gamers. With superstarcomposers Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe scoring the music, obviousattention has been paid to this critical aspect of the title as well.

Actually, the score for Skylanders is really Balfe’s baby, Zimmer havingonly supplied the main title theme. Although he doesn’t quite have thename recognition of some of the other game composer elite, apart frombeing Zimmer’s long-time associate, Balfe has been a prolific and influential composer, arranger, andproducer in his own right. In a career that spans film, television, and videogames, Balfe has beenattached (in one capacity or another) to such projects as Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Transformers,Pirates of the Caribbean, Inception, and dozens of others.

Balfe’s score for Skylanders matches the lighthearted tone of the game with music that is appropriatelyplayful, tuneful, and accessible. Taking the “Main Theme” as its starting point, many of the cues areinteresting short variations of the title cut. ”Perilous Pastures,” “Shattered Island” and “Stonetown” all

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Soundtrack review: Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure http://videogamewriters.com/soundtrack-review-skylanders-spy...

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share a bit of Middle Eastern flavored-melody, with the mallet and strummed string timbre being thedominant color. When the cues turn a little more ominous–cuts like “Lair of Kaos” or “Crawling Crypt,”there is still a sense that it’s all good fun. Percussion plays a major role in the score, with “CubeDungeon” being primarily a multi-layered drum solo.

Although Skylanders doesn’t provide Balfe the opportunity to write extended symphonic cues, the musiccontains quite a bit of textural variety and color, and many moments of dramatic intensity. Whether Balfe’sor Zimmer’s, the “Main Theme” is a beautifully scored little arc of music, moving from a simple tune to alush middle section, before returning home to the theme.

Well executed and full of fine craftsmanship, Balfe and Zimmer’s score to Skylanders holds up pretty wellas an independent listening experience, though the cues are mostly quite short and, I think, bestexperienced in the context of the game. Still, the music helps to provide additional evidence that gamemusic has come into its own and that even family-friendly titles can boast interesting and well mademusic.


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Tags: Balfe, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, ZimmerPosted in Game Soundtracks, Reviews

ABOUT THE AUTHORMark Steighner When not frittering away his limited time on Earth playing video games, MarkSteighner is a musician, playwright, composer, director, and educator living in Oregon. He is

simultaneously the newest and the oldest member of the VGW gang.

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