Overview

Olivier Deriviere's music for Alone in the Dark showed off the composer's ability for dealing in choral writing and some Eastern European styles. For the present Kheops Studios game, Destination: Treasure Island, the composer gets a chance for a more upbeat palette. Deriviere uses orchestral samples from the Vienna Symphonic library, less of a distraction against game play, but at times feeling a bit thin in the strings.

Body

After a "Main Title" that could easily accompany a Disney adventure, we head off in to a series of tracks that feature the sort of endless variety one has come to expect from the composer. The music has wonderful magical quality to it and fun harmonic shifts, particularly with some great syncopated ideas in "Something is Wrong". By sticking to shanty-esque wind segments — shown off prominently in "The Pirate's Song" and perhaps used to accompany them when the idea appears elsewhere — Deriviere is able to set the tone of the backdrops well.

The music strives for cinematic quality, achieving it often. Rather than create an extensive swashbuckling score, there are segments that use smaller ensemble palettes of percussion and vibraphone or marimba sounds with harp flourishes. Brass are used sparingly and as is to be expected tend to have more of an electronic feel to them. The score tends to be a bit more restrained overall with the mallet percussion playing a prominent role.

Overall it is a surprisingly gentle score filled with the wonder of discovery. In fact, "The Pirates" track is a variation on the children's song "Hush Little Baby..

Summary

Deriviere continues to be a composer worth keeping an eye on. As he exhausts the depths of the sampled library, one can only hope he will be given a live orchestra to provide the sort of emotional depth that can best be experienced with living and breathing instrumentalists. But there is much here to admire.