Time for Action /// Music Monday #102

Well, it's everyone's favorite time of the week: Music Monday! (At least, I think it's everyone's favorite; if it's not, we need to chat.)

The song we're listening to today is . . .

"Stairs and Rooftops" from Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Composed by Lorne Balfe

I was recently raving about how good of a movie Fallout is, and how it surpassed Rogue Nation in my books. One way it does this is through its score. That's not to say that Rogue Nation's soundtrack wasn't good, but it's not as good of a soundtrack to listen to outside of the movie. It's not as memorable--at least, not consistently. Fallout, on the other hand, has an absolutely incredible score.

Lorne Balfe studied under Hans Zimmer and worked with him in a lot of projects, and I think that Zimmer's fingerprints have been left on Balfe's musical style. You can definitely hear the similarities in this piece. However, that's not a bad thing. On top of that, Lorne has also found his own identity, so he doesn't sound like a carbon copy of Hans.

Now, if you've seen Fallout, you should probably know the exact scene that this plays in by the track title alone. Just to give you an idea of what's happening if you haven't watched the movie, Ethan Hunt is chasing one of the villains, who's casually making his getaway. Hunt is pursuing him without knowing his exact location, so that means the hero is traversing--you got it--stairs and rooftops as he tries his hardest to catch up, while fleeing armed henchmen. It's one of the coolest chase sequences--then again, this movie had a lot of those.

I love how adaptive the music is to what's happening in the scene. For example, you know how there was a bit of choir closer to the beginning? Mission: Impossible movies rarely use choral parts, but Lorne included one in this case because for the duration of that part, Ethan Hunt is running through a church. When the music and the events onscreen work together like this, I think it makes both a lot more memorable.

Another part I love is the piano bits. Piano is an instrument that's rarely used during intense scenes. Lorne has done this before, in Assassin's Creed III. It makes for an incredible piece of music because heavy piano adds a new level of ominousness in action tracks. In this case, the piano is used for the antagonist's motif, and the fact that it's a mix of both lighter and darker notes just elevates the whole piece that much more. That on top of all the rest of the instrumentation and the way the track winds down to the conclusion of the chase makes "Stairs and Rooftops" one of my favorite songs from the Fallout OST.

What did you think of the song? Did you have a favorite part? Have you seen Fallout yet, and if not, why haven't you???