Overview

For horror/action hybrid Shadows of the Damned, Grasshopper Manufacture and its lead, No More Heroes' Suda51, teamed up with Shinji Mikami, creator of the Resident Evil series. Akira Yamaoka, who had left Konami to join Grasshopper Manufacture after completing the score for Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, was put in charge of music and sound direction for the nascent title. Yamaoka wrote a score cut from the same cloth as his work on the Silent Hill series, and a selection of tracks from the game was given away as a digital bonus for people who bought the game.

Body

"Take Me to Hell (Broken Dream)" (which was misidentified as "Shadows of the Damned") is a hard rock song in the vein of "One More Soul to the Call", albeit more developed. Troy Baker takes lead vocals, with McGlynn providing support, and they work together well. It opens with slow broken chords that back the verse. The chorus has a heavier, more distorted sound, and after the second chorus fades, a faster section closes the song. The version here lacks the official soundtrack's introduction, making for a more consistent escalation, but neither version is superior.

Two other tracks also available on the official soundtrack appear on the promotional selection. "Last stop, windows up" (the main release's "Ghost Hunter") contains sampled bits of jazz drumming and piano rumbling backed by a string bass plucked freely against this backdrop, while "Broken Bones, Broken Promises" ("Great Demon World Village") opens with a gong-like sound and progresses through improvisational piano and synth lines as it gains momentum.

The rest of the material, which is not on the hour-long album, is just as well-conceived. The refracted sounds of "Shedding Stars" emerge out of one another before dissipating into nothingness, and the rhythmic play in "Walk if Off" is just shy of chaotic, grounded by a constant 6/8 tap on cymbals. "...This Way Comes" seems like a variation on the album's opening, "An Ordinary Life", with its plaintive duduk and percussion. "Showdown at High Moon" begins with a faint duduk, then a Morricone-esque vocal chant arises out of a percussive background. These elements are soon twisted, though, with the vocal distorted and looped.

The stabbing piano chords in the center of "Cold Turkey" bring the rest of the texture to a halt, while the meditative "Smile for a Broken Dawn" contrasts with the rest of the tracks with its synth pad-dominated texture, disturbed only by a few notes on prepared piano. The warbling synth line that enters halfway through "Dropped Off Between Stops", however, clashes so noticeably with the rest of the harmony that it shatters any complacency generated by the looped rhythm.

Summary

Unlike Yamaoka's "sound movie", the downloadable tracks here do not coalesce into an album. Transitions are non-existent, and the last track does not function as an ending. A good deal of the material here is not on the soundtrack, and it is all worthwhile. The highlights are well worth hearing for Yamaoka fans, although nothing quite reaches the heights of his best work. Many of the tracks are short, and could use more development or extension, but they are memorable nonetheless.