Friday, September 3, 2021

Mad Max: Fury Road

 

Mad Max: Fury Road (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Music Composed by Tom Holkenborg a.k.a. Junkie XL

Renovatio Records now takes you to the sandy wastelands of civilization with its next release: Mad Max: Fury Road by composer Tom Holkenborg, known by his stage name of "Junkie XL”. The 2015 post-apocalyptic action film is directed by George Miller (who also directed the now classic Mel Gibson trilogy) and is starred by Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zoë Kravitz, Abbey Lee and Courtney Eaton. Set years after the collapse of civilization, the film tells the story of the warrior Imperator Furiosa (Theron) who flees from the tyrannical cult leader Immortan Joe (Keays-Byrne), after rescuing his five wives. Escaping in an armored tanker truck, Furiosa forges an alliance with loner Max Rockatansky (Hardy) against the ruthless warlord and his hordes of henchmen, leading to a deadly high-speed chase through an endless wasteland. In spite of being in development hell for more than a decade, the film ultimately became a critical and commercial hit, becoming the most awarded motion picture at the 88th Academy Awards and leading Miller to start developing further entries in the franchise.

While the original trilogy counted on more classically oriented scores, Miller turned to Dutch musician Tom Holkenborg, who at the time was mostly known for his trance and DJ productions. After having been recently introduced to film music by Hans Zimmer, Holkenborg of course emulates the original Zimmer “sound”. Thus, a Remote Control production element can be heard throughout his score for Mad Max: Fury Road. Thematically, the score is very simple, but it has a very unique identity that makes it stand out from the plethora of contemporary film scores jam-packed with Zimmer’s mannerisms. After watching a rough cut of the movie, Holkenborg claimed that it was so insane that it needed to be a rock opera, utilizing lots of drums and electric guitar passages. To channel the emotional weight of the movie, largely inspired by the work of Bernard Herrmann, Holkenborg resorted to strings.

Right from the get-go, the “Survive” track presents two identities that stand out. One of them is a very dark low bowed string motif, usually consisting of the same note played from 1 to 3 times, which serves as a sort of fanfare for Max, to represent his state of mind in the post-apocalyptic world he’s forced to live. The other identity is a frenetic descending staccato string motif, which Holkenborg associates with danger and uses for most, if not all, the action sequences in the film. The patriarchal antagonist of the film, Immortan Joe, also gets his own theme: a progressive rising 4-note ominous motif that is effectively placed not only when Joe is on the screen, but also when his fearsome beliefs imparted to his gang of war boys start playing a part. At around the 1 minute mark in the track “A Storm is Coming”, for instance, Joe’s motif slowly begins to gain force as one of the war boys prepares to sacrifice himself in the name of Joe’s founded religious cult that worships V8 engines. This track also presents one of the highlights of the score: a strong and harmonically brass progression that plays as an elegy for death. This motif also has a lovely arrangement for strings at the end of the busy “Final Chase” track. However, the biggest accomplishment in Holkenborg’s score is the material written for Imperator Furiosa. Namely consisting of string passages, the theme is hinted at in early tracks of the score like “We Are Not Things” and “Moving On”, before making its debut in full form in “The Return to Nowhere”. The dramatism and emotion conveyed by the string section in this track is simply astounding, as it expresses the pain and oppression that women of this male-dominated world are forced to endure. The track later dissolves into a lovely and motherly lullaby dominated by a gorgeous duduk performance.

The loudness of the action music, while quite obvious in its approach, is incredibly effective with its propulsive rhythms and electric guitar riffs. What may be initially regarded as a noisy mayhem is actually a carefully orchestrated dance between the music and the stunning visuals of the movie. Take the “Pursuit Party” track for example, with its drum beat ostinatos matching the tribal drummers of Immortan Joe’s onscreen music troupe. When the electric guitar kicks in and you see the guitar player with flames coming out of the end of the guitar neck, you cannot help but smile at the ludicrous yet beautiful image you’re witnessing: a perfect marriage of music and film in its own twisted way. Tracks like this, as well as the relentless “Brothers in Arms”, will have you hitting the repeat button over and over again.

Holkenborg’s score was released in 2015 in the form of two presentations by WaterTower Music: a CD album and an expanded deluxe edition. Both albums had the same problem: they were incredibly long. At around 80 minutes of music (and that’s just the regular release), many listeners found themselves struggling to finish it. Renovatio Records’s release addresses this issue and presents you with a balanced album that contains the best parts of the score and provides plenty of respite for the listener to truly appreciate Holkenborg’s surprising work for the movie. Though superficial and at times unoriginal in the approaches the composer has taken, at the end of the day, it cannot be denied that he has succeeded in providing an effective action score that transcends expectations for any Zimmer-influenced project.

Track Listing:
1. Survive (4:31)
2. The Citadel (6:04)
3. Pursuit Party (2:39)
4. A Storm Is Coming (7:05)
5. We Are Not Things (1:37)
6. Moving On (3:36)
7. Brothers In Arms (4:50)
8. War Rig (5:11)
9. The Return To Nowhere (6:58)
10. Final Chase (15:34)
11. My Name Is Max (2:19)
12. Finale (2:36)

Total Running Time: 61:55




Cover Artwork:






No comments:

Post a Comment