Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2024 November 04 • Monday

Yesterday was Godzilla Day and 2024 is Godzilla's 70th birthday! (Remember, whether you're counting years or number of movies, Godzilla) is the longest running film franchise in history, not James Bond.)

So obviously the 829th Soundtrack of the Week has to be for a Godzilla movie. Let's make it for last year's Godzilla Minus One, which was a very good movie and the first Godzilla movie to receive an Academy Award! The music is by Naoki Sato.

The first three tracks are eerie, atmospheric and unsettling and live up to their titles: "Fear", "Portent" and "Confusion". While there are lots of long tones and ambient stretches, these cues are aggressive in creating moods of tension and unease.

One of the great moments in the film itself is when Sato drops Akira Ifukube's classic Godzilla theme. In this rendition it sounds huge and tremendous and made some of us cheer in the theatre. The "Godzilla Suite I" here sounds a bit slower but also lighter, more metallic. You can really appreciate the cymbal work.

"Divine" brings in a choir to broadcast the godlike nature of Godzilla while the next several cues—"Elegy", "Mission", "Hope", "Honor" and "Pride"—provide a solid foundation for the very human drama playing out in the ruins of post-war Tokyo.

The mood sinks for "Pain" and then lifts again for the bright and nimble "Resolution" only for us to get delightfully clobbered by Ifukube's genius again in "Godzilla Suite II".

More intense textures and long tones take the audience through "Unscathed" and "Last" before arriving at the serene and pastoral "Pray".

Finally we get more robust readings of Ifukube's classic score for "Godzilla Suite III", which had us all leaving the theatre excited for the next Godzilla movie. Which, bizarrely, is not here, despite its being Godzilla's 70th anniversary. What the hell, Toho? You put out a movie for the 69th anniversary and it was hugely successful, both commercially and critically, and you had no plans for 70?