![]() Pyre, the soundtrack, begins with the folk ballad ‘In the Flame’, which promises the telling of a story in which signs from the stars lead a group of exiles on a journey of redemption. It is that journey that is the framing device for the OST. Soon, however, you are found and brought along on a journey that has the potential to change your lot in life. You, the player, are dying, and there is not much you can do about it other than accept that this is what is going to come to pass. Why I expected Pyre to be any different, I don’t really know, but the end result is that I had to play at least some of the game to give Pyre a proper listen in the intended manner. In the case of Bastion and Transistor, though, I would say it is actually more or less impossible to experience the soundtrack and the game on any kind of separate level from each other. Sometimes music is a backdrop, sometimes it is meant to inspire emotional resonance, and when it all comes together sometimes a very good soundtrack can bring back the feelings that you felt when playing the game long after the game has been finished. And while this is a video game music site and as such any reviews should be taken independently of the games themselves, the experience of processing a soundtrack for review should, by nature, involve consideration of the composer’s intentions. In each game, the soundtrack is so tightly woven into the story and gameplay that it is nearly impossible to separate the two. In fact, it’s hard to talk about any of the three games in Supergiant Games’ catalog without talking about their respective soundtracks. You see, music has always been an integral part of the experience of playing anything developed by Supergiant Games. The point is that when I sat down to write this opening paragraph, I realized that the problem was that I hadn’t experienced the soundtrack in the correct manner to form a good opinion of it. And no, I’m not usually given to self-reflection in the summary paragraph of a soundtrack review, so believe me when I say that there’s a point to all this. The more I listened to it, the more I realized that wasn’t quite right, though. At first, I thought it was just that life was busy, I was having trouble focusing, or some part of the soundtrack wasn’t really grabbing me. It was initially very hard for me to write about the soundtrack for Pyre. ![]() After the highly experimental takes on ‘trip-hop western’ and ‘lounge blues electronica’, Pyre represents a chance for Korb to solidify his iconic style as well as to branch out when the opportunity presents. The analogy is appropriate, too, both because Korb and Barrett have collaborated on every soundtrack that Supergiant has released and because in doing so, everyone involved had developed and reinforced their own unique collective style. It’s a story of collaboration that is told the way most people talk about the forming of a beloved and iconic band. ![]() Korb, in turn, brought in vocalist Ashley Barrett to sing and provide voice acting for one of the main characters in Bastion. Each game that Supergiant releases is a very personal endeavor, and so it made sense from the beginning that when co-founder Amir Rao needed music for Bastion, he turned to Korb, who was a longtime personal friend. It’s a sentence that one shouldn’t really have to type, as Supergiant’s history as a studio and Korb’s history as a composer are more or less the same thing. Pyre is the latest game by independent developer Supergiant Games and scored by composer Darren Korb. ![]()
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