Weekly Recommendations – w/e 11th November 2022: God of War: Ragnarök & The 13 Lords of the Shogun (鎌倉殿の13人) (Vol. 3)

Continuing with our catch-up of weekly recommended scores, here’s a round-up of scores that caught my attention over the week ending, 11th November 2022.

God of War: Ragnarök (2022) – Bear McCreary (Sony Classical)

Bear McCreary’s score for God of War: Ragnarök, a sequel to 2018’s God of War (which McCreary also scored), is an excellent fantasy score. Written for an action-adventure game that’s loosely based on Norse mythology, there’s a wonderful mix of bombastic orchestral rhythms, melodic orchestral music, choral elements, and ethnic instrumentation (the latter in particular adding emphasis to the setting of the story). McCreary does a great job of bringing this all together into a score that supports the gameplay, but also highlights the more emotional aspects of the game (e.g., the angle of fatherhood between protagonist, Kratos, and his son, Atreus).

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The 13 Lords of the Shogun (鎌倉殿の13人) (Vol. 3) (2022) – Evan Call (Sony Music)

The 13 Lords of the Shogun (鎌倉殿の13人) (dir. Yoshida Teruyuki, Suenaga Hajime, Hosaka Keita) is a Japanese historical drama television series set in late 12th and early 13th century Japan that follows the various power struggles that take place after the death of the shogun. This release is the third volume of a three-volume set of releases of composer Evan Call’s music for the 45+ episode drama series. Call’s music is top quality, wonderfully melodic with some excellent thematic material. The generally orchestral scoring is interspersed with Japanese instrumentation, and the overall feel of the album is emotional gravitas infused with a sense of location. Although this recommendation is limited to volume 3, all three releases of Call’s music are worth hearing.