HEALTH
Max Payne 3 Soundtrack

Rockstar Games, 2012

• FAVORITES:

  “Combat Drugs,” “Tears”

• FLAVORS:

  CGI blood, sea salt, lead, chipped teeth

RATING:

TRACK LIST:

1. Sampa
2. Shells
3. Painkiller
4. Blasphemy
5. Max: NJ
6. Torture
7. Max Docks
8. The Girl
9. Max Kill
10. +90
11. Fabiana
12. Max: Favela
13. Dead
14. Guns
15. Max: Panama
16. The Imperial Palace
17. 16 230
18. U.F.E.
19. Combat Drugs
20. Pills
21. Future
22. Max: Finale
23. Birth
24. Severin
25. Pain
26. Tears
27. 9 Circulos

This is really great. The music here is alternately creepy, dreamy, tense, propulsive, and thoughtful. It’s never boring. I wonder if the music is distracting when you’re playing the game. The soundtrack definitely stands on its own, though, and should have a life apart from the game it was commissioned for. The songs allude to both classic film noir soundtracks, as well as 1970s B-movie John Carpenters. HEALTH has made a map of the sounds of crime. It’s a little bit scary and a tiny bit perverse, but also sexy. The sonic palette here is much bigger than the band’s own records, but they still sound like themselves. The thumping basses, droning bell tones, and washes of synths sort of bring to mind early 4AD records. Like Dead Can Dance, if the dead actually could dance.

You might think that if you were some hot-shit L.A. noise band and you were hired to make the soundtrack for a video game (even the smash hit Max Payne series) that you could probably just phone it in, give the nerds 30 tracks of ambient noise, and call it an afternoon. HEALTH’s soundtrack for the newest Max Payne game, though, is actually really well-made. These guys took their assignment really seriously—probably more than was necessary—and made a really compelling, awesome record. I hope they get fucking PAID for this.