Special Notes:

Three mini-albums for the Borderland 2 add-on video games.

This digital album package actually features the scores to three add-on games to Borderland 2, with scoring chores handled by Jesper Kyd (Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood [M]), Kevin Riepl (The Aggression Scale [M]), and Raison Varner.

The first mini-album features music from Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty (Raison Varner and Jesper Kyd), with most of the cues built around a gun-slinging strolling motif; a recurring pulsing electric bass also evokes a roving, scoping mood, which gets amped up in “Wurmwater Combat.” The main theme is part spaghetti western with some Asian flavour, and techno elements adding extra urgency while a hurdy-gurdy provides an antique ambiance. The collage of styles also includes a quasi-orchestral track with brass and wooden percussion (“Oasis Combat”), and the action cue “Hyperious The Invicible” with synth brass, grungy guitar, and metallic clangs.

The second add-on, Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage (Kevin Rieple and Jesper Kyd), carries forward the spaghetti western tone with a bluesy main theme that unfolds in a slow tempo, with acoustic and electric guitars providing major chord statements. Retro synths pulses highly reminiscent of Tangerine Dream support a wash of electric guitar riffs in “Introducing the Arena,” whereas a more bluegrass style dominates the “Return to the Arena Ambience” track, which features a nice full theme rendition with subtle percussion and backbeat hand-claps.

The longest mini-album among the trio is Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon's Keep (Jesper Kyd and Raison Varner), and much of the early cues map out the tone and thematic material of the score using a nice array of acoustic folk instruments evoking a bit of pirate thrills, and one especially long track with a deliberate contemplative mood - “Flamerock Refuge,” a subtle yet engrossing tension build using mandolin, electric violin, and rapping percussion.

“The Forest Ambiance” is deliberately Herrmannesque in lightness, and a pair of hesitant oboes provides some offbeat humour in “The Mines of Avarice Ambience.” The handful of genuine action cues include “Hatred’s Shadow Combat” with its John Carpenter synth pulses laid between synth strings and harder percussion; the pounding “Lair of Infinite Agony Combat” which still retains elegant strings and mandolin; and a orchestral emulations for the heroic themed “Murderlin’s Temple Challenge.”

Although comprised of three fairly short albums, Sumthing Else’s release unfolds like a neatly stitched anthology, with common instruments and the blending of electronic-acoustic elements maintaining a tight continuity. None of the scores have formal finale music to wraps things up, but the existing cues in each mini-album provides some closure, ensuring Borderland 2 doesn’t come to an awkward, sudden halt.

© 2013 Mark R. Hasan