Weekly Recommendations – w/e 2nd February 2024: Last Epoch, & Green Border

Continuing with our catch-up of weekly recommended scores, here’s another round-up of scores that caught my attention over the week ending, 2nd February 2024.

Last Epoch (2023) – Erik Desiderio (Laced Records)

Last Epoch (dev. Eleventh Hour Games) is an early access time travel action role-playing game. The player must cleanse the world of corruption, defeat legions of the undead, restore the world, and its humanity. Composer Erik Desiderio worked for over 2 years on this project, and I think that this shows in the quality of the score he was written. Thematic in nature (music that is modified throughout the score depending on the needs of the game), a lot of the music establishes mood and feeling. And it’s all done in a very listenable way. Desiderio’s music is a mix of orchestra, interesting solo instruments (many of which appear to have been warped to create unusual sounds), and lovely ethereal female voices. There’s a definite darkening of the score in the latter tracks that makes the 80+ minute album feel like the listener is on a musical journal. But it’s the composer’s choice of instrumentation throughout Last Epoch that lingers.