Deviation Actions
So, the original Destiny OST I pretty much bashed back when it was released - read it here, if you'd like: Destiny OST mini-review, so when Destiny: The Taken King showed up in my iTunes thanks to a loyal Bungie fan friend of mine, I was really, REALLY skeptical.
Destiny was composed by Michael Salvatori, C. Paul Johnson, and Martin O'Donnell. I know O'Donnell is seen as a composing god in the world of all things Halo and Destiny (perhaps other things as well) but honestly, I don't care much for pre-Halo 4 music. Anyhow, this time around, The Taken King composers list Salvatori and Johnson, but no O'Donnell, and instead Skye Lewin.
The iTunes version of TK has 45 tracks, 25 of which run greater than 2.5 minutes. Throughout the entire album there is this menacing, dark tone which dampens the more heroic style of music, but it absolutely works.
I didn't make a lot of notes other than which songs I really liked or disliked, except for one. 'Shadow Thief', track 5, at the 15sec mark, there's this long couplet of underlying notes which comes in and repeats throughout the remainder of the song in different areas, which took me right back to old school Final Fantasy (and by 'old school', I specifically mean VII). It was really weird.
The absolute worst track on TK is only 46sec long, but holy Hell is it jarring. After 28 songs, there comes this horrific blast of noise, ironically called Deathsinger Dirge; this track was clearly taken from the cutting room floor of the original Destiny OST. Yeech.
Other than that, I really don't have much to complain about. I was not a fan of the slowest songs (Remembrance, The Awoken, and Mara's Theme), which was a surprise to me.
I marked at least 10 songs as favorites after three complete listens - longish story short, this OST is quite strong, along with being immensely better than the original, and I give it a B+.
