Beginning with the enriched vocals of the main theme, the Myst IV soundtrack envelopes its listeners with a brilliantly effective soundtrack with practiced dissonance, instrumental ambiance and clear definition of purpose. While the second track, “Yeesha’s Joyride” falls within the unorthodox for instrumentation and clarity, the third track “Enter Tomahna” was everything one needs in music. Starting with graceful harp glissandos over a harp run and behind a steady crescendo of strings, percussion and trilling woodwinds, all the while containing the spirit of Danny Elfman, “Enter Tomahna” was replayed 11 times before I could even think of moving to the next track, and I know it will now be one of my favorites from an OST.
Equally impressive was “Jungle Landing” with its ferocious strings, rabid percussion and well tempered development. Composer Jack Wall astounds by creating the environment through the music development alone, enough to make me really want to play the game. “Lakeside” was another haunting piece, though at this time, you can really get the feel that the composer is very fond of creating the ethereal with half-tone chord developments featuring an oboe over bells and pizzicato strings, making distinction between pieces occasionally difficult.
“Achenar Meeting” brings a welcome respite as the composer leaves his comfortable arena of long chords and dramatic landscape ambiance for the syncopated and uncontrolled sounds of menace and malice. “Welcome” is also atypical of the composer’s norms with perfect fourth and fifth strings supporting unusual chorals that sound like an African/Asian fusion, though that half-tone chord shows up once or twice.
“Prison Level” enters the realm of the atonal and more Avant Garde. Almost reminiscent of an ambient setting one would find in Silent Hill. “Dream” is a graceful and fulfilling blend of chorals. The OST wraps up with “The Revelation/The Sacrifice” which is just as impressive as one could hope from a finale, and concludes with the enchanting “End Game.”
Altogether a very satisfying journey of music, and not surprisingly, even before the last notes faded out, I was looking for Myst III and Myst IV online since I am now intrigued. Jack Wall moved away from his overuse of the saxophone sound in this one and used a very distinguished and vibrant variety of instrumentation, again, there is that favoritism towards the ethereal sound created by thirds going to half step, but also again, it seems to work perfectly within the context of the creation.
