Sony Music Masterworks releases the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to Escape Room: Tournament of Champions. In the film directed by Adam Robitel, six people find themselves locked in a series of escape rooms and have to uncover what they have in common to survive – only to find they have all played the game before. The soundtrack is by Brian Tyler and John Carey, who worked together on the previous Escape Room movie. Tyler has scored more than 70 feature films, including the Marvel logo music, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: The Dark World, Fast & Furious films, Now You See Me, and What Men Want. Carey has scored for both film and TV, and worked on a number of projects with Tyler. The intention on this one was to create an emotional, dark and sonically rich soundscape. This 21-track release is available for streaming and download...

I’m a huge advocate for the use of Electronica in both soundtracks and normal band music – and love the inclusion of analogue along with the latest digital sounds. This score doesn’t just implement it, rather it is for the most part full-on, in-your-face, piledriving Camden nightclub extreme. For anyone who lives for the all-night, sweat-soaked, flickering lit futuristic technoscope (a step to far for me), then I would recommend this release purely for that purpose – particularly for It’s Electrifying, 'The Beach Part 2', 'Caught in the Rain', the remix version of the title track (which you can imagine being the theme from a Cyberpunk set movie) and many others. Most of the sounds hardly pause for breath. Unfortunately, it’s too tribal and not melodic enough, in my opinion.

There is a lot to appreciate here, however. There is the underlying but prevalent clicking/ticking reminiscent of passing time. I like the ultra-low bass synth pieces, with clattering, chugging, rumbling and electric piano touches. The beat of 'Let’s Drive' sounds like a comic monster eating people, though it does keep in touch with a simple tune. 'Mystery Bag' has a Pagan feel. 'Fighting Back' and 'Back to Normal' are the only reflective tracks, so I would say that the balance of the whole is not quite right – whilst appreciating the edgy, panic-driven style. The best of the bunch, from an individual stand-alone viewpoint, is 'Tournament of Champions', which is a slower and spookier version of the title music. It has the ticking sound again and is very atmospheric, using standard synthesiser melodies surrounded by a multitude of threatening moods.

7

Ty Power