Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Road Original Film Score

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

The Road Original Film Score

Ever wanted to understand a film without watching it? The Road Original Film Score may be a good way for you to enjoy the movie without paying the increasingly extortionate rate to see it at the cinema.

I may inadvertently spoil this film; I don’t really think I will, though. Truth is, the trailers pretty much give the game away – there’s a road, there’s people on it, they’re going along it. Said people include Viggo Mortenson, Kodi Smit-McPhee, the consigliere from The Godfather, that fella from Memento and her what did that Monster film. The setting is a bit different to the norm and there’s a few encounters along the way. Vague enough? Good. Viggo enough? Definitely.

Anyway, let’s not detract too much, there’s a point in here somewhere. The track names on this album also follow a surprisingly linear format themselves, much like the underlying storyline of The Road. This, in essence, means that the simply-put titles, which almost always follow The [Insert Word Here] style guide, give the tiny description you need to accompany the music.

As a result, the tunes develop and flourish with a heightened sense of emotion due to the fact you’re creating the visuals along the way with the loosest of descriptions. There are no words to guide you and nothing other than bleak colours like brown and gun-metal grey to paint with, if your only point of reference is the cover of the album, which is nearly as harrowing as that of Journal for Plague Lovers.

As a result, this album is an emotional experience limited by your creativity. You’ll hear it the first time and either love it or hate it, but on the second listen you could be the complete opposite. You may revert after the third approach.

It opens with beauty in tunes such as ‘Home’ and ‘The Road’. Beauty is a strange thing in music like this. It’s the kind of emotion that you can feel in a lot of the instruments, as well as underneath them. Despite the grim overtones of The Road Original Film Score, there’s a lot of beauty – perhaps in the form of hope, as I’m sure this film’s trying to convey – sitting just below the sadness. The slow, rolling piano and relaxed strings work so well together, as they have millions of times before in dozens of genres.

Ultimately, this coupling leads to some of the more powerful tracks. The two aforementioned songs aside, ‘Storytime’, ‘The Church’, ‘The Beach’ and ‘The Far Road’ are all remarkable in their softly, softly approach.

The creative aspect in interpreting the music is only further justified by the lattermost on this list, as it’s extremely similar to ‘The Road’ yet in the context of a full album experience – overture, if you will – it feels so different.

Still, it’s not without its faults. Although ‘The Cannibals’ is very intimidating, loud, shocking and at one point touching on rock, it is, alongside ‘The House’, ‘The Cellar’ and ‘The Family’, close to tipping the emotional scale over altogether and harming the journey you’ve already been on. Much like the film, I suppose, though this is both supportive of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis as well as damning of the standalone attraction of the offering. They’re loud, noisy and lack the fabric of music that you need as a crutch to get through them. You’ll hobble and pick back up at the end – just – but it’s very overpowering.

The Road Original Film Score, overall, is well worth the listener’s time, especially if they like to enjoy the odd late night on a weekend passively listening to Classic FM, when the most relaxed tunes of your life wash over you. Just listen to it first and scratch off the tracks that are too intense. And don’t think Nick Cave’s doing anything other than playing instruments slowly.

It’s predominantly depressing yet so much more beautiful than that. I’d go as far as to say that it’s probably worth listening to this before you see the film, if you do. That’s not to say you’ll like it, or consistently like it. Just, you know… it’s worth a shot, right?

Either way, you’re going to have to listen to it in its entirety on the first go. It’s a complete offering; and anyway, if you don’t take it all in during one sitting, you’ll lose the storyline. The one you create, anyway.

Oh, it’s great as a soundtrack, too. I kinda forgot about that bit. Ah, it’s by-the-by.

The Road Original Film Score is available now on Mute Records.

By Matt Gardner