The Dark Knight Rises: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (a J!-ENT World Groove Album Review)

August 6, 2012 by Dennis Amith 

“The Dark Knight Rises: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack”  is a pretty exciting Hans Zimmer soundtrack that complimented the film amazingly well but listening to the soundtrack several times now, I started to feel that it was a bit too redundant for my taste and had only three tracks that I personally enjoyed and listened to most of the time.  Still, this was a good soundtrack but in my opinion, not as good as its previous two soundtracks for “Batman Begins” or “The Dark Knight”.

Image is courtesy of © 2012 Madison Gate Records, Inc.

TITLE: The Dark Knight Rises: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

LABEL: WaterTower Music

DURATION: 51:18

RELEASE DATE: July 17, 2012

A Storm Is Coming    1 of 15    0:37
On Thin Ice    2 of 15    2:55
Gotham’s Reckoning    3 of 15    4:08
Mind If I Cut In?    4 of 15    3:27
Underground Army    5 of 15    3:12
Born In Darkness    6 of 15    1:57
The Fire Rises    7 of 15    5:33
Nothing Out There    8 of 15    2:51
Despair    9 of 15    3:14
Fear Will Find You    10 of 15    3:08
Why Do We Fail?    11 of 15    2:03
Death By Exile    12 of 15    0:23
Imagine The Fire    13 of 15    7:25
Necessary Evil    14 of 15    3:16
Rise    15 of 15    7:16

Composer Hans Zimmer is known for amazing scores for films such as “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”, “The Lion King”, “Kunf Fu Panda”, “The Last Samurai”, “The Da Vinci Code” and many Hollywood blockbuster films.  Also, known for his collaboration with Christopher Nolan for “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight”.

With the release of “The Dark Knight Rises: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack”, I must admit that I’m actually torn.  I felt that in the previous soundtracks, the collaboration with James Newton Howard led to wonderful music, this time around, “The Dark Knight” is a soundtrack that becomes too overly banal with the synth.

While tracks such as “Imagine the Fire” does stick out for its energy and you can feel the fluctuating degrees of rise and chaos with the synth and drums combined.  Interestingly, this track is its longest song in the entire soundtrack at over seven minutes long, along with its concluding track “Rise”.

While the soundtrack features 15 tracks, there are tracks that are only less than a minute long.  From its intro “A Storm is Coming” that is a 37-second transition to “On Thin Ice”, we get a breathy, dark track of “Death by Exile” which is a transition to “Imagine the Fire”.

There are tracks that fit the mood of the film perfectly such as “Underground Army” with its low synth keys and the exciting “The Fire Rises” featuring a slow transitions with frenetic Taikou-style drum playing.

Bane’s appearance can be heard with the use of chants and the theme of “The Dark Knight Rises” is prominent throughout the tracks.  There is really hardly any deviating from a certain musical style that Zimmer stays consistent with throughout the soundtrack and this may be good for others, while I like to hear things varied a bit.  There was a bit of an over-reliance of synth and percussion, which are the prevailing instruments in this soundtrack but I felt the balance that James Newton Howard would bring to previous soundtracks were more exciting and less redundant.

It’s important to note that if you buy the CD version of “The Dark Knight Rises: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack”, you get a link to three tracks “Bombers Over Ibiza (Junkie XL Remix)”, “No Stone Unturned” and “Rise from the Darkness”, while the Deluxe Digital version includes “The Shadows Betray You” and “The End”.

Overall, “The Dark Knight Rises: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack”  is a pretty exciting Hans Zimmer soundtrack that complimented the film amazingly well but listening to the soundtrack several times now, I started to feel that it was a bit too redundant for my taste and had only three tracks that I personally enjoyed and listened to most of the time.  Still, this was a good soundtrack but in my opinion, not as good as its previous two soundtracks for “Batman Begins” or “The Dark Knight”.