Album Reviews
Movie Reviews
Concert Reviews

Top 10
Resources
Time Wasters
Contact Us

The 300 movie, surprisingly, topped the box office for several weeks. It is a partially animated film adapted from Frank Miller’s graphic novel concerning the famous Battle of Thermopylae. This decisive fight pitted the Spartans against the Persians and their king, Xerxes I (Rodrigo Santoro), with a ratio of about a zillion to one against the Spartans. Lena Headey plays the wife of the Spartan king. This battle was fought in a narrow canyon where 300 Spartans led by King Leonides (Gerard Butler) held the passage and gave cities in old Greece time to pull together against a common enemy. Armor?  Unheard of.  Not considered manly. The animals, of course, had armor. The 300 was directed by Zack Snyder from a script by himself, Kurt Johnstad and Michael B. Gordon.

Soundtrack for The 300 is by Tyler Bates who gives us a combination hard rock band and imminent threat-type of background for what is happening on the screen. It is decidedly a Middle Eastern flavor. Instruments used are percussion and brass,  taido drums, daf, toumbek, kaval and xaphoon, plus a chorus. Lead vocals by Azam Ali. There are no lyrics, instead Ali provides a sort of improvisational melody against the instruments. It is used to emphasize dramatic events such as “Victory,” “The Hot Gates” or “Message For The Queen.”

There are 25 tracks on this CD, divided by a hair’s breath, so that you can have 63 minutes of music in battle mode. This is not Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings type music, for there is no main theme. Instead, the mood is that of continuous danger, with touches of melancholy thrown in. Even “Victory,” at the beginning of the CD has a mournful tinge to it. 

Standouts are “Victory,” “Goodbye My Love,” “No Sleep Tonight” and “Fever Dream.”  

Copyright 2007 Marie Asner
Submitted 3/31/07