‘Splosion Man Soundtrack

‘Splosion Man Soundtrack, Matt Chaney / John DeBorde / Joshua Mosley, 2009

You have to admire games like ’Splosion Man, which take one particularly enjoyable aspect of video games and build an entire design around it. In this case, that element is — of course — explosions. Whether players are solving platforming puzzles, defeating enemies, or simply jumping, everything is powered by the self-combusting antics of the game’s protagonist.

In an unusual move, Twisted Pixel Games split soundtrack duties along mode lines. Joshua Mosley handled the single-player material, while John DeBorde wrote the multiplayer cues. Audio lead Matt Chaney also contributed and performed the game’s light-hearted ukulele theme song, “Donuts, Go Nuts!” Both Mosley and DeBorde came to the project with experience across multiple media, including games, television, and film.

At the time of release, most discussion around the ’Splosion Man soundtrack focused on Mosley’s contributions. And yes, his blend of 1960s spy-brass swagger and metal guitars is undeniably entertaining. The problem is format: his sixteen cues all run to roughly forty or fifty seconds, leaving little room for this invigorating style to do more than flash by. DeBorde, by contrast, had the more forgiving assignment. His multiplayer tracks are at least allowed to pass the two-minute mark — which might not sound like much, but proves to be all the room he needs.

DeBorde’s tracks remain broadly consistent with Mosley’s stylistic world. Faced with a game built around constant detonation, the temptation must have been strong to write a score that simply barrels forward at full speed from beginning to end. To his credit, DeBorde paces things more intelligently than that. Of course, some tracks do put the pedal to the metal straight away in order to capture ’Splosion Man’s manic focus and fiery temperament. These cues lean more heavily on chugging metal guitars, which DeBorde otherwise tends to push slightly further into the background.

“Driven to Splode” is one such cue, immediately announcing the soundtrack’s ferocious intent. While the heavy guitars provide satisfying mid-tempo headbanging material, the track also maintains a steady groove through snappy lead-guitar figures and syncopated rock drums. The final flourish is a sizzling saxophone solo, while the lead guitars run riot beneath it.

This is a strategy DeBorde uses throughout much of the soundtrack: introducing rip-roaring saxophone or trumpet soli in the final third of a cue to detonate the tension built up beforehand. What is particularly interesting is the relationship between the guitars and the brass. One might expect this combination to yield straightforward funk metal, but that is not really what DeBorde is after. Rather than neatly reinforcing each other’s rhythms, guitars and brass often operate with a degree of independence, gradually building an ever more forceful wall of sound.

Indeed, this is music that is not afraid to go for the jugular. Consider “Experimental Grinder”, whose heavy guitar rhythms radiate a kind of contracting claustrophobia, like a star collapsing before it goes supernova — and then guitar and saxophone plunge headfirst into a bruising, exhilarating stand-off. If anything, album closer “The Scientist Slicer” somehow ends on an even more forceful note. White-hot soli from saxophone, trumpet, and metal guitars collide in a gloriously ferocious finale that leaves listeners blissfully exhausted.

Between these explosions of intensity, DeBorde does at least ease off occasionally to give listeners some breathing room. These more relaxed stretches also allow him to experiment with fresh genre blends. “Scale the Shaft”’s pop-funk mixture may be the soundtrack’s biggest stylistic surprise. The brass carries a melody that would not sound out of place on an 1980s pop single, while bass and drums keep the groove firmly in motion. The guitar adds a fittingly upward-thrusting line, and before long the track fuses guitar shredding with brassy pop hooks — upbeat, but scarcely less vigorous than the score’s harder-hitting material.

The opening of “The Lab Vac” takes the soundtrack closer to easy listening than any other cue. Thankfully, the lively drumming prevents the music from ever settling into complacency. Even from such a comparatively laid-back starting point, DeBorde still manages to build the track toward another showstopping close, this time adding surprisingly eerie synths and choral “aahs” to expand the album’s sound further still.

And if your soundtrack needs to tear along at high velocity while prominently featuring brass, some flirtation with ska is almost inevitable. “Ska-POW!” duly obliges. Trumpet and saxophone spring through a staccato line seemingly built to ignite a dance floor, before the saxophone launches into the soundtrack’s most extended solo. The opening fanfare returns, growing more urgent by the second, and soon the customary metal guitars add a scolding melody of their own. It all ends in a raging bonfire of whirling sparks and embers — an apt image for a score whose joyous ferocity has few peers.