Search - David Arnold :: Changing Lanes [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Those who've spent inordinately large parts of their commuting on America's bustling thoroughfares could appreciate the premise: a traffic accident intersects two lives, with fate taking darker turns when responsibility is not heeded and vengeance consumes them both. Composer David Arnold, who spent his formative years on the fringes of British punk and then composing for British TV, provides a techno-infused sonic panorama here that is the film's urban soundscape as well as its troubled moral compass. Tossing aside the largely slavish adherence to tradition he displayed on previous scores for director Roland Emmerich's big-budget popcorn films like Stargate and Godzilla, Arnold employs a file full of slick club beats, metallic samples, and percussive interludes--crucially fusing them to a real orchestra as the score builds--to paint a picture about two lives who are more in conflict with themselves than they are with each other. It's that sense of techno-impressionism that drives this richly atmospheric--and decidedly nontraditional--modern score. While it doesn't always approach Tom Newman's almost preternatural sense of the aurally organic, that's the league Arnold's playing in here. --Jerry McCulley