Revolutionary Road – Thomas Newman (2008) [FLAC]

Fans of Thomas Newman’s evocatively haunting, minimalist-accented soundtracks will know what to expect from this fourth score for director Sam Mendes � another characteristically subtle essay in dislocating musical ambiguity. … Most immediately apparent are the multiple echoes of Newman’s first Mendes collaboration, the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA-winning American Beauty. But while the breathy ambient haze of plangent piano, unsettling strings and ticking high-hat cymbals � all yearning for unrealised crescendos before falling away into retreating minor-key cadences � skilfully maps out the fractured emotional terrain here, it also feels as if it is re-tracing the musical footprints of the earlier film. What is new is the greater emphasis given to Newman’s use of unconventional instrumental colours to offer vividly edgy, off-kilter detail. So jangling metallic effects, blurred piano chords pregnant with frustration, bloated bass lines, disembodied, drone-like textures and synthetic-sounding keening all combine to create an unsettling turbulence that threatens to break and fracture the surface calm. It’s an effect underlined by Newman’s signature way with jittery, uneven rhythms. Illustrating a more profoundly uncertain era than the setting of American Beauty � the psychological toll of post-war austerity, McCarthy�s communist witchhunts, the threat of Cold War annihilation � Revolutionary Road is, appropriately enough, a less optimistic score. It veers away from certainty, definition and clarity to offer something more indistinct, troubling and ominous. … Three bittersweet pop songs of the period � Count Every Star by The Ravens, The Orioles’ Crying in the Chapel and, especially, The Gypsy by The Ink Spots � add their own poignant commentaries on the dystopian proceedings. – Michael Quinn, BBC Music (http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/fp9x)

1. Route 12 (2:23)
2. Picture Window (1:17)
3. The Bright Young Man (3:31)
4. Hopeless Emptiness (1:27)
5. Unrealistic (2:49)
6. Count Every Star � Performed by The Ravens (2:53)
7. Simple Clean Lines (1:32)
8. Speaking of Production Control (1:06)
9. Golden People (2:08)
10. Night Woods (4:53)
11. Crying in the Chapel � Performed by The Orioles (3:02)
12. April (9:34)
13. A Bit Whimsical (1:32)
14. Revolutionary Road (End Title) (4:54)
15. The Gypsy � Performed by The Ink Spots (2:46)

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