Dr. Ryan Stone is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski in command. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalski completely alone - tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth... and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space...

On the first listen through of Steven Price's score for Gravity I was gripped by fear. As the tracks slowly rolled by I realised that I couldn't think of anything constructive to say about them. They all sounded like dull atmospheric music that didn't really work outside of the confines of the movie. I got to track five, 'Don't Let Go', and while it was still lifeless, there was something there and in desperation I made a note that it was the only track so far that was noteworthy - but in any other score it would have probably appeared a little boring. Likewise, 'Airlock' provides another glimmer of hope that things will pick up... but then we're back to limp, hollow, filler material... until 'Aningaaq' - which again is hardly worth making a fuss about.

In fact the only track that's really worth a repeat listening is the beautiful 'Shenzou' - but 'Gravity' is also worthy of your time. Personally I'd just download these two tracks from iTunes and leave the rest of the album alone.

The album contains 16 tracks and lasts for a very long and uneventful 1 hr, 12 mins. If I were being cheap I'd have rounded this review off by saying that Price's score to Gravity is lacking in atmosphere... but I'm above that sort of thing.

3

Darren Rea