Darren Korb – Bastion

August 05, 2011 • Supergiant Games

Bastion is a game that generated some massive hype and most people into modern indie gaming have heard of it, I'm sure; I thought it was decent, albeit short and repetitive and it seemed like more thought was put into its aesthetics than its gameplay. That's fine by me, since its soundtrack is pretty well-done and one of my favorite parts of the game.

Most of the music is a fusion of chilled-out electronic beats fused with influences from folk music, most of it eastern Asian and western American. It's a strange-sounding combo, but it actually works pretty well (and I've actually heard the eastern/western folk fusion done to effect in other soundtracks like for the film Hero). Acoustic and clean electric guitars are balanced with instruments like sitar, (what I think is) shamisen, and exotic percussion, all over a heavy, glitchy, and sometimes menacing downtempo beat. It's a style that worked well in-game but also well outside of it (to a lesser extent, though). Some songs work better on their own than others, mostly ones that have heavier beats and more country/folk fusion like "Terminal March" or "Spike in a Rail", while the more mellow or slow ones are more difficult to enjoy on their own. And, as usual, some tracks suffer from being cut off at the end where normally they'd be looped. It's not a bad thing but it's more jarring than it should be.

It's difficult to describe the music much more without going into fantastic detail—on one level, it's the electronic/folk fusion I've talked about; deeper down there are a ton of influences from other genres and a ton of different instruments used that push the music all over the map (like the admittedly-awesome industrial rock style of "Brusher Patrol"). It's a testament to composer Darren Korb's diverse talent, to be sure, especially since the album still mostly feels like one coherent work.

But as with any soundtrack, its staying power is definitely lessened outside the game; the tracks can get repetitive (aside from the obvious non-background-music ones, like the vocal tracks) making the album seem way longer than it is—par for the course for most soundtracks, though, so I can't fault it much for it. Needless to say, it's best experienced in-game, though I don't know if I'll ever actually play the game a second time (not that it was bad, just probably not worth it). The music, though, is definitely worth a couple listens.

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