Release Date: 28 December 2023
Song Count: 7
Rating: 7.9/10
Description:
I'm not going to lie - of all the things I expected to be listening to for the sake of this Albumthon, a soundtrack to a horror video game about a game of Russian Roulette on steroids was most certainly not one of them. The soundtrack is composed by the game's designer Mike Klubnika, and clocks in at a mere 17 minutes, making it the shortest album in terms of length that I've reviewed so far.
To match with the grim atmosphere of the game itself, the songs within it are made of a dissonant and eerie sound, capturing the listener right into the setting of a gamble of life and death against a formidable opponent. The songs primarily feature more rhythmic elements than outright melodic ones, save for certain exceptions like the opening track "Blank Shell", and the track for the results screen of the game, "70K".
What is especially striking is the fact that the songs, regardless of what scene they are being played for, keep their dark and brooding athmosphere in tact; this is especially noticeable between the title for the closing track that plays when the player of the game had died being "You are an angel", and the actual sound of the track being far less akin to a peaceful, angel-like sendoff and more akin to a bone-chilling Game Over theme that gives the player nightmares.
While I'm by far not the biggest fan of horror media in general personally, this terrific (in both senses of the word) soundtrack has got me very intrigued to see what Buckshot Roulette as a game has to offer.